No. 3455

Burnt Almond Ice Cream and with Angelica

Creme Pralinee et a l'Angelique

Crush half a pound of burnt almonds with two gills of cream; put ten egg-yolks in a basin with ten ounces of sugar, mix well together, adding the burnt almonds and a pint of boiling milk. Set the basin on a slow fire, stir constantly with a spatula until of sufficient thickness to cover the same, then put aside to cool while stirring at times to prevent a skin from forming on top; add one pint of cream, strain through a fine sieve, and freeze.

With Angelica.—After the cream is frozen add to it half as much whipped cream (No. 50) and half a pound of finely shredded angelica.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A classic French praline custard base, doubled at the end into a second dessert by folding in whipped cream and candied angelica. The only real difficulty is the custard, which Ranhofer expects you to judge by eye.

Gills and pintsTwo gills is one cup; a gill is half a cup. The pint of milk and pint of cream are standard US pints, 2 cups each, so the liquid comes to five cups, and the base runs to roughly a quart and a half before churning.
Burnt almonds means pralinePraliné here is almonds cooked in caramel until dark, then cooled hard and crushed — buy praline paste, or make it by caramelizing sugar with toasted almonds, cooling on an oiled sheet and grinding. Commercial candied "burnt almonds" with a sugar shell are not the same thing.
The hinge: custard temperature"Sufficient thickness to cover the spatula" is nappe, 170-180F. Ten yolks in a quart of liquid will scramble quickly above that; use a heavy pan over low heat, or a bowl over simmering water, and pull it the moment it coats.
Straining is not optionalThe crushed praline will not dissolve. Straining through a fine sieve removes the almond grit and gives the smooth body Ranhofer wants; if you prefer texture, reserve a little crushed praline and stir it in after churning.
FreezingThe original assumes a hand-cranked pail in ice and rock salt. Chill the strained base thoroughly, ideally overnight, then churn in any modern machine. The base is rich enough that it will set firm in the freezer.
Whipped cream folded inNo. 50 is Ranhofer's whipped cream. Folding half the ice cream's volume of it into a just-frozen ice gives something closer to a frozen mousse in texture: lighter, softer, and best served the day it is made.
AngelicaCandied angelica stem, still sold by specialist confectioners and in some baking shops, bright green and faintly like juniper and celery. Candied citron or green candied cherries can stand in, though neither tastes the same. Half a pound is a generous amount for this quantity, and a third of that may suit modern taste better.
YieldAbout a quart and a half plain, more with the whipped cream folded in; a dozen or so small servings, in keeping with the restaurant scale much of the book works at.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire set down in one enormous volume, with the recipes numbered and cross-referenced like a catalogue. The ice cream chapter alone runs to dozens of flavors, and the pattern here a base recipe followed by a one-line variation that turns it into a different dish on the menu is how the book handles service at scale. Praline caramelized almonds ground into a paste is generally traced to seventeenth-century France and had long been standard in the French pastry kitchen by Ranhofer's day. Angelica, the candied stem of Angelica archangelica, was a staple decorative confection of the period, prized as much for its green color as its flavor; it appears constantly in nineteenth-century pastry and has largely fallen out of American kitchens since.