Is There a Nutmeg in the House? (45 page)

ORANGE AND ALMOND ICE CREAM

Grate the zest of one orange and the strained juice of two into the almond ice cream mixture on
page 277
.

Add 2 tablespoons of orange flower water. An extra 150 ml (5 fl oz) of cream, and 2 tablespoons of Cointreau or Grand Marnier instead of Kirsch transform this ice into a very special one. A scoop of strawberry and almond and one of orange and almond make one of those blends of flavours from the golden age of ices.

Unpublished, 1970s

LEMON AND GRAND MARNIER ICE CREAM

2 large lemons, 90 g (3 oz) icing sugar, 150 ml (5 fl oz) double cream, Grand Marnier.

Put the thinly peeled rind of the lemons with the icing sugar in 125 ml (4 fl oz) of water, and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Leave this syrup to cool, strain and add to it the juice of the lemons. When quite cold, add it gradually to the whipped cream, stirring gently until the whole mixture is smooth.

Pour into the ice-tray, cover with paper and freeze at maximum freezing-point of the refrigerator for about 3 hours, taking it out to stir it twice, after the first half-hour, and again after another hour. Half an hour before serving, stir in a good liqueur glass of Grand Marnier (the contents of a miniature bottle) and put back in the freezing compartment. Being an orange-flavoured liqueur, the Grand Marnier mixes well with the lemon, supplying the right rich flavour against the sharp background of the lemon.

The amounts given will fill a 500-ml (18-fl oz) ice-tray. Should the quantities have to be altered to go in smaller or larger trays, alter them all in proportion. The amount of sugar in refrigerator-made ice cream is important. Made in the above manner, there
will be no little ice particles, and the result is a soft, light ice cream, but it melts quickly, so leave it in the ice-tray until the moment comes to serve it.

Instead of the customary wafers to go with the ice, serve miniature, very fresh brown bread sandwiches with a filling of chopped walnuts, and a drop of Grand Marnier beaten into the butter with which the sandwiches are spread.

Entertaining with Grand Marnier
booklet, n.d.

ORANGE ICE CREAM

The cream ices I make nowadays are nearly all based on
natillas
, the Spanish custard made with far fewer eggs to milk than the usual French, Italian and English equivalents. The Spanish version makes a lighter and more delicate ice cream and, the proportions and method once mastered, there is really no limit to the variations of flavouring which may be made. Using citrus fruit peels and juice, spices (cinnamon is particularly good), preserved ginger, honey, orange flower water and pounded macaroons or
amaretti
, I have based many delicious and refreshing ices on the
natillas
formula.

First the custard: ingredients for 1 litre (about 1¾ pints) of mixture are 750 ml (1¼ pints) of milk, 2 whole eggs and 2 yolks, 60 g (2 oz) of sugar, a piece of cinnamon bark or a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a strip of orange peel. Additional ingredients are 200 ml (7 fl oz) of cream, orange or tangerine peel, and perhaps more cinnamon.

Put the milk, strip of orange peel, cinnamon and sugar in a heavy saucepan of 1.75-litre (3-pint) capacity. Bring to simmering point.

Have the eggs ready and well beaten in a bowl, or whirled in the blender. Over them strain the hot milk mixture and beat or whirl the mixture again. Return it to the rinsed pan.

Cook the
natillas
over very gentle heat, whisking continuously until the custard starts to thicken. Remove the saucepan from the heat and either continue whisking until the custard is cool or give it another whirl in the blender. Chill in the refrigerator.

Now the ice cream: immediately before freezing, whirl the custard once more in the blender, adding the 200 ml (7 fl oz) of cream and a little extra cinnamon and finely grated orange or tangerine peel.

Notes

1. 1. If you do not have a sufficiently heavy, flat saucepan, cook the custard in a porringer or a
   bain marie
   improvised from a bowl and a pan of water. Be wary of using enamelled saucepans for milk or custards.
   
2. 2. Note that the small proportion of sugar in the custard makes for much better results than the larger quantity usually called for in custards.
   

