No. 3565

Mokabelle

Put into a coffee filter a quarter of a pound of ground coffee and half a vanilla stick; moisten with a pint of water to obtain a very highly concentrated extract of coffee, then add to it sufficient syrup to bring the composition to twenty-two degrees, strain through a tammy, freeze and when well congealed pour in as much whipped cream (No. 50). With this ice fill some cups, either of sugar, china or fancy pasteboard ones; return to the freezing box and freeze once more. If desired the tops can be covered with whipped cream flavored with extract of coffee and kirsch mixed together.

← No. 3564 Mignon Ice Cream Ices & Ice Creams No. 3566 Montelimar with Hazel-Nut Cream →

For the Modern Kitchen

A coffee ice lightened with whipped cream and frozen a second time in its serving cups. The recipe assumes a professional pastry kitchen: a syrup hydrometer, an ice-and-salt freezer, and a cross-reference to Ranhofer's own whipped cream formula.

"Twenty-two degrees" means BauméRanhofer measured sugar concentration with a saccharometer, or pèse-sirop, calibrated in degrees Baumé. Twenty-two degrees is roughly 40 percent sugar by weight, a sweet base by modern standards but normal for a still-frozen ice; without a hydrometer or refractometer you are guessing, so add syrup gradually and taste, remembering that freezing mutes sweetness.
The coffee extractA quarter pound of ground coffee to a pint of water is about 113 g to 475 ml, a ratio near 1:4 — four to five times the strength of drip coffee. Brew it as a long, slow filter pour or substitute an equivalent volume of espresso; the point is that the coffee must survive dilution by syrup and cream.
Half a vanilla stickHalf a vanilla bean, split lengthwise and laid in the filter bed with the grounds. The hot water extracts it along with the coffee. Vanilla extract stirred into the finished extract will do the same work.
TammyA tamis, the fine worsted straining cloth. A double layer of damp muslin or a fine conical strainer removes the coffee silt that would otherwise grit the finished ice.
Freeze, then foldThe order matters. The coffee-and-syrup base is churned until firm on its own, and only then is the whipped cream folded in — folding cream into a liquid base and churning it would beat the air back out. What results is closer to a parfait than a custard ice cream.
The "freezing box"The cave or packing box, a lidded pail buried in ice and salt where finished ices were held and hardened. A domestic freezer set to its coldest setting does the same job; give the filled cups two to three hours to set firm.
Whipped cream, No. 50Ranhofer's cross-reference is to his own whipped cream preparation, cream whipped and drained of its liquid. Modern heavy cream whipped to soft peaks is the equivalent; it should hold a shape but still fold smoothly.
Serving vesselsSugar cups, china cups or "fancy pasteboard" — the last being the stiff paper cases that were an established part of nineteenth-century ice service. Small ramekins, espresso cups or paper soufflé cups all work; anything larger than about 4 oz makes the portion heavy.
YieldThe recipe states no yield, and both the syrup and the cream are added to effect rather than by measure, so the finished quantity depends on how much of each goes in; a pint of extract will make a modest number of small cups.

A Little History

Mokabelle appears in the frozen section of The Epicurean (1894) by Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York. The name draws on mocha, from the Yemeni port of Mokha that gave its name to coffee generally in European trade. Coffee ices were a fixture of the nineteenth-century dessert service. The detail worth noticing is the pasteboard cup: individual paper cases for ices were in use well before the modern disposable paper cup, and their appearance here alongside china and spun sugar shows a kitchen already thinking about how a hundred portions leave the pastry room at once.