CHAPTER XXIV
THE GREAT AMERICAN DISH
To be one hundred per cent American, each one of us must eat at least two and a quarter quarts of ice-cream annually. This is the national American dish, despite Boston’s claim for the baked bean and the South’s for beaten biscuits.
Rich and poor, the be-butlered and the maidless make their own ice-cream. The more remote from civilization, the more each individual housekeeper makes her own ice-cream.
It is no longer a luxury; it is now recognized as a food. The Government classifies it, and it is experimented with at most of the State agricultural colleges and State experimental stations. Its making has become an industry standardized by the Government and certain rules must be adhered to by every manufacturer.
The introduction of ice-cream as an industry not only stimulated purchasers of ice-cream, but has stimulated machinery builders. To-day the making of large plants and small household freezers comprises a large industry.
For these mechanisms many problems of refrigeration, ice, brine, rock salt and packing arise. Some of these problems are important to the housekeeper as a maker of ice-cream, some as a buyer, and some not at all.
KINDS OF ICE-CREAM
In this sketch we will, of course, only touch upon those parts of this problem that are of interest to the housekeeper--doing her own work or with assistance.
Ice creams are classified under various heads and sub-heads. Nearly every one interested classifies them differently. For the sake of convenience, we will give here one classification.
I. Plain uncooked ice-cream
Known as Philadelphia