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For Hot Days
Take a quart of very strong coffee and while it is hot mix with it a cup of boiling milk; set away to cool. Serve in cups with cracked ice and powdered sugar, on top of each cup put a spoonful of whipped cream. Very nice to serve with afternoon tea.
An iced coffee with milk, made ahead and chilled, then poured over ice and topped with cream. The whole thing hinges on brewing the coffee much stronger than you would drink it hot.
- "Very strong coffee"A quart of coffee brewed at normal strength will taste thin and watery once milk, ice and cream are added. Brew it noticeably stronger than usual, on the order of a cup of ground coffee to a quart of water.
- Scalded milkBoiling the milk before adding it was a common habit of the period. Cold whole milk stirred into the hot coffee will do much the same job, though boiled milk carries a slightly cooked flavour of its own.
- Cracked iceThis meant ice chipped from a block with an ice pick, in irregular pieces. Large cubes or a single big piece per cup dilute the drink less than finely crushed ice.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term often meant finely ground granulated sugar rather than today's cornstarch-blended confectioners' sugar. Either dissolves in cold coffee reluctantly; a simple syrup is more practical if you want it evenly sweet.
- Whipped creamWhip to soft peaks only, unsweetened or barely sweetened, so it settles into the coffee rather than sitting on top like a lid.
- Chilling timeNo time is given. Allow at least three hours in the refrigerator, or overnight; coffee served merely lukewarm over ice ends up watery.
- YieldA quart of coffee plus a cup of milk fills about six teacups once ice and cream take up room, or four larger glasses.
This appears under "For Hot Days," which places it squarely in the world of the late-Victorian and Edwardian afternoon tea, where cold coffee was a fashionable alternative to hot tea in summer. Iced coffee drinks spread widely in American and European cities during the second half of the nineteenth century, helped along by the commercial ice trade that made block ice cheap and available to ordinary households well before mechanical refrigeration. The instruction to "set away to cool" is a reminder of the domestic arrangements behind such a recipe: an icebox or a cool cellar, and a cook planning several hours ahead. The recipe adds boiling milk to hot coffee, rather than cold milk to cold.