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Sugar (Add cream slowly to orange)
Add cream slowly to orange juice, sweeten to taste, and freeze. Serve with canned strawberries or fresh fruit mashed and sweetened. 3 pints cream
A fragment of a recipe, printed as a variation in a run of frozen desserts, so it assumes the reader already knows the drill of the ice-and-salt freezer. The quantity of orange juice is not given; the only measurement is the 3 pints of cream.
- The hinge: acid into fat, cold and slowCitrus juice will curdle cream on contact if it is dumped in. Have both thoroughly chilled and pour the cream into the juice in a thin stream, whisking. A little separation is normal and disappears in the churn; visible curds do not.
- The missing measurementNo amount of orange juice is stated. A ratio of roughly one part juice to three or four parts cream works, so 1.5 to 2 cups of strained juice against 3 pints of cream is a workable guess. Treat this as a reconstruction, not the book's instruction.
- 3 pints creamSix cups. American pints, so 48 fl oz total. Period 'cream' was not standardised and could be anything from thin to very rich; using half heavy cream and half whole milk gives a lighter, more sherbet-like result that suits the orange.
- Sweeten to taste, before freezingFreezing dulls sweetness noticeably, so the base should taste slightly too sweet at room temperature. Around 1 to 1.25 cups sugar for this quantity is a reasonable start. Dissolve it in the juice completely; undissolved sugar makes a gritty finish.
- FreezeThe original means a hand-cranked bucket packed with cracked ice and rock salt, roughly three parts ice to one of salt. In a modern machine, chill the base to refrigerator temperature first, then churn 20 to 30 minutes and harden in the freezer for several hours.
- Canned strawberriesBerries put up in syrup, softer and sweeter than fresh. Frozen strawberries thawed with a spoonful of sugar are the nearest equivalent; drain off some of the liquid or it will flood the plate.
- YieldAbout 2 quarts after churning, serving 10 to 12 in small portions, or 8 generously.
This is one of a run of frozen desserts, printed telegraphically -- a flavoring and a quantity of cream -- on the assumption that the reader has just read the full ice-and-salt freezer method a few pages earlier. The crank freezer with its ice and rock salt had become cheap and common by the 1890s, and commercial ice delivery made it usable in a city kitchen. The suggestion of canned strawberries alongside is a reminder that fruit out of season meant fruit out of a jar, either put up at home or bought in tin.