Apricot Ice
3 cupfuls of apricots cut in pieces. 1 cupful of sugar--8 ounces. 2 cupfuls of water. The kernels of half the apricots. 2 whites of eggs. The ripest and sweetest apricots, if the fresh fruit be used, should be kept out, one cupful to be mixed in the ice when finished. Stew the other two cupfuls and the peeled kernels in the water and sugar for a few minutes, rub the fruit then with the back of a spoon, through a strainer into the freezer along with the syrup. Freeze like ice cream and when it is nearly finished whip the two whites to a firm froth, mix them in and turn the freezer rapidly a short time longer. Stir in the cut apricots just before serving. Canned apricots can be used as well, and if in syrup that can be mixed in also.
Two elements of this recipe put it outside what can be made safely today: the apricot kernels and the uncooked egg whites. Neither can be adjusted into safety by changing a time or a temperature, so the recipe should be read rather than followed.
- The kernels are the hinge, and they are toxicApricot kernels contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the seed is crushed, chewed or wetted. The recipe calls for the kernels of half the apricots -- those of a cupful and a half of fruit -- concentrated into a few servings.
- Stewing does not remove the hazardA few minutes in sugar syrup will not reliably destroy the amygdalin or drive off cyanide already liberated. UK Food Standards Agency advice is that adults eat no more than one or two raw apricot kernels a day, and children none at all; the European assessment sets a similarly low limit. A dessert built around them is well outside that range.
- Why the period cook used themThe kernels were there for flavour, not thrift; they carry the same benzaldehyde note as bitter almonds, which is exactly the compound that accompanies the cyanogenic glycoside. Nineteenth-century cooks used bitter almonds, peach kernels and apricot kernels interchangeably for that almond perfume.
- Raw egg white, never heatedThe two whites go in near the end of freezing and are never cooked. Freezing does not kill Salmonella; it only holds it.
- The sugar figure is the one useful noteThe book glosses one cupful of sugar as 8 ounces, giving a weight for a cup measure of sugar. That is worth knowing when reading the other recipes in this book, though it fixes a weight rather than the cup's volume.
- If you want apricot iceUse a current sorbet or ice recipe. A modern formula flavours the base with the fruit alone, or with a commercial almond extract, and either cooks the meringue or omits it.
Apricot ice belongs to the long line of water ices that ran alongside ice cream in American confectionery from the mid-nineteenth century onward, when commercial ice harvesting and the hand-cranked freezer put frozen desserts within reach of hotel kitchens, caterers and eventually ordinary households. The format assumes an experienced reader: a bald list of quantities, an instruction to freeze "like ice cream" without further explanation, and a shrug toward canned fruit as an equal substitute. The folded egg whites mark this as something between a plain water ice and what the period called a sherbet; the whites add volume and a lighter body to a mixture that would otherwise freeze hard. The use of the kernels reflects a long-standing habit in European confectionery, where crushed stone-fruit pits stood in for bitter almonds in flavouring creams and ices.