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Frozen Mixtures Made Without Stirring
MOUSSE OR BISCUIT, No. I-Made of heavy cream, whipped, drained, sweetened, and flavored then packed in ice; using onehalf as much salt as ice. Freeze three hours. MOUSSE OR BISCUIT, No. 2-Made with thinner cream and a little gelatine.
PARFAIT-Made like mousse but packed for a shorter time.
This is a formula rather than a recipe: three variations on the same still-frozen cream, written for a cook who already owned a wooden freezer pail. Filling in the gaps is most of the work.
- "Without stirring" is the whole pointThese mixtures are still-frozen, meaning the air is whipped in before freezing rather than churned in during it. The cream must be beaten to soft, holding peaks and folded gently after sweetening, or it will freeze into a solid brick. In a modern freezer, use a chilled loaf pan or covered mold and expect 4 to 6 hours.
- "One-half as much salt as ice"That is a heavy salt ratio by volume, intended to drop the brine below freezing for an unchurned mixture. The recipe assumes a sealed mold packed in ice and salt in a freezer pail, though it does not describe the packing routine. If you are not packing in ice, ignore this line entirely.
- "Heavy cream" then and nowCream sold as heavy in this period was probably richer than a standard supermarket carton; look for cream at 36 percent or above, and avoid ultra-pasteurized if you can, as it tends to whip to a looser foam. Lower-fat whipping cream holds air less well and is a poor choice for No. 1.
- Drained, and whyWhipped cream weeps. Turning it into a fine sieve for 15 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator removes the thin liquid that would otherwise freeze into ice crystals. Sweeten and flavor after draining, not before.
- The gelatine in No. 2No quantity is given, and the original is genuinely ambiguous. A workable proportion is about a teaspoon of granulated gelatine softened in a tablespoon of cold water, dissolved over hot water, per pint of cream, cooled to barely warm before folding in. Its job is to stabilize thinner cream, not to set the mixture firm.
- Sweetening and flavoringNo quantity is given; roughly 3 to 4 tablespoons of sugar per pint of cream is a reasonable starting point, and powdered sugar dissolves without grittiness in an unchurned mixture. Alcohol-based flavorings such as maraschino or rum soften the freeze, so keep them to a tablespoon or two per pint.
- Parfait, "packed for a shorter time"The shorter packing implies a softer set than the mousse. Two to three hours in a modern freezer, then serve immediately in chilled glasses.
- YieldA pint of cream whips to roughly a quart of mousse and serves six to eight. All three versions are best eaten the day they are made; they turn grainy and hard after a night in a domestic freezer.
The three names here mark small distinctions that mattered in a period kitchen but have largely blurred since. Mousse is simply French for foam; biscuit glac\by to its resemblance to a biscuit -- usually explained by the small paper cases it was molded in and the squared slices -- though that account is traditional rather than documented; parfait, "perfect," was served softer and taller, and the footed glass carries the name. All three belong to the family of still-frozen creams, which existed because churning by hand was laborious and because a sealed mold buried in ice and salt could be left alone while the cook did other work. The heavy salt ratio in the first line is the tell: churned ice-cream was packed with a good deal less salt in proportion to ice, but an unstirred mixture needed a colder brine to freeze through without help. The compressed telegraphic style suggests the reader was expected to know the packing routine already.