At a small civilian living history this summer we gave making ice
cream a shot. It was so successful and tasty
that I feel compelled to share it here.
It all really started with my fiancée and I getting a hand
crank ice cream freezer as a wedding shower gift. The manufacture claims that they have been
making them since the early 1850’s. Some
quick research found that the first ice cream freezer or “artificial freezer”
patent was in 1843 by Nancy M. Johnson. There is an image in the 1854 American
Home Cook Book of another ice cream freezer.
With a little searching I can see that the models produced in recent
times is a later concept in the details of the mechanics. Each of these has differences in the inner
workings with the basic concept being the same.
That being, put ingredients in one container that goes inside another,
with the first being surround by ice and salt.
The contents are then stirred/paddled/scrapped and/or spun until frozen
deliciousness is made. Before the
“artificial freezer” this basic concept was still done without any mechanics,
just a wood spoon or something similar.
The next question was what type of ice cream to make! Well, there is no shortage of recipes from
period cookbooks on that topic. We found
ice cream directions in the Kentucky Housewife (1839), The American Home Cook
Book (1854), The American Frugal Housewife (1833), and The Young Housekeeper’s
Friend (1859). Most involved some
cooking such as warming the milk or working with eggs for custard. We were prepared to do this until something
came to mind, condensed milk. The label
for condensed milk from the New York Condensed Milk Co. has ice cream
directions right on it. These are very
simple as you can see. We did some
online looking and decided to substitute water for milk. Mixing 1 can of condensed milk with four cups
of whole milk along with flavoring ingredients.
This would make it much easier to make the ice cream and would allow for
much faster freezing since we would not be dealing with a warm mixture. Huzzah for “modern” conveniences!
The first flavor was an easy choice as there are multiple
mature mulberry trees around the property.
Saturday late morning an expedition went out to fill a bowl with the
ripe sweet purple staining berries.
Those were then washed, sorted and then smashed in some cheesecloth with
a bit of sugar. The can of condensed
milk, three cups of milk, and one cup of cream was added to the freezer. Yes, we changed the ingredients on the fly
since we had cream and decided this would make a creamer and richer ice
cream. Then the sweetened mulberry juice
was poured in and the crank turning began.
About 20-30 minutes later the purple ice cream was scooped into bowls as
a success.
Later in the day we choose to make one more batch since we
the ingredients. This time a receipt in
The Young Housekeeper’s friend inspired us.
It read to take the juice of a dozen lemons and pour over enough sugar
to absorb it and then add to three quarts of cream to make a “a rich
ice-cream”. We just about had the lemons
squeezed when it hit me that it said “three quarts of cream”, that is a lot of
cream! In our heads I think we were
thinking one quart. We also realized how
much lemon juice and sugar this was!
Here is why I say this inspired us!
We took the dozen lemons worth of juice and added enough sugar to make
it a syrup texture. Sorry, I didn’t
measure and just poured it in till it tasted good to us. We didn’t have that much cream so we did
three cups of that with one cup of milk.
Put it all in the freezer to crank away.
The time came that it was a bright white frozen mass scooped into some
bowls. We all agreed this was one of the
most refreshing ice creams we have ever had!
It was creamy, tart with some sweetness that instantly put a smile on
our faces. It turned out and is on the
list to do again one day in the future!
While our ice cream freezer is not completely correct for
the period we had a great time experimenting with this food in our
history. Without that compromise we
would have missed out on some satisfying and guilt pleasure experimental
archeology. In that we adjusted things
with what we had in ingredients compared to the receipts. No doubt, in my mind, like they would have
been doing as well. This experience also
taught us once again, like so many other things, that nothing was quick and easy
back then. Even making ice cream with
then modern conveniences of an “artificial freezer” and condensed milk there
would still be considerable time and labor invested. This includes gathering the ingredients,
preparing ingredients, breaking down an ice block, turning and freezing the
mixture, and then the clean up. In both
of our cases it all seemed worth it!
