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Pudding
1 tablespoon cornstarch Yolk of 1 egg 1 cup milk 1½ cups sugar 1 cup preserved fruit 1 cup seeded raisins 1/4 cup chopped nuts Pinch of salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 pint thick cream Mix the cornstarch with a little cold milk; add the beaten egg and pour over it the milk which has been scalded with the sugar. Cook thoroughly; remove from fire; add salt, vanilla, fruit and nuts; cool, add the cream whipped to a stiff froth and freeze. When frozen turn into a mold. At serving time lay in a platter and decorate with walnuts or candied cherries.
This is a molded fruit-and-nut ice cream in the older sense of "frozen pudding" — a cooked cornstarch custard lightened with whipped cream. A few of its assumptions belong to the hand-crank freezer.
- Cook the starch out"Cook thoroughly" means bringing the cornstarch custard to a full boil and holding it a minute or two, stirring, until it thickens and loses its raw starch taste. Underdone cornstarch is the usual reason a frozen pudding tastes chalky.
- Thick creamPeriod "thick cream" corresponds roughly to modern heavy or whipping cream; cream was not standardised then, but the recipe clearly wants something rich enough to whip. Anything labeled light cream will not hold the stiff froth the recipe depends on.
- Preserved fruitThis means fruit put up in heavy syrup or a whole-fruit preserve, not fresh and not dried. Drain it well and chop it small; excess syrup adds sugar and makes the frozen mixture soft and slushy.
- The sugar is highA cup and a half of sugar plus a cup of syrupy preserves is a lot even by 1900 standards, and sugar lowers the freezing point. A cup of sugar gives a firmer set and lets the fruit taste through.
- Freezing"Freeze" assumed a churn packed with ice and coarse salt. An ice cream machine works directly; without one, freeze in a shallow pan and beat the mixture smooth two or three times during the first two hours, since the whipped cream alone will not prevent large ice crystals.
- Molding and ripeningPack the churned pudding into a chilled loaf pan or metal mold, cover the surface with parchment, and leave it in the freezer at least four hours to firm. To turn it out, dip the mold in warm water for a few seconds and invert onto the cold platter.
- Raisins and nutsSeeded raisins are raisins with the seeds removed, a laborious job in this period; modern seedless raisins are the practical substitute. Warm them briefly in a little of the fruit syrup or juice so they do not freeze into hard pellets.
- YieldRoughly a quart and a half depending on how much air the whipped cream carries, serving eight to ten. It is rich enough that small slices are the point.
Frozen puddings occupy their own heading in American cookbooks from roughly the 1880s through the 1920s: a custard or cream base loaded with candied and preserved fruit, raisins and nuts, frozen in a churn and then packed into a mold so it could be sliced at table rather than scooped. The type is generally traced to Nesselrode pudding, named for the Russian diplomat Count Karl von Nesselrode and credited by tradition to his chef, which set the pattern of a frozen cream studded with fruit and served turned out of a mold. Recipes like this one show what a household freezer meant before mechanical refrigeration — ice bought or cut, rock salt, and a crank — with walnuts or candied cherries laid on for effect.