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Sherbet Ice-Cream
Beat up very lightly the yolks of three eggs with one tablespoonful of orange-flower water, then mix in by degrees one quart of cream. Turn this into a saucepan over the fire, cover over, and as quickly as it boils strain it through a sieve, and mix into it six ounces of powdered white sugar. As soon as the sugar is quite melted, pour the cream into an ice-pail, and stand it in a refrigerator until frozen.
A plain boiled custard, frozen. The only real difficulty is that the original assumes an ice-pail packed with salt and ice, and a "refrigerator" that is nothing like yours.
- "Stand it in a refrigerator"In Oscar's kitchen a refrigerator was an insulated ice-box, and the ice-pail was a freezing pot set in cracked ice and rock salt. Nothing in a modern refrigerator compartment will freeze this. Chill the custard thoroughly, then churn it in an ice-cream maker, or freeze it in a shallow pan and beat it smooth two or three times as it sets.
- Boiling the custardThree yolks to a quart of cream is a very thin custard, and taking it to a boil as written risks scrambling the eggs; the immediate straining the recipe calls for would catch any that set. Cook it gently to about 175F instead and it will thicken slightly without breaking; strain regardless.
- Orange-flower waterStill sold, usually as orange blossom water, in Middle Eastern groceries and the baking aisle. Strengths vary a great deal; a tablespoon of a concentrated brand will taste soapy in a quart, so start with two teaspoons and add more to the cold custard.
- Six ounces of sugarWeight, not volume: a scant cup of granulated. "Powdered white sugar" in this period means finely ground granulated or ground loaf sugar, not modern confectioners' sugar, which carries cornstarch. Dissolving it into the hot custard, as directed, is the point.
- CreamNineteenth-century cream was not standardised and its richness varied a good deal; it was often lighter than today's heavy cream. Half heavy and half whole milk gives a plausible texture; all heavy cream makes it rich to the point of heaviness.
- YieldRoughly a quart and a half after churning, serving eight to ten. With no stabiliser it hardens quickly — let it stand ten minutes before serving.
- The nameDespite the title there is no fruit juice or water ice here. Treat it as a lightly perfumed frozen custard and serve it as you would a vanilla ice cream.
Oscar Tschirky's 1896 collection reflects a moment when "sherbet," "water ice" and "cream" were not yet firmly separated categories — a name could signal a flavour or a style of service as much as a formula, which is how a plain egg custard ends up labelled a sherbet. Orange-flower water places the dish in an older European tradition: distilled floral waters were the standard perfumes of confectionery from the seventeenth century onward, and are generally said to have been displaced in American kitchens by vanilla extract as commercial vanilla became cheap in the late nineteenth century. The hand-cranked freezing pail, packed with ice and salt, was ordinary equipment in a large hotel, and the casual instruction to leave it "in a refrigerator until frozen" is a reminder that Oscar was writing for cooks who already knew what that work involved.