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Grape Water Ice
Ingredients.
Three-quarters of a pint of Water.
Six ounces of Sugar.
One whipped white of Egg.
Rind of one Lemon.
Juice of two Lemons.
Quarter of a pint of Muscatel Grape Purée.
Two tablespoonfuls of Elder-flower Water.
One wineglassful of Sherry.
Put the water, sugar, and lemon rind into a stewpan and boil them for ten minutes. Strain this into a basin and leave it until cold, then mix it with the purée, lemon juice, elder-flower water, and sherry; freeze, and when half frozen add the white of egg, and freeze until quite set. Mould or serve rough. Decorate with chopped pistachio nuts and wafer biscuits.
A late-Victorian water ice, closer to a boozy sorbet than anything sold as sorbet today. The measurements are imperial and the alcohol content is high enough to affect the freezing.
- Imperial measuresThe pint here is 20 fl oz, so three-quarters of a pint is 15 fl oz (about 1¾ US cups) and the quarter-pint of purée is 5 fl oz (about ⅔ cup). Six ounces of sugar is a generous ¾ cup.
- A wineglassfulIn cookery books of this period a wineglass is reckoned at roughly 2 fl oz. Sherry is the one ingredient worth measuring conservatively: with the alcohol it contributes, more than that and the mixture will not set firm.
- Muscatel grape puréeMuscat grapes, skinned and seeded, crushed and pushed through a fine sieve. Table muscats are still sold; if you use another white grape, expect to lose the floral note that gives the ice its character.
- Elder-flower waterA distilled flower water, sold alongside rose and orange-flower waters, and not the same as modern elderflower cordial. Cordial is heavily sweetened, so if you substitute it, cut the sugar back accordingly. Use only the flowers of elder; the stems, leaves and unripe berries are not edible.
- The lemon rindPare it in strips with no white pith, or the ten-minute boil will turn the syrup bitter. Strain it out before chilling, as directed.
- The raw egg whiteWhipped white is folded in half-frozen to lighten the texture, and it is never cooked. Use pasteurised whites if you are serving anyone elderly, pregnant, very young or immune-compromised; the finished ice sets no less well.
- FreezingA churn or ice-cream machine does the work of the original pail of ice and salt. Without one, freeze in a shallow tray and beat thoroughly every 30 minutes, adding the whipped white at the halfway point as written.
- Yield and servingRather more than a pint of finished ice; the liquids alone come to some 26 fl oz before sugar and the whipped white. "Serve rough" means simply heaped into the glass rather than pressed into a mould; the wafers and pistachios are the whole of the garnish.
Water ices ran through the elaborate dinner of the late nineteenth century as a refresher between courses as well as a sweet at the end, and the grander cookery manuals carried dozens of them. Muscat grapes were an obvious choice for a perfumed ice: they carry a distinct floral aroma, and the elder-flower water here reinforces it, at a time when distilled flower waters were a normal store-cupboard item. Alcohol also gives a frozen syrup a softer, more spoonable texture, a property confectioners understood in practice long before it was explained. The pistachio-and-wafer finish is a conventional garnish of the period.