Unpublished, no date

MINT ICE CREAM

150 ml (¼ pint) water, 125 g (4 oz) sugar, a handful of fresh mint leaves, juice of 1 lemon, 150 ml (5 fl oz) of double cream.

Stir water and sugar over low heat till sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil, then cool for a few moments. Wash mint and put in blender with the syrup. Blend till mint is fine. Add lemon juice. Strain into an ice tray. Cool, then freeze till firm(ish).

Turn into a bowl and mash with fork. Fold into the lightly whipped cream, pour back into ice tray and freeze again until firm.

Unpublished, 1960s

GINGER CREAM ICE

Ingredients for the
natillas
or custard are as for the orange ice cream on page
279
, except that the orange peel and cinnamon bark are not necessary. Additional ingredients are 4 tablespoons of finely chopped ginger in syrup, 4 of ginger syrup, 2 of lemon juice, approximately 150 ml (5 fl oz) of cream.

Make the custard as above. When it is well chilled, return it to the blender. Stir in all the additional ingredients and taste. You may need a little more ginger flavouring or a little extra lemon juice.

Give the mixture a quick whirl and freeze it.

Unpublished, 1970s

CHOCOLATE CREAM ICE
1

There are many ways of making chocolate ice. This one is rich but not heavy.

Ingredients are 200 g (7 oz) of very good bitter chocolate, 600 ml (1 pint) of creamy milk, 2 whole eggs, a half cup or 6 tablespoons of strong, unsweetened black coffee, 150 ml (5 fl oz) of cream, optional; 2 to 3 tablespoons of brandy, whisky or rum.

Break up the chocolate and put it in a bowl with the coffee in a low oven or over hot water. Meanwhile bring the milk to simmering point, and pour it over the eggs beaten preferably in the blender goblet or mixer bowl. As soon as the chocolate has melted stir it smooth, blend it with the milk and egg mixture and cook it over very low heat until it is just beginning to thicken. Because of the setting capacity of chocolate the mixture need be no more than just barely thickened. Chill it thoroughly, and immediately before freezing give it another whirl in the blender, adding the cream and brandy, whisky or rum.

Note that no extra sugar is added to the chocolate, which is already sweetened.

Plain, fresh, thin pouring cream is good with this lovely ice, and very simple, plain biscuits or slices of brioche are called for.

CHOCOLATE CREAM ICE
2

If you have a source of plain
unsweetened
cooking chocolate, allow 125 g (4 oz) plus 90 g (3 oz) of sugar, preferably brown. Other ingredients are as above.

Grate the chocolate, mix it with the sugar and black coffee or plain water. When it is melted and stirred smooth blend it with the hot milk and egg mixture as above. When chilled taste for sweetness.

Since there is no vanilla, true or false, in unsweetened cooking chocolate, one is free to choose one’s own flavouring. I prefer cinnamon to vanilla. It’s difficult to say how much because freshly ground cinnamon is much stronger and more aromatic than the powder which has been in a jar in a spice rack for a couple of years or more. So, if your cinnamon is freshly ground, 2 level teaspoons should be enough to flavour 125 g (4 oz) of chocolate, and if it is not fresh you may have to use twice as much, but cooking brings out the aroma so add it while you stir the chocolate, eggs and milk to a custard. And taste.

Alternative flavourings for chocolate ices are ginger, particularly successful in the form of the stem preserved in syrup. Some of the syrup can be used instead of sugar to sweeten the chocolate and a couple of tablespoons of the stems, finely chopped added before freezing.

For a true vanilla-flavoured chocolate ice, pound or grind a little piece of vanilla bean to powder and stir a half teaspoon of this into the milk before you set it on the stove to simmer. Or for a less powerful flavouring put a whole vanilla bean in the milk while it is heating up and remove it before combining the milk with the eggs, chocolate and sugar.

Orange and chocolate make another attractive combination. Grated fresh orange peel or ground dried tangerine or Seville orange peels can be used. So can candied orange peel, and the orange-based liqueurs such as Grand Marnier and Cointreau. But use liqueurs very sparingly. They are very sweet.

The coffee to be used when melting chocolate for creams, mousses and ices can be made either from one of the dried granulated Nescafé or other brands or from beans freshly ground and brewed, but Nescafé in granules freshly made is preferable to stewed stale watery real coffee. The coffee-flavoured liqueur Tia Maria can be used in very small quantity to give an extra fillip to
a chocolate ice. But, again, the caution that it be sparingly used. Too much will make the ice cloying.

Both unpublished, 1970s

BROWN BREAD ICE CREAM

In one form or another, recipes for brown bread ices have been appearing in print since about the mid-eighteenth century. An early one was given by Emy, the French confectioner who published his elegant little book
L’Art de bien faire les glaces d’office
in 1768. His recipe called for rye bread, still in those days common in France and still perhaps the best for brown bread ice, although today it is more usually made with wholemeal.

Popularised in England early in the nineteenth century perhaps by Gunters, the famous Berkeley Square confectioners who did the catering for fashionable balls and receptions, brown bread ice also became a speciality of the Winchester College shop, and was much loved by the scholars of that famous school. Some twenty-five years ago, remembering the delicious brown bread ice sold by Gunters in the nineteen thirties – they delivered it by the bucketful for outdoor parties – I evolved my own version based on the recipe given by Alfred Jarrin, an early Gunter specialist, in
The Italian Confectioner
which first appeared in 18 20, and published it in a magazine. About a year later I was gratified to hear from a courteous reader that my ice, made by her Italian cook, had been joyously received by her husband, an ex-Winchester scholar. The recipe I now use, slightly modified since those days, is as follows:

For 600 ml (1 pint) of double cream, the other ingredients are 180 g (6 oz) of crustless wholemeal or dark rye bread, 200–250 g (7–8 oz) of sugar.

First whisk the cream and 60 g (2 oz) of the sugar until it just starts to thicken. Do this by hand, in a chilled bowl. Take care not to overdo the whisking. Turn the cream into a metal or plastic box and set it to freeze.

Pull the bread into small pieces, put them on a baking sheet in a low oven. Let them toast until crisp, then crush them into coarse crumbs. This should be done by hand. A food grinder or chopper tends to make the crumbs too uniform and too fine, the crunchy and uneven texture of hand-pounded breadcrumbs being important to the success of the ice.

With the remaining sugar and the same amount of water make a thick syrup. Pour this, warm, over the breadcrumbs.

When the cream has frozen just enough to be firm, turn it out into a chilled bowl, whisk it for a few seconds, fold in the bread and syrup mixture. Before returning the cream to the freezer, taste it for sweetness. If too sweet add a little extra cream. Take care not to serve the ice in an over-frozen condition. The crunchy crumbs contrasting with the soft smooth cream are the attributes which constitute the appeal of this very simple mixture.

Notes

1. 1. On no account flavour brown bread ice with vanilla. And don’t think it’s unimportant to freeze the cream before adding the breadcrumbs. When the bread is mixed directly into the unfrozen cream a rather pasty mass results.
   
2. 2. Variations can be made using a mixture of pumpernickel and wholemeal bread. The pumpernickel is sweet so the mixture needs slightly less sugar. Granary bread, equally rather sweet because of its malted wheat content, can also be used. In the original Alfred Jarrin recipe, the bread was cut into small dice – before toasting in the oven – rather than made into crumbs, and it goes without saying that any number of other minor variations can be devised.
   

RYE BREAD ICE CREAM

This is the eighteenth-century French recipe given by Emy. It is very different from the later Gunter version of brown bread ice.

First you prepare a plain basic cream mixture with a pint (approx 1 litre) of cream (at that time the Paris pint was 32 oz, the equivalent of 2 pints U.S. today), 4 egg yolks, and about a quarter pound (125 g) of sugar. (The proportions are odd. They would surely need adjustment.) You are to cook this with extreme care or it will curdle, so even if it takes an hour of stirring ‘you are to persevere until the cream has thickened’ when you add a piece of crustless rye bread reduced to crumbs. Let these amalgamate with the custard, push all through the tammy, using a wooden spoon. Leave to cool, stirring from time to time to prevent the formation of a skin. Freeze as for all the ices. In other words, in a pewter cylinder set in a tub of ice and salt.