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French Vanilla Ice Cream
Take 5 quarts of cream, 2 vanilla beans (in default of them use a good vanilla extract), split these beans, scrape out the seeds and put them into the cream and add 2 pounds and 4 ounces of sugar. Put on a brisk fire, stir constantly and bring to the boiling point; then slowly stir in 20 egg yolks, previously beaten with a little milk or cream, and at once remove from the fire, strain and cool off, and freeze.
A soda-fountain batch formula: five quarts of custard base, meant for a hand-cranked tub freezer behind the counter. The proportions are sound, but almost nobody needs this much at once.
- Scale it downDivide by five for a household batch: 1 quart cream, 7 oz (about 1 cup) sugar, 4 egg yolks, half a vanilla bean. That yields roughly 1 1/2 quarts frozen, which is about the working capacity of most domestic ice cream machines.
- The sugar figure2 lb 4 oz is 36 ounces by weight, or roughly 5 cups of granulated sugar for the full batch. This recipe specifies sugar by weight; weigh it rather than guessing at cups.
- Cream, and what kindThe recipe says only "cream"; modern heavy cream (around 36% fat) is the nearest common equivalent, though period cream varied. A base of pure heavy cream freezes very dense and rich; cutting it half and half with whole milk gives a texture closer to what many people expect from vanilla ice cream now.
- Do not actually boil it after the yolks go inThis is the hinge. The cream is brought to a boil first, then the beaten yolks are stirred in and the pan comes off the heat immediately, so the residual heat cooks the custard. Any further time over flame and you get scrambled egg. If you want certainty, hold the mixture at 180F for a minute or two off direct heat and stop there.
- "Brisk fire"Medium-high on a modern burner, with constant stirring and a heavy-bottomed pan. Sugared cream scorches readily; a thin pan on high heat will taste of caramel and burnt milk before it boils.
- Vanilla quantityTwo beans in five quarts works out to roughly half a bean per quart, in line with modern practice. The recipe uses only the scraped seeds; the split pods can be steeped in the hot cream as well and removed at straining.
- Chill before churning"Cool off, and freeze" understates it. Strain, cool over an ice bath, then refrigerate several hours or overnight. A base at 40F or below churns faster, takes in less ice crystal, and the flavor of the custard settles.
- The freezer meantFreezing here is a tub packed with cracked ice and rock salt around a cranked canister. Any modern machine substitutes directly; after churning, ripen the ice cream in the freezer an hour or two to firm up.
"French" in ice cream language means a cooked custard base built on egg yolks, as against the "Philadelphia" style of sweetened cream flavored and frozen with no eggs at all ecectingly drew — a distinction American confectioners drew, the "Philadelphia" label generally traced to later-nineteenth-century usage, and one still used on labels today. The yolks do double work: they enrich the flavor and, because their lecithin emulsifies the fat, they hold the mixture smooth against the ice crystals that plague a plain cream base. The five-quart scale, the weighed sugar, and the airy alternative of "a good vanilla extract" all suggest trade writing rather than home cookery, though nothing in the recipe identifies its setting.