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Orange and Pineapple Sherbet
3/4 cup pineapple juice 1 1/4 cups orange juice 1 cup water 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch 2/3 cup sugar 1 egg Put together like Orange Sherbet.
A water ice thickened with a little cornstarch and lightened with egg, of the kind churned in a hand-crank freezer. The recipe leans entirely on a cross-reference, so the method has to be reconstructed: cook the starch, cool the base, then freeze.
- The method it points toWithout the Orange Sherbet recipe to hand the method has to be guessed at. The likeliest sequence: boil the water with the sugar, stir in the cornstarch slaked in a spoonful of cold water, and cook a minute or two until it thickens and loses its raw taste. Cool that syrup completely before adding the fruit juices, or the citrus will taste stewed.
- Handle the egg with heatRather than folding a raw beaten egg or white into the freezing mixture as was once usual, whisk the egg into the hot cornstarch syrup and warm it gently, stirring, until it registers 160F on a thermometer, then chill. It does the same job of softening the texture without leaving uncooked egg in a dish that is never warmed again.
- Why the starch is thereThree-quarters of a teaspoon of cornstarch per pint is too little to thicken the mixture much; the usual explanation is that it helps keep ice crystals small. In a modern ice-cream maker it still helps; without one, the base needs stirring every 30 minutes as it freezes.
- Sugar and freezing pointTwo-thirds of a cup of sugar to roughly three cups of liquid is a lean sherbet by current standards, and it will freeze rock hard. Let it stand 10 minutes at room temperature before serving, or increase the sugar slightly if you want it scoopable straight from the freezer.
- Pineapple juiceCanned or bottled juice is the likeliest thing intended, though the recipe does not say. Fresh-pressed pineapple varies a good deal in sweetness and acidity, so taste the base before freezing.
- YieldAbout a quart of finished sherbet, serving four to six as a course on its own, or eight as a small palate refresher between courses.
- ServingA sherbet like this was often served in a stemmed glass, and a sherbet course partway through a long dinner was a known convention. It also works as a straightforward dessert with a thin sugar cookie.
Sherbet in American cookbooks of this era generally meant a fruit water ice given body by egg, gelatin or a trace of starch, distinct from both the dairy ice cream and the plain granita-style ice. The word reached English from Turkish and Persian sherbet/sharbat, itself from Arabic, meaning a sweetened fruit drink; for a long time the frozen and the drinkable senses overlapped. (The parallel word sorbet came by a separate route, through Italian and French.) Orange juice and canned pineapple were both widely available, which may account for how often the pairing turns up in books of this period. The instruction to "put together like Orange Sherbet" reflects the way these collections were built: one master method, then a run of variations differing only in which juices go in.