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Orange Pekoe Ice Cream
2 cups milk 3 tablespoons Orange Pekoe tea 1 1/2 cups sugar Yolks 4 eggs 1/4 teaspoon salt Grated rind 1 orange 1 pint heavy cream Scald milk to which tea had been added, and let stand five minutes. Add sugar, and egg yolks slightly beaten, and cook until mixture thickens. Strain, add remaining ingredients, freeze, and mould. Serve garnished with Candied Orange Peel.
A cooked custard base flavoured by steeping tea directly in the scalding milk. The whole dish turns on how the custard is handled and how briefly the tea sits in it.
- Custard temperature"Cook until mixture thickens" means a stirred custard held over gentle heat or a water bath to 170-175F, until it coats a spoon. Past about 180F the yolks curdle and no amount of straining will recover the texture.
- Five minutes means five minutesFive minutes of steeping -- Three tablespoons of loose leaf in two cups of milk is a strong infusion. Note that the recipe does not strain after the five minutes: the leaves stay in while the custard is cooked and are removed only at the straining step, so total contact time is well over five minutes. If you want a milder, less astringent infusion, strain the leaves out before adding the sugar and yolks.
- Orange Pekoe is a leaf gradeIt describes the size and style of a black tea leaf, not a flavour. Any decent whole-leaf black tea works here; the orange character comes entirely from the grated rind.
- Grate the rind fine, and only the zestWhite pith carries bitterness that will not freeze out. Add the rind and the cold cream after straining, as directed, so the aromatic oils are not driven off by heat.
- Sugar is structuralA cup and a half looks high, but sugar is what keeps the frozen custard scoopable; reducing it appreciably will give a harder, icier result.
- FreezingOriginally churned in a hand-crank freezer packed with ice and rock salt. In a modern machine, chill the strained custard thoroughly (several hours, or overnight) before churning, or it will never set properly.
- Moulding and ripeningPack the just-churned cream into a chilled mould, cover, and freeze firm for at least four hours before unmoulding. Dip the mould briefly in warm water to release it.
- YieldTwo cups milk plus a pint of cream makes roughly a quart and a half of finished ice cream, or eight to ten moulded servings.