From the Editor's Desk 🪶

A Regency Iced Cream

My afternoon's research was rather pleasantly distracted by ice cream, so it seemed only right to share what I found. As I sat eating my own, I was delighted to discover I wasn't enjoying anything so very modern. Fashionable Regency households served "iced creams" in all manner of flavours, strawberry, lemon and vanilla among them.

Below are two recipes drawn from Frederick Nutt's The Complete Confectioner (Fourth Edition, 1807), the very sort of thing that might have been served to the Netherfield household on a warm July afternoon. One is made with strawberry jam, the other with fresh strawberries, and therein lies a small lesson in Regency cooking. The jam version could be enjoyed well beyond the brief strawberry season, while the fresh version celebrated the fruit at its summer best. A reminder of how closely the Regency table followed the seasons.

They are, as you'll see, delightfully brief. Regency cooks were trusted to know their business, so if you'd like to actually make one, you'll find a version for the modern kitchen a little further down.

If you try your hand at a little Regency iced cream, I would be truly delighted to see the end result and to hear how it tasted.

 

Do share it with me by tagging @happily.ever.austen, or simply reply to my weekly Editors Desk email.

Yours in Ink,
The Editor

The Original Recipes

No. 139 Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream, from Frederick Nutt's The Complete Confectioner
No. 129 Strawberry Jam Ice Cream, from Frederick Nutt's The Complete Confectioner

From Frederick Nutt's The Complete Confectioner (Fourth Edition, 1807)

For the modern kitchen

Adapted from No. 139, Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream. Makes roughly six servings.

You will need

  • 400g fresh strawberries, hulled
  • 115g caster sugar (adjust to the sweetness of your fruit)
  • 500ml double cream
  • A squeeze of lemon, optional, to lift the flavour

Method

  1. Blend or mash the strawberries, then pass them through a sieve to leave a smooth purée, just as Mr Nutt's wooden spoon once did.
  2. Stir the sugar through the purée until dissolved, adding the lemon if you're using it.
  3. Lightly whip the cream to soft folds, then gently fold in the strawberry purée.
  4. With an ice cream maker: churn according to your machine, then freeze until firm.
  5. Without a machine: pour into a shallow tub and freeze. Every 30 minutes, stir well with a fork to break up the crystals, four or five times over a few hours, until smooth and set. This does by hand what all that turning, salt and ice once achieved.
  6. Turn out, as Mr Nutt would say, and send to table.