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Lemon Ice
Mrs. Carson.
Six lemons, juice of all and grated rind of three, one large sweet orange, juice and rind, one pint of water, one pint of sugar; squeeze out every drop of juice, and steep in it the rind of orange and lemons one hour, strain, squeezing the bag dry; mix in the sugar, and then the water; stir until dissolved, and freeze by turning in a freezer, opening three times to beat all up together Many prefer it to ice cream.
A straightforward water ice with an unusually high proportion of citrus to liquid. The whole point of the method is the hour-long steep of the rinds in the raw juice, which pulls out the peel oils without cooking off their aroma.
- Do not skip the steepThe zest sitting in cold juice for an hour is what separates this from lemonade frozen hard. Grate only the coloured layer; white pith turns the mixture bitter over a long infusion.
- A pint of sugar is a volume, not a weightMeasured as the book intends, that is 2 cups of granulated sugar, roughly 14 oz or 400 g. It looks like a great deal against a pint of water, and it is: the sugar is doing structural work as well as sweetening.
- Why the sugar load mattersSugar depresses the freezing point and keeps the ice from setting into a solid block. Cut it substantially and you get a citrus ice cube you cannot scoop.
- "Freeze by turning in a freezer"This means a hand-crank ice cream churn packed with ice and coarse salt, not a modern appliance compartment. Any domestic ice cream machine does the same job; without one, freeze in a shallow metal pan and rake with a fork every 30 minutes for a granita texture.
- Opening three times to beat all upThe instruction is about breaking up ice crystals that form against the cold walls. In a machine the dasher handles it continuously, so leave the lid alone and churn until it holds a soft ribbon.
- Strain properlySqueezing the bag dry, as directed, extracts the oil-heavy juice clinging to the zest. A fine sieve pressed with the back of a ladle works as well as cheesecloth.
- Yield and servingAbout a quart, serving six to eight in small glasses. Water ices of this strength soften fast, so serve straight from the churn or let a hard-frozen batch temper five minutes.
Water ices need no dairy and no cooked custard ed to ice — only juice, sugar, water and access to ice. That last item is the real story here: by the 1870s the commercial ice trade and ice houses had made packed ice widely available in Midwestern towns, and hand-crank freezers were in domestic use. The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago from contributions by named local women, which is why this reads as Mrs. Carson's own working note rather than a standardised formula, closing with her opinion that many prefer it to ice cream. Lemon was among the commonest flavours for such ices; the added orange here softens the sharpness and rounds out the perfume of the peel.