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Coffee Punch (Place gallon of vanilla ice) (II)
Place 1 gallon of vanilla ice cream in a can imbedded in ice and salt, work . Then beat up 12 egg it well with a spatula in order to make it smooth. Then beat up I2 egg fire, like a sponge cake; add whites with 12 ounces of fine sugar over a slow this and freeze until nearly done. Now give it ½ pint of good, strong mocha a while longer. Before serving add 1 coffee flavoring and keep freezing for a while longer. Before serving add 1 gill of kirschwasser or rum.
A soda-fountain frozen punch: softened vanilla ice cream lightened with a cooked egg-white foam, flavored with coffee and spirits, then re-frozen. The hinge is the alcohol, which is added last because it will keep the mixture from setting hard.
- The can in ice and saltThis is the canister of a hand-crank ice-cream freezer, packed in a bucket of cracked ice and rock salt. A stand mixer bowl set over an ice bath and a paddle will do the same work, or simply soften the ice cream in the refrigerator until it can be beaten smooth without melting.
- Gill and other measuresA gill is 4 fluid ounces, half a cup. Twelve ounces of fine sugar is weight, not volume: about 1 2/3 cups of caster sugar. Half a pint of coffee flavoring is 1 cup.
- The egg foamTwelve whites beaten with the sugar over a slow fire is a warm meringue, worked until it holds like a sponge-cake batter. Keep the bowl over barely steaming water and whisk constantly; if the pan is too hot the whites will scramble at the edges. Cooks who want certainty should use pasteurized whites.
- Mocha coffee flavoringFountain "mocha" flavoring was generally a concentrated coffee extract or syrup, usually sweetened and much stronger than brewed coffee, though the trade also used "mocha" for coffee-chocolate blends. A cup of espresso or of cold-brew concentrate, reduced if thin, gives the right intensity; a cup of ordinary drip coffee will only water the base.
- Kirschwasser or rumA gill of spirit in this quantity of base is modest, but alcohol still depresses the freezing point. Add it at the very end, after the mixture has taken as much freeze as it will, and expect a soft, spoonable result rather than a scoopable one.
- Texture and holdingThis is meant to be served straight from the freezer can, closer to a frozen punch or semifreddo than to hard ice cream. Held overnight in a home freezer it will set firmer and lose some of the aeration from the whites; beat it briefly before serving.
- YieldA gallon of ice cream plus the foam and liquids makes roughly six quarts. Halve or quarter the whole thing for a domestic batch.
Soda-fountain "punches" were the dispenser's answer to the party bowl: a frozen or semi-frozen mixture ladled into a glass and sold by the portion, often for banquets and receptions the fountain catered as a sideline. Coffee versions leaned on the trade's mocha syrups and extracts, which were kept on hand for hot and cold drinks alike. The gill of kirschwasser or rum points to a pre-Prohibition date: some American fountain and confectioners' manuals of the period did print spirit-laced formulas. The egg whites beaten with sugar over gentle heat is a confectioner's technique rather than a bartender's.