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Ice Cream Praline
Place three ounces almonds, shells and all, in a copper basin with three ounces granulated sugar and a tablespoon water; place on the fire and constantly stir with a spatula until a nice brown colour. Take from the fire and pour into a lightly oiled tin, let get cold, then place and pound in a mortar to a fine dust.
Prepare a quart of vanilla preparation strain ice cream into freezer, add the pounded almonds, mix well with spatula, then proceed to freeze same as the vanilla and serve.
A praline powder — caramelised almonds ground to dust — folded into a vanilla custard base as it goes into the churn. The technique is sound; only the equipment and vocabulary need translating.
- "Shells and all"Almost certainly the brown skins rather than the hard shell. Use whole natural (unblanched) almonds; the skins carry much of the toasted flavour. Do not attempt this with hard shells on.
- Three ounces eachAbout 2/3 cup almonds and a scant 1/2 cup granulated sugar; the two are equal by weight. Weighing is more reliable than measuring by volume here.
- Copper basinAny heavy-bottomed saucepan or skillet with good heat conduction works. Copper was preferred for even heat and quick response, which matters when sugar goes from amber to burnt in seconds.
- The hinge: colour, not timeThe sugar will crystallise into a sandy coating before it melts and caramelises. Keep stirring through that stage over medium heat; pull it the moment it is an even reddish-brown. Caramel past that point turns bitter and the whole batch is wasted.
- Setting and grindingAn oiled sheet pan or parchment does the job of the "lightly oiled tin." Once fully cold and hard, a food processor pulsed in short bursts replaces the mortar — grind too long and the oils release and it clumps into paste.
- "Vanilla preparation"Filippini's vanilla ice cream is a custard base, strained before freezing as the text here indicates. Any standard cooked custard base, chilled thoroughly, is what is called for; a quart of base is the working quantity.
- "Freezer"A hand-crank churn packed with ice and rock salt. In a modern machine, add the praline dust in the last minute or two of churning rather than at the start, so it stays gritty and distinct instead of dissolving into the base.
- Yield and servingA quart, or six modest servings. Praline powder softens and weeps once wet, so serve within a day or two of freezing.
Praline in French means almonds cooked in sugar, and the name is traditionally traced to the household of the 17th-century Marshal du Plessis-Praslin, whose cook is said to have made the confection — a story repeated in cookbooks for two centuries with no documentation behind it. What is clear is that by the 19th century pounded caramelised almonds were a standard flavouring in the professional French repertoire, used in creams, pastry fillings and ices, and that this is the sense Filippini intends. It is not the New Orleans praline, a soft pecan-and-cream candy that took the name and changed the nut. The instruction to keep the skins on is worth noting: the skins toast alongside the sugar, and it is likely enough that this is what gives the powder a bitter-brown depth beyond that of sweetened almond.