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Hazel-nut Ice-Cream
Blanch and chop fine one-fourth pound of hazel-nuts weighed without their shells, place them in a basin with six ounces of sugar, two ounces of flour and six well-beaten eggs. Pour one quart of milk in a saucepan, place it over a moderate fire until on the point of boiling, then stir in by degrees the other ingredients and stir it at the side of the fire with a wooden spoon until thick, but do not let it boil again or the eggs will curdle. Take the mixture off the fire, flavor with a few drops of any desired essence and turn into a fancy-shaped mould. When the cream has cooled slightly, pack the mould in pounded ice and salt; dip the mould in warm water to loosen the contents, and turn the cream onto a dish.
This is a flour-thickened frozen custard set in a mould rather than churned, so the texture depends entirely on how well you cook the base and how cold you get it. A few of the instructions assume an ice house rather than a freezer.
- Do not let it boilThe hinge of the whole recipe. Six eggs in a quart of milk will scramble the moment the mixture simmers; hold it around 175-180F, stirring, until it coats the spoon. The two ounces of flour give some insurance against curdling, but not much.
- Weights, not cupsFour ounces hazelnuts (about 1 cup shelled), 6 oz sugar (about 7/8 cup), 2 oz flour (a scant 1/2 cup), 1 quart milk. Whole milk is presumably what is meant; skim will freeze icy and hard.
- Blanching hazelnutsHazelnut skins do not slip off in boiling water the way almond skins do. Toast them at 350F for 10-12 minutes and rub them in a towel, which also improves the flavour.
- "Essence"A concentrated flavouring extract. Vanilla is the obvious choice here; almond or a spoonful of a nut liqueur suits the hazelnut. Period essences varied a good deal in strength, so add a modern extract a little at a time and taste.
- Strain before freezingNot stated, but worth doing. Pass the cooked custard through a sieve to catch any set egg, then chill it thoroughly before it goes into the mould cold base freezes faster and smoother.
- Ice and saltA mould buried in crushed ice mixed with about one part rock salt to three parts ice will get well below freezing. A domestic freezer does the same job overnight; set the covered mould on a level shelf.
- Texture, honestlyFrozen still in a mould with no churning, this sets dense and firm rather than light, as moulded still-frozen creams generally do. If you want it scoopable, churn the chilled custard in an ice-cream maker first, then pack it into the mould to set.
- UnmouldingDip the sealed mould in warm not hot water for a few seconds only, run a thin knife round the edge, and invert onto a chilled dish. Too long in the water and the surface melts to slush.
- YieldAbout 1 1/2 quarts, serving eight to ten as a moulded dessert.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf, and the 1896 book that carries his name is associated with the workings of a large hotel kitchen. Frozen desserts were a signal of that kitchen's resources: hotels of the period still relied heavily on natural ice, so ice cream meant an ice house, a supply of coarse salt and a pantry cook willing to pack and repack moulds. The flour in the custard is a professional's choice it stabilises the base against curdling and keeps a still-frozen cream from going grainy, a trick generally traced to French pastry practice, where such a base sits somewhere between a creme anglaise and a pastry cream. The "fancy-shaped mould" is the point of the dish as much as the hazelnuts are; hotel kitchens of the period owned pewter and tinned-copper moulds in the shape of fruits, shells and columns.