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Hazlenut Ice Cream
Five ounces of hazelnuts roasted to a light brown color, then the skins removed. This is best done by rubbing them in a towel, removing the skin, then put in a sieve and the skin is easily shaken off. Pound them in a stone mortar with some milk to a fine pulp. Next put 4 quarts of cream some of the cream, into the boiler over the fire, 12 egg yolks, beaten up with and added before it has reached the degree of boiling. The hazelnuts should be added to the cream at the outset, thus increasing the flavor. Pass through a fine sieve, and when cold freeze in the usual manner.
A large-format soda fountain custard, printed with a mangled line or two — the compositor clearly dropped and duplicated words in the middle sentence. The intent is straightforward: steep the pounded nuts in the cream, then thicken with yolks.
- Read the garbled sentence"Next put 4 quarts of cream some of the cream, into the boiler over the fire, 12 egg yolks, beaten up with and added before it has reached the degree of boiling" is a printing error. The sense is: heat the 4 quarts of cream with the nut pulp, beat the 12 yolks with a little of the cream, and stir that in before the cream reaches a boil.
- Scale it downFour quarts of cream and a dozen yolks is fountain volume — roughly a gallon and a half of finished ice cream, twenty-plus servings. A quarter batch (1 quart cream, 3 yolks, 1 1/4 oz hazelnuts) fits a domestic machine.
- The hinge: don't boil the custardOnce the yolks go in, the mixture must be held below a simmer and stirred constantly until it coats a spoon — 170–180°F. Past about 185°F the yolk proteins seize and the custard curdles, which is why the original insists the yolks go in before boiling point.
- Skinning the nutsThe original says only "roasted to a light brown color" with no oven or timing given; a modern equivalent is about 350°F for 10–12 minutes, then rub in a towel while still warm. The sieve trick in the original works; a coarser sieve or colander may shake off the loosened skins more easily.
- Mortar or machineA stone mortar with a little milk gives a pulp rather than a butter. A food processor will do it, but pulse with the milk added from the start — run dry and the nuts go to paste and then to oil.
- Straining"Pass through a fine sieve" removes the nut solids, leaving flavour without grit. If you want texture, reserve a handful of chopped roasted nuts and fold them in near the end of churning.
- Chill fully before freezing"When cold" means properly cold — refrigerate several hours or overnight. A warm base churns slowly and freezes coarse.
- No sugar listedThe recipe gives none, and no explanation for the omission appears on the page; a sweetened cream or syrup may have been assumed. For a modern batch, count on roughly 6–8 oz sugar per quart of cream, dissolved in the hot cream before the yolks go in.
Manuals of this kind were trade books, written for the dispenser behind the counter rather than for the home cook, which would explain quantities running to gallons and the omission of basics such as sugar. Hazelnuts were more often called filberts in nineteenth-century American commerce. The method here is a custard base: the nuts are pounded in a mortar and steeped in cream so the fat carries the flavour, then the mixture is bound with yolks.