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Orange Ice Cream
This is made in the same manner as the foregoing: To 4 quarts of cream, 2 large oranges and 1 lemon are required, with an addition of 2 pounds of sugar secure the orange flavor by rubbing off the rind on lump sugar. In default of hard sugar you may grate off the yellow skin on a grater. Be careful not to rub off the white pith beneath the surface. Using sugar you will have the essential oil embedded in it, producing a flavor in all its purity and strength, and this mixed in turn with the juice will give a rich flavor for either confection, beverage or cream.
A fountain-scale recipe: four quarts of cream is roughly a gallon of finished ice cream. The whole point of the method is the sugar-rubbing step, which captures the orange's essential oil rather than its juice alone.
- Scale it downQuartered, this becomes 1 quart cream, 1/2 large orange plus a quarter of a lemon, and 8 oz (about 1 cup) sugar — a sensible batch for a home machine. Full strength starts from a gallon of cream and will finish somewhat more than that once churned.
- Lump sugar and the oleo-saccharum"Lump" or loaf sugar meant hard cut cubes from a sugar cone, firm enough to abrade the peel and absorb the oil. Modern sugar cubes work; so does the grating method the text offers, or rubbing granulated sugar directly into the zest with your fingers and letting it sit half an hour until damp and fragrant.
- Stay off the pithThe instruction is the hinge. Zest only the coloured outer layer — the white pith carries bitter compounds that survive freezing and will flatten the flavour.
- Juice last, and coldCitrus juice can curdle cream on contact if either is warm. Dissolve the flavoured sugar in the cream, chill thoroughly, then stir in the strained juice just before churning.
- "The foregoing" methodThe recipe works by reference to a preceding one not reproduced on this page, so the base itself has to be taken from there.
- FreezingWritten for a hand-crank pail packed with ice and coarse salt, roughly three parts ice to one part salt by volume. Any modern churn works; hold the mixture below 40F going in and ripen it in the freezer for a couple of hours before serving.
- Sugar is not optional hereAt about 1 cup per quart of cream (2 pounds to 4 quarts) the mix is sweet by any standard, and the sugar also keeps the ice cream scoopable. Cutting it far back will give you a hard block.
Rubbing citrus peel on hard sugar to draw out its oil is an old confectioner's trick, generally known as an oleo-saccharum, and it was used for punches and flavourings alike. The recipe's aside about "default of hard sugar" is telling: loaf sugar arrived as a dense cone to be broken up with nippers, and loose granulated sugar lacks the abrasive edge the job wants. The closing line, that the same preparation serves "either confection, beverage or cream," suggests a trade in which one flavour base was expected to do duty across several counters.