Macaroon Ice Cream

An uncooked custard-free ice cream of the Philadelphia type: no eggs, no cooking, just sweetened cream flavoured and churned. The one thing to get right is the macaroons.

• Which macaroonsIn a book of this period a macaroon is most often the almond kind — crisp, meringue-based, close to an Italian amaretto — rather than the French sandwich cookie; cocoanut macaroons also appear in period books, and substituting them gives a quite different and much sweeter dessert.
• Dry, pound, and measureThe recipe says only to dry the macaroons before crushing them; a very slow oven or simply leaving them out to go brittle will do, as no temperature is given. The order matters: measure the cup after pounding, since a cup of whole macaroons yields less than a cup of crumbs.
• Cream'Cream' here is unspecified, but a rich cream is what the method wants; modern heavy or whipping cream is the closest match. With no eggs to give body, the fat is doing the work, and thinner cream will freeze harder and grainier.
• VanillaA full tablespoon reads as a lot by modern habit, though period extracts were often weaker than today's. Reduce to two teaspoons if your extract is very strong.
• FreezingWritten for a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt. In a modern machine, chill the mixture thoroughly first, churn 20-25 minutes, then ripen in the freezer an hour or two before serving.
• Keeping some crunchCrumbs stirred in at the start soften into the base. For contrast, hold back a third of them and add during the last minute of churning.
• YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts once churned, serving eight generously.