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Orange Water Ice
1 pt. water 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons granulated gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water 3 egg whites, beaten stiff 2 oranges, rind and juice 1 lemon, rind and juice Boil the water and sugar together for ten minutes; add the gelatine, which has been previously softened in two tablespoons of cold water, and allow the mixture to become quite cold; then add the beaten whites of the eggs, the orange rind and juice, and the lemon juice. Freeze, turning the dasher slowly but steadily. Serves 6.
This is a hand-churned water ice from an invalid-cookery chapter, and its structure puts uncooked egg white into a cold, frozen dish intended for sick people. That is the reason it cannot be recommended today, and it is worth understanding exactly where the failure sits.
- The egg whites are never cookedThe sugar syrup is boiled, but the recipe insists it be "quite cold" before the beaten whites go in, and nothing afterwards raises the temperature. Freezing does not reliably kill Salmonella; it mainly stops it multiplying, so any pathogen present in the raw whites can survive into the finished ice.
- The intended eater is the wrong eaterThe intended eater may be the wrong eater -- if this sits in an invalid-cookery chapter, as the writer places it, such cookery was aimed at the convalescent, the elderly and the very young, the groups for whom a salmonella infection is most likely to become serious. A dish that might be a tolerable gamble for a healthy adult is not one there.
- Acid does not sterilise itThe orange and lemon juice lower the pH but nowhere near enough, and quickly enough, to make raw white safe. Citrus in a frozen dessert is a flavouring, not a control step.
- If you want the dishUse a current sorbet or spumoni recipe that either omits egg white, uses pasteurised whites, or builds the foam on a cooked Italian meringue. Do not adapt the timings above.
- Reading the rest of itA pint of water here is 16 fl oz, and the gelatine is ordinary powdered gelatine bloomed in cold water. The stated yield, six servings, is honest for a water ice served in small glasses.