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Cherry Water Ice
Dissolve 3 pounds sugar in 1 quart cherry ice and add juice of a couple of lemons to flavor. The mixture will take more water, probably half a gallon The mixture will take more water, probably half a gallon or a little less, according to the degree of strength required. Mix, strain and freeze in the usual way.
A soda-fountain water ice, written for someone who already owns a churn freezer and a barrel of ice. Two things need untangling before you start: the phrase "cherry ice" and the fact that a line of type was set twice.
- "1 quart cherry ice" means cherry juice"1 quart cherry ice" most likely means cherry juice — either a misprint or a loose shorthand for the fruit base. Read it as a quart of cherry juice or unsweetened cherry puree; if you use a sweetened commercial cherry syrup, cut the sugar sharply or the result will be cloying.
- The repeated sentence"The mixture will take more water, probably half a gallon" appears twice — a compositor's error, not two additions. Add half a gallon of water once, or slightly less.
- Sugar by weightThree pounds of granulated sugar is about 6¾ cups. With a quart of juice and half a gallon of water that is roughly a 30 percent sugar solution, which is high by modern sorbet standards but correct for a water ice meant to be scooped soft at a counter.
- Do not cut the sugar muchThis is the hinge. Sugar is what keeps a water ice scoopable; drop below about a quarter of the total weight and you get a solid, icy block rather than a smooth ice. If you want it less sweet, use tarter juice and more lemon rather than less sugar.
- StrainingStrain after the sugar has fully dissolved, not before. Cherry pulp and skin fragments will otherwise catch in the dasher and give a gritty texture.
- "Freeze in the usual way"For this period that meant a hand-crank freezer packed with cracked ice and rock salt, then a spell packed down to harden. Any modern ice cream machine does the job; chill the mixture thoroughly first, then hold it in the freezer an hour or two to firm before serving.
- YieldNearer a gallon of finished ice than three quarts, once the dissolved sugar is counted: a couple of dozen fountain-sized servings. Halve or quarter it for a domestic freezer.
Water ices were the cheaper, sharper half of the American soda fountain's frozen trade: no cream, no eggs, just fruit juice, sugar, water and a squeeze of lemon to give the acid edge that makes fruit read as fruit. Trade manuals like this one were written for the dispenser rather than the housewife, which is why the quantities run to gallons and the instructions trail off into "the usual way" — the reader was assumed to know his freezer, his ice and his salt. Cherry was a fountain staple in this era, familiar from cherry phosphates and cherry sodas, and the fruit's natural tartness suited a formula built on very heavy syrup.