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Creamed Orange
One and one-half ounces vanilla syrup, 1 tablespoonful shaved ice, 2 tablespoonfuls orange pulp, 1 ounce cream. Serve in a 12-ounce glass, fine stream to fill.
A soda fountain formula rather than a kitchen recipe: it assumes a draft arm with carbonated water and a dispenser's habits. All of it translates, with a couple of adjustments.
- The ounces are fluid ouncesOne and one-half ounces of vanilla syrup is three tablespoons; one ounce of cream is two tablespoons. Small variations will not hurt the drink.
- "Fine stream to fill"Fountain draft arms had a coarse stream for agitating and mixing and a fine stream, a narrower, harder jet, for topping off with less foam. Substitute cold, well-carbonated seltzer poured down the side of the tilted glass; carbonation dies fast against dairy and pulp.
- Add the soda last and slowlyOrange juice and carbonic acid will both curdle cream if they meet it in a rush. Build syrup, ice and pulp first, stir, then float the cream and fill gently. Serve immediately, before it separates.
- Orange pulpFountains bought "crushed fruit" in jars, sweetened orange flesh and juice in heavy syrup. Fresh orange segments broken up with their juice work, but the drink will read tarter and thinner than intended; a spoonful of sugar closes the gap.
- The creamFountain cream was ordinary sweet cream, probably closer to today's light cream or half-and-half than to heavy cream. Heavy cream is likely to sit on top rather than cloud through the soda.
- Shaved ice, not cubesA tablespoon of shaved ice is a token amount, meant to chill without diluting a drink that is mostly soda water. Cubes will crowd a 12-ounce glass and blunt the carbonation.
- YieldOne 12-ounce glass, about three-quarters of it soda water.
This belongs to the era when the American drugstore fountain was a serious commercial operation and dispensers worked from printed formula books much as bartenders worked from cocktail guides. Vanilla syrup was one of the fountain's staple bases, cheap and shelf-stable, and it is often called for as a background sweetener under fruit drinks, which is likely why it appears here under an orange drink's name. In fountain usage a "creamed" drink generally meant one with an ounce or so of sweet cream stirred in, as distinct from an ice cream soda. Crushed fruit in jars, orange, pineapple, strawberry, was a staple supply item, which is why the recipe can call for "orange pulp" without explaining where it comes from.