Catching the Past "Ice Cream"
- Dienece Darling
- May 13
- 9 min read
Updated: May 13
Following on from our blog last month which talked about Georgian/Regency 'water ices', we're now going to talk about ice cream! (if you missed last month's edition, you can read about the water ices here)
So, what was Georgian/Regency ice cream?
Many cookbooks used the terms ices and ice creams interchangeably, but if you wanted to be picky, one would say an ice cream used cream as its base ingredient.
However, several of the ice cream recipes also included eggs as well, making it more of a frozen custard (and FYI, they were really, REALLY eggy. Yes, I made one, but we'll talk about that later).
A Selection of Recipes:
These recipes are taken from Robert Abbot's book THE HOUSEKEEPER’s VALUABLE PRESENT: OR, Lady’s Closet Companion. BEING A NEW AND COMPLETE ART OF PREPARING CONFECTS (sic), ACCORDING TO MODERN PRACTICE (published 1790)
As if the title isn't long enough by itself, the recipes are from 'PART VII.
OF ICE CREAMS, AND THE PROPER METHODS OF MIXING, FREEZING, AND WORKING THEM.' (And if you think the epic titles indicate that he gives you lots of instruction in the recipe section, think again.)
Ice Creams, or Rasberry (sic) Ice.
To six ounces of rasberry jam, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, mix it well; then pass it through a sieve, and colour it. (Frederic Nutt's The Complete Confectioner said to make sure that you don't get any seeds in the mixture and to colour it with cochineal)
Strawberry Jam,
Is mixed the same way, allowing the juice of two lemons. (sic)
Apricot Ice.
To four ounces of apricot jam, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, and a few bitter almonds pounded, the juice of two lemons, and a tea spoonful (sic) of cochineal; pass it all through a sieve for use.
Pine Apple Ice.
To four ounces of pine apple jam, put a table spoonful of pine apple syrup, and three quarters of a pint of cream, and pass it through a sieve, with the juice of two lemons.
Biscuit Ice.
To four yolks of eggs, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, three ounces of spunge (sic) biscuits, a little cinnamon, and four ounces of sugar: stir it all on the fire, till it begins to thicken, then pass it through a sieve.
Lemon Cream
To five yolks of eggs, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, four ounces of sugar, and the rind of a lemon cut thin: boil it all till it thickens, then pass it, with the juice of four lemons, through a sieve.
Coffee Ice.
To four whites of eggs, put three ounces of sugar, three quarters of a pint of cream, and an ounce of whole coffee; boil it all till it thickens, then pass it through a sieve for freezing.
Tea Ice,
Is prepared in the same manner.
Pistachia (sic) Ice.
To three yolks of eggs, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, two ounces of pistachia kernels pounded fine, and four ounces of sugar: boil your yolks and cream, put in your kernels pounded, then colour it green, and pass it through a sieve.
Fresh Gooseberry Ice.
Scald half a pint of gooseberries tender, and pass them through a hair sieve; mix in four ounces of sugar, and three quarters of a pint of cream.
Royal Cream.
To four eggs, allow three quarters of a pint of cream, a little cinnamon, four ounces sugar, and a few coriander seeds: boil it all till it begins to thicken, then pass it through a sieve.
Other flavours:
Recipes from Frederick Nutt's cookbook had these additional flavours: China orange, an ice cream with Barcelona nuts, ginger, brown bread, peaches, and cherries. Plus, more!
Instructions to make ice cream:
Last month, I shared Abbot's 'how to' make ices. This month, I'm sharing Frederic Nutt's The Complete Confectioners instructions (published 1807). Only, Nutt doesn't set it apart as a step at the front of the section. He merely includes it in the first recipe and omits it after that.
N°. 127. BARBERRY ICE CREAM.
TAKE a large wooden spoonful of barberry jam and put into a bason with one pint of cream; squeeze one lemon in, mix it well ; add a little cochineal to colour it; put it into the freezing pot and cover it over; put the freezing pot into a pail and some ice all round the pot; throw a good deal of salt on the ice in the pail, turning the pot round for ten minutes; then open your pot, and scrape it from the sides, cover it up again, and keep turning it for some time, till your cream is like butter, and as thick; put it in your moulds, put them into a pail and cover it with ice and salt for three quarters of an hour, till you find the water is come to the top of the pail; do not be sparing of salt, for if you do not use enough it will not freeze; dip your mould into water, and turn it out on your plate to send to table.
Essences
Fresh fruit was expensive and only the wealthy could have them year-round, so preserved fruit, jams, and essences were the next best thing to seasonal menus. Here is one of Nutt's recipes for how to make an essence.
N°. 107. CEDERATA ESSENCE.
GET the Cederaties at the Italian warehouses (this is a type of citrus fruit), rasp the rind of them all round very fine ; put it in a large marble mortar, and allow for every quarter of a pound, two pounds of powdered sugar; mix it well with a large spaddle (sic) till you find it all of a colour and that the rind is well mixed ; put it into a stone jar, and squeeze it down as hard as you can; put a bladder over the paper you cover it with, and tie it over quite tight; put it by, and in, one month it will be fit to use. (Wow, a whole month! Ugh, my kids would die if they had to wait that long for ice cream. LOL)
Sweeteners:
While Abbot like clarified sugar in his water ice recipes (which is close to our simple sugar syrup. I talked about that more last month here), he preferred regular sugar for his ice cream. However, Nutt had no rhyme or rhythm at all, bouncing between syrups, powder sugar, and regular sugar for everything.
Colouring your ice creams:
You may or may not have noticed that the recipe for apricot ices mentioned adding a teaspoon of cochineal. This was a colouring agent, and Abbot's cookbook gives the following instructions about how to make it:
To prepare the Cochineal for colouring different Sorts of Ice. (sic)
To an ounce of cochineal pounded fine, allow a quart of clear river water: let it boil, then put in the cochineal with a table spoonful of pounded rock allum, and the same quantity of cream of tartar; if it seems to be a purple colour, add a little more cream of tartar, let it all boil for two minutes, then strain it into a bottle for use.
Not so fun fact:
Cochineal is actually ground up insects (yeah, seriously. Goggle it if you want to know more or read about it at Britannica). But on another note, it makes various shades of red and even orange. So, you'd use it in Strawberry Ice Cream, Raspberry, or anything that is supposed to be reddish coloured.
FYI, I used a regular, synthetic red dye for my roses. ;)
I made historical ice cream!
I really wanted to try the Lemon Cream, but I'd already made lemon ices last month. So, I thought I'd better pick a different flavour. I loved the sound of the royal cream right up to the coriander seeds, and Australian jams tend to have seeds in them, so I decided to make plain ice cream, which is not vanilla!
Unlike today, historical plain ice cream was just whipped cream with a tiny bit of sugar. And do you want to know what whipped cream with a tiny bit of sugar tastes like when you freeze it? Hard whipped cream. Yep, it tastes exactly the same as whipped cream, just hard, and you don't even taste the sugar at all.
Plain Ice.
Take half a pint of the best cream you can get; whisk it in your freezing pot till stiff, then put in a little clarified sugar, and freeze it.
How I translated that recipe:
I started by making a simple syrup (equal parts water to sugar) which is heated until the sugar dissolves.
I allowed it to cool for 20 minutes (I don't think it needed that long).
I used 300g whipping cream (or thick cream), whisked until stiff, and put in a little simple sugar syrup. Only, I could not taste the sugar at all, so I put in a little more and a little more (not that it made a difference in the end).
I then split my recipe, taking out 1/2 cup of cream and adding red food dye to make a light pink and placed that into a mould of roses.
I put everything into the freezer for 5-minute intervals. Taking it out to stir at every break.
When the cream started to set (at which point it start to look spotty like a Dalmatian), I added more red to the pink cream to make dark pink roses and put that into the mould tray. These set better and came out more cleanly than the pale pink ones.
I stopped stirring the cream here because it was looking gloopy with tiny dots and had a lumpy texture in my mouth. Stopping the stirring improved the ice cream visually and texturally, but it wasn't malleable after setting. Just bricks (see image)
Freeze until set (which really doesn't take long. Maybe 20 minutes?).
In the end, you have something which feels and tasted like hard cream and doesn't taste sweet at all. Everyone in my family loved it except me. They liked the cream taste. Me not so much.
Note: Abbot said to use enough powdered sugar to cover the top of a half crown instead of clarified sugar. So, feel free to use that instead! Although, I'd recommend more sugar, like a LOT more.
I made an egg-based Regency ice cream
Well, I had to try the chocolate ice cream. I mean, it's chocolate! But it was also an egg-based recipe, which allowed me to know what those tasted like.
Chocolate Ice (under Ice Creams)
Melt three ounces of chocolate on the fire, then take three yolks of eggs, two ounces of sugar, and three quarters of a pint of cream; and boil it till it thickens, then put in the chocolate, and pass it through a sieve.
Method:
I had mistakenly assumed the chocolate recipe was half a pint like the plain ices one, so I was 50 mils short on cream. Which probably explains why it didn't set as well. I added 50 mils of milk, but I'm not sure that helped any.
I put the egg yokes, sugar, and cream on the stove top until they boiled/thickened. My mother-in-law was here and helped me by stirring constantly, so that we didn't end up with egg bits here and there.
I then melted the chocolate in the microwave (shocking!) and added it to the custard mixture. I did not bother to strain it.
The mixture went straight into the freezer for 5-10 minute blasts before I'd take it out to stir. This started to get the weird Dalmatian spots like the cream one had, but I kept stirring and it smoothed out and started to really look like chocolate ice cream. Plus, it was malleable at the end.
However, I only froze and stirred for about 40 minutes, and I probably should have done an hour. It melted very fast.
And FYI, it was so very, very eggy! The more frozen, the better (and less eggy) the taste. Only my husband liked this one. You couldn't taste the chocolate at all.
My mother-in-law wondered if this was because I used extra-large egg yokes and/or milk chocolate. I think in the future I'd cut down the eggs and use dark chocolate if I made this again.
Also, after the eggy taste of this with only 3 yokes, I'm so glad I didn't make the lemon cream which had 5 yokes...
Summary
I liked the lemon ices last month best, but my family loved the plain ice cream (above) best of all.
I think in future, I might try putting a metal bowl into a bath of salted ice for one of the ice cream recipes just to see if that changes the texture at all. Although, I'm not sure I'd make an egg one again.
But for now, this concludes my experiments with Georgian ices!
If you were going to do an ice cream recipe, which flavour would you choose?
Resource Links:
Abbot's cookbook https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58663/58663-h/58663-h.htm#Page_79
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