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Burnt Almond Ice Cream
Blanch and chop one cup almonds. Caramelize four tablespoons sugar; add chopped almonds. When cold, pound to a powder. Add to French Ice Cream with one teaspoon almond extract. Freeze.
This is a praline variation written for a cook who already has the book's French Ice Cream at hand — a cooked egg-yolk custard base. Everything here is about the almond powder; the ice cream itself is assumed.
- What "burnt almond" meansNothing is scorched. The term is the old name for caramelized nuts — what a modern kitchen calls praline. The sugar should go to a deep amber, not black; past that it turns acrid and no amount of cream will hide it.
- French Ice CreamIn this book that means a custard base of egg yolks, sugar, milk and cream, cooked to a coating consistency and chilled before freezing. It is not the raw "Philadelphia" style. Make and thoroughly chill that base first, since the praline should not go into anything warm.
- Four tablespoons sugarThat is about 50 g, and it caramelizes fast in a small dry heavy pan. Have the chopped almonds measured and beside the stove — once the sugar colors you have seconds, not minutes.
- Cooling the pralinePour it onto an oiled sheet or parchment in a thin layer and leave it until hard and cold. Warm praline will not powder; it smears and clumps.
- Pounding to a powderA mortar was the original tool. A food processor does it in bursts, but stop while some grit remains — run it too long and the almond oil turns the whole thing to paste.
- Almond extractA full teaspoon of modern extract is assertive against roughly a quart of base. Half a teaspoon added at the end, tasted, then adjusted is the safer route, especially with imitation extract, which reads stronger.
- BlanchingCover shelled almonds with boiling water for about a minute; the skins slip off between finger and thumb. Dry them well before chopping or they will steam rather than take the caramel.
- FreezingThe original assumes a hand-crank bucket packed with ice and rock salt. A domestic machine works fine; stir the praline powder in during the last minute of churning so it stays distinct, then ripen in the freezer an hour or two.
- YieldMade with a standard quart custard base, this serves six to eight.
Lowney's Cook Book was compiled by Maria Willett Howard and published in 1907 by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer — one of many house cookbooks issued by food firms of the period to put their product in domestic kitchens, though the book ranges well beyond confectionery. Burnt almond was among the standard flavors of the American ice cream saloon and the home freezer alike, sitting alongside vanilla, chocolate and pistachio on soda-fountain lists from the late nineteenth century onward. The technique is straightforwardly that of French praline, generally traced to the almond confections of the seventeenth-century French court and long since absorbed into pastry work everywhere; grinding the cold caramelized nuts to a powder gives both flavor and a faint sandy texture that survives churning. That the recipe assumes a reader can produce a custard base, caramelize sugar and pack a freezer with ice and salt without further instruction says a good deal about what a competent household cook in 1907 was expected to know.