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American Ice-Cream
1 pint milk 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons water 3/4 cup sugar 2 egg-yolks 1 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla Scald the milk, stirring constantly. Mix the flour and cold water to a smooth paste and add to it slowly the scalded milk, continuing the stirring. When thickened, cook over hot water for about fifteen minutes. Add sugar and beaten egg-yolks and cook two minutes. Strain the custard through a fine sieve and, when cold, add the cream and vanilla and freeze. This makes a smooth, rich cream. For variation, use dark-brown sugar or maple sugar instead of the white sugar.
A flour-thickened custard base, the American answer to a French crème anglaise, and forgiving because the starch keeps the eggs from curdling.
- Cook the eggs properlyTwo minutes after adding the yolks is the minimum; keep the custard over hot water and stir until it coats a spoon, around 170-175F. The starch protects against scrambling, so you can push the heat further than a pure custard allows.
- Chill thoroughly"When cold" means refrigerator cold, ideally several hours or overnight. A base at room temperature freezes slowly and forms coarse ice crystals, and a well-rested base churns to a smoother texture.
- Freezing without a crank freezerThe original assumes a hand-cranked bucket packed with ice and rock salt, roughly three parts crushed ice to one part salt. Any modern churn works, or freeze in a shallow pan and beat hard with a whisk or food processor every 30 minutes until set.
- Heavy creamUse cream at 36 percent fat or above. Ultra-pasteurised cream will work but whips and freezes with slightly less body.
- The strain is not optionalPushing the custard through a fine sieve removes flour lumps and any threads of set egg. Skip it and the finished cream reads as grainy no matter how well it churns.
- Sugar variationsDark-brown sugar may give a very slightly softer set, since the molasses fraction contains invert sugars; maple sugar is largely sucrose and behaves much like the white. Grate or break maple sugar fine before adding so it dissolves in the hot custard.
- YieldRoughly a quart to a quart and a half once churned, depending how much air the freezer works in. Best eaten within a few days; a home freezer at 0F will make it hard, so let it stand ten minutes before scooping.