No. 3463

Ice Cream with Eggs and Black Coffee, Without Eggs, Light with Black Coffee

Creme aux Œufs et au Cafe Noir, Creme Sans Œufs Legere au Cafe Noir

With Eggs and Black Coffee.—Prepare half a pint of very strong coffee, using Mocha, Java and Maracaibo, a pound in all, ground very finely and put into a filter (Fig. 774); moisten with a quart of boiling water and strain it entirely two or three times. Have in a tinned basin ten raw egg-yolks and eight ounces of sugar; add half a pint of boiling milk, a quarter of a vanilla bean and the infused coffee. Set the basin on a slow fire and stir until consistent enough to cover the spatula; let get cold, then add one pint of cream; pass through a fine sieve and freeze.

Without Eggs, Light with Black Coffee.—Dissolve half a pound of sugar in a quart of good cold milk; add half a pint of very strong coffee prepared the same as the above, infusing in it the fourth part of a vanilla stick; pass through a sieve and freeze. After it has been properly worked mix in as much well-drained whipped cream and at the same time half a pound of powdered sugar; stir well and pack in ice to use when needed. All light creams should be served the same day as prepared.

← No. 3462 Ice Cream with Maraschino, Prunelle, Kirsch,Ices & Ice Creams No. 3464 Ice Cream with Pignons, Brazilian Nuts, Waln →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two coffee ice creams from Delmonico's kitchen: a full egg custard and a lighter eggless version lightened with whipped cream. Both hang on the same coffee concentrate, and that is where most of the work is.

The coffee is a concentrate, not a cupA pound of finely ground beans moistened with a quart of boiling water and re-passed through the grounds two or three times yields the half pint called for. It is closer to a drip-brewed coffee essence than to brewed coffee. A comparable volume of espresso or of undiluted cold-brew concentrate stands in for it without the extravagance.
The bean blendMocha (Yemeni or Ethiopian), Java and Maracaibo (Venezuelan) were all prized coffees in the nineteenth century and are found blended together in period practice. Any medium-roast blend with some fruit to it will do; avoid a dark oily roast, which turns bitter once frozen.
Fig. 774The figure is not reproduced here; the reference is to one of the French drip filter pots in which water passes down through the grounds by gravity. A pour-over cone or a paper-filtered drip machine performs the same job.
Tinned basinA copper bowl lined with tin, used because it heats gently and does not react with egg. Use a stainless bowl over simmering water, or a heavy-bottomed saucepan if you are attentive.
"Consistent enough to cover the spatula"This is nappe: the custard coats the back of the spoon and holds a clean line when you draw a finger through it. On a thermometer that is 175-180F. Past 185F the yolks scramble, which is why the original insists on a slow fire.
Sugar in the eggless versionHalf a pound dissolved in the milk, then another half pound of powdered sugar folded in with the whipped cream — a pound of sugar in all. Modern palates will find this sweet; the second addition can be cut by half without harming the texture, since the whipped cream is doing the lightening.
When to add the whipped creamThe eggless mixture is churned first and the whipped cream folded in afterward; that folding is what the heading means by crème légère. Ranhofer gives no reason for his instruction that light creams be served the same day, though a mixture aerated this way will lose its lift and turn icy overnight.
FreezingBoth would have been frozen in an ice-and-salt freezer and, as the text says, packed in ice afterward. A domestic machine handles the custard version directly; chill the base thoroughly before churning.
YieldThe egg version makes about a quart and a half. The eggless version cannot be pinned down, since the whipped cream is unmeasured, but it will be appreciably more.

A Little History

This is entry 3463 in Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the vast compendium he assembled from some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York. The two versions side by side show the classical French distinction the book takes for granted: a crème proper, bound with yolks and cooked to a custard, against a crème légère, an uncooked milk-and-sugar base lightened after churning with whipped cream — cheaper and quicker, and accompanied by Ranhofer's warning that light creams will not keep. The named coffee blend is worth noticing. Mocha, Java and Maracaibo appear together here, and the sheer pound of beans spent to extract half a pint of essence tells you as much about Delmonico's economics as any menu price does. Coffee ice cream itself was not new in 1894; frozen coffee creams appear in French and English confectionery manuals well before, but the restaurant-scale precision here — the filter figure, the quarter vanilla bean, the spatula test — is characteristic of a book written to be worked from by professionals.