French Provincial Cooking (108 page)

A luxury ice cream, with a mild but true coffee flavour and a very fine texture.

First put
lb. of freshly roasted coffee beans in a marble mortar. Do not crush them but simply bruise them with the pestle, so that the beans are cracked rather than broken up. Put them in a saucepan with a pint of single cream, the yolks of 3 eggs well beaten, a strip of lemon peel and 3 oz. of pale brown sugar (
cassonade
). Cook this mixture over very gentle heat, stirring constantly until it thickens. Take from the fire and go on stirring until it is cool. Strain through a fine sieve. When this cream is quite cold and thick, into it fold
pint of double cream lightly whipped with a tablespoon of white sugar. Turn into a pint-sized freezing tray, cover with foil, and place in the ice-making compartment of the refrigerator, which should already be turned to maximum freezing point. Freeze for 3 hours; after the first hour stir the ice cream, turning sides to middle. Turn out whole on to a flat dish and cut into four portions.

The coffee beans can be used again for a second batch of ice cream; and a less expensive basic mixture using a pint of milk and 5 egg yolks still makes a very excellent ice. Always use a light roast of coffee.

Make a custard with
pint of thin cream or, for the sake of economy, milk, 2 oz. of sugar, a piece of lemon peel or a vanilla pod, and the yolks of 2 eggs.

Cook 1 lb. of fresh apricots with 2 oz. of sugar and
pint of water until they are soft. Stone and sieve them.

Mix the apricot pulp with the cooled custard, from which you have extracted the lemon peel or vanilla pod. Squeeze in a little lemon juice and, immediately before freezing, fold in
pint of lightly whipped thick cream. Freeze in the ice-trays of the refrigerator, at maximum freezing point, for about 2
hours, stirring once or twice during the process. Keep the trays covered with foil. Makes 6 to 8 helpings.

The sweetness or otherwise of apricots varies a good deal. Some may need more sugar, others less.

Sieve
lb. of fresh raspberries. Make a custard with just under
pint of milk or, preferably, thin cream, the yolks of 3 eggs, and 3 to 4 oz. of sugar, depending upon the sweetness or otherwise of the fruit. Early in the season, raspberries tend to need extra sweetening. When this is quite cold, mix it with the raspberry pulp. Fold in
pint of thick, lightly whipped cream and freeze and serve as for the coffee ice on page 446. Ample for four.

Soft fruit such as raspberries and strawberries should never be
cooked
for creams and ices, and whether the pulp is mixed with a cooked custard or a syrup, this should always be left until quite cold before the two are stirred together. The fruit should be carefully picked over before sieving and any berries which look the slightest bit mouldy discarded, for even one bad one is liable to spoil the taste of the whole mixture.

A variation of this ice is to use
lb. of raspberries and
lb. of red-currants, which considerably intensifies the flavour. In this case, use an extra ounce of sugar in the custard.