1 quart rich milk.
8 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very light.
4 cups sugar.
3 pints rich sweet cream.
5 teaspoonfuls vanilla or other seasoning, or 1 vanilla bean,
broken in two, boiled in the custard, and left in until
it is cold.
Heat the _milk_ almost to boiling, beat the eggs light, add the sugar,
and stir up well. Pour the hot milk to this, little by little, beating
all the while, and return to the fire—boiling in a pail or saucepan
set within one of hot water. Stir the mixture steadily about fifteen
minutes, or until it is thick as boiled custard. Pour into a bowl
and set aside to cool. When quite cold, beat in the cream, and the
flavoring, unless you have used the bean.
Have ready a quantity of ice, cracked in pieces not larger than a
pigeon egg—the smaller the better. You can manage this easily by
laying a great lump of ice between two folds of coarse sacking or an
old carpet, tucking it in snugly, and battering it, through the cloth,
with a sledge-hammer or mallet until fine enough. There is no waste
of ice, nor need you take it in your hands at all—only gather up the
corners of the carpet or cloth, and slide as much as you want into the
outer vessel. Use an ordinary old-fashioned upright freezer, set in a
deep pail; pack around it closely, first, a layer of pounded ice, then
one of rock salt—_common salt will not do so well_. In this order fill
the pail; but before covering the freezer-lid, remove it carefully
that none of the salt may get in, and, with a long wooden ladle or
flat stick (I had one made on purpose), beat the custard as you would
batter, for five minutes, without stay or stint. Replace the lid,
pack the ice and salt upon it, patting it down hard on top; cover all
with several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it for one hour.
Then remove the cover of the freezer when you have wiped it carefully
outside. You will find within a thick coating of frozen custard upon
the bottom and sides. Dislodge this with your ladle, which should be
thin at the lower end, or with a long carving-knife, working every
particle of it clear. Beat again hard and long until the custard is a
smooth, half-congealed paste. The smoothness of the ice-cream depends
upon your action at this juncture. Put on the cover, pack in more ice
and salt, and turn off the brine. Spread the double carpet over all
once more, having buried the freezer out of sight in ice, and leave it
for three or four hours. Then, if the water has accumulated in such
quantity as to buoy up the freezer, pour it off, fill up with ice and
salt, but do not open the freezer. In two hours more you may take
it from the ice, open it, wrap a towel, wrung out in boiling water,
about the lower part, and turn out a solid column of cream, firm,
close-grained, and smooth as velvet to the tongue.
Should the ice melt very fast, you may have to turn off the water more
than twice; but this will seldom happen except in very hot weather.
You need not devote fifteen minutes in all to the business after the
custard is made. You may go into the cellar before breakfast, having
made the custard overnight, stir in the cold cream and flavoring,
get it into the freezer and comfortably packed down before John has
finished shaving, and by choosing the times for your stolen visits
to the lower regions, surprise him and the children at a one-o’clock
dinner by the most delicious dessert in the world. I have often
laughed in my sleeve at seeing _my_ John walk through the cellar in
search of some mislaid basket or box, whistling carelessly, without a
suspicion that his favorite delicacy was coolly working out its own
solidification under the inverted barrel on which I chanced to be
leaning at his entrance.
Any of the following receipts for _custard_ ice-cream may be frozen in
like manner. Do not spare salt, and be sure your ice is finely cracked,
and after the second beating do not let the air again into the freezer.
If you cannot get dry rock salt, that which settles at the bottom of
fish-barrels will do just as well. Keep the freezer hidden, from first
to last, by the ice heaped over it, except when you have to lift the
lid on the occasions I have specified.