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Peach Ice Cream
Press through a sieve a pint preserved peaches into a bowl. Have a vanilla cream preparation, and when strained into the freezer add the peach puree; mix thoroughly with the wooden spoon and proceed exactly the same as in vanilla ice cream and serve.
This is a cross-reference recipe: nearly all the work happens in the vanilla ice cream entry it points to, and the peach step is a single addition. The things worth knowing are what the missing base looks like and how the fruit behaves once frozen.
- The vanilla cream preparationA cooked custard base of milk or cream, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla, strained before churning. Cook it to about 170-175F, until it coats a spoon, then chill it thoroughly "" a warm base makes coarse, icy ice cream no matter how good the freezer.
- A pint of preserved peachesRoughly two cups, drained of their syrup and pressed through a sieve; expect about a cup and a half of puree. Preserved peaches are heavily sweetened, so since the base recipe is not given here, taste and reduce its sugar a little or the finished cream will be cloying and slow to freeze.
- "The freezer"In 1906 this means a hand-crank bucket freezer: an inner canister surrounded by cracked ice and rock salt, in proportions variously given from around one part salt to three parts ice up to one in eight. A modern churn does the same job; the instruction to add the puree to the strained base in the freezer simply means before churning begins.
- Sieve, not blenderPressing through a sieve leaves fibre behind and gives a smooth puree. A blender or processor is faster but leaves more fibre and any bits of skin in the mix, which read as specks once frozen.
- Sugar and alcohol both fight freezingSugar fights freezing -- Preserved fruit carries a lot of dissolved sugar, which lowers the freezing point. This batch will churn softer than plain vanilla; plan on hardening it in the freezer for two to three hours after churning rather than serving straight from the canister.
- If using fresh peaches insteadPeel, stone and puree about a pound of ripe fruit and macerate it with 1/3 cup sugar and a squeeze of lemon for an hour before adding. Unsweetened fresh puree freezes into hard icy shards where the preserved fruit does not.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity for the base; working from a quart of custard, the added puree brings it to roughly a generous quart and a half, about eight servings.
The International Cook Book came out of the Delmonico's tradition -- Alessandro Filippini's books catalogued the repertoire of a professional American kitchen at the turn of the century, where a house vanilla custard was the parent of a dozen flavours and each variation was written as a one-line amendment rather than a full recipe. The call for preserved rather than fresh peaches is the telling detail: before reliable year-round produce, a hotel or household worked from what had been put up in jars the previous summer, and peaches in syrup were among the most common preserves in an American larder.