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Ice Cream (II)
Mrs. W. H. Ovington.
Scald one quart of milk with one sheet of isinglass (broken), and a vanilla bean; when cool, strain, mix with one pint of cream whipped to a froth; sweeten to taste and freeze, "DAL," AN INDIAN LENTIL, Botanical Name "ERVUM LENS."
A stabilised Philadelphia-style ice cream — no egg custard, just milk, cream, sugar and a setting agent. The recipe is short to the point of terseness, so most of the work is in filling in what the original assumes.
- IsinglassIsinglass is gelatin made from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in thin translucent sheets. Plain leaf gelatin is the nearest modern equivalent, though its setting strength is not identical.
- "One sheet" is genuinely vagueNineteenth-century isinglass sheets were not standardised, and one sheet could mean anything from a fraction of a gram to several grams of dry gelatin. Modern leaf gelatin runs about 1.7 g per sheet; treat the original quantity as unknown rather than assuming a conversion.
- What the gelatin is forIt is not there to set the mixture into a jelly but to hold water in suspension so the ice cream freezes smooth and stays scoopable. Overdo it and the texture turns rubbery and slightly bouncy.
- Scald, then cool fullyScalding means heating the milk to just below the boil, around 180F, which dissolves the broken isinglass and draws flavour from the vanilla bean. Chill the strained mixture thoroughly before it goes near the freezer; a warm base churns badly.
- Sweeten to tasteFor a quart of milk and a pint of cream, three-quarters to one cup of sugar is a reasonable starting point. Sugar dissolves more readily in the hot milk than in the cold base, and cold blunts sweetness noticeably, so taste while warm.
- Folding the creamWhip the pint of cream to soft peaks and fold it in once the milk base is cold, losing as little air as possible.
- "Freeze"In the 1870s this meant a pail freezer packed with crushed ice and coarse salt, cranked until stiff, roughly 20 to 30 minutes. A modern churn works, but the base is thin and low in fat, so a shorter churn and a firm ripening in the freezer suits it better.
- YieldAbout a quart and a half finished, serving six to eight.
- The stray lineThe words about "Dal," the Indian lentil, are a printer's or scanner's artifact from an adjacent column and have nothing to do with the ice cream.
The Home Cook Book belongs to the early wave of American charity cookbooks compiled from signed contributions by named local women, and this recipe carries its contributor's name in the usual style of the genre — the credit was part of the point. Its method is what confectioners later called Philadelphia-style: no cooked egg custard, just milk, cream and sugar, distinguishing it from the French custard ices. The isinglass is the period's answer to a problem every hand-cranked ice cream had, namely coarse ice crystals in a mixture too lean to stay smooth; fish gelatin is sometimes said to have served as a household stabiliser before commercial gelatin, cornstarch and gums took over, though most household ices relied on custard or nothing at all. Vanilla beans in the 1870s were an expensive imported luxury, and this recipe scalds one whole bean in a quart of milk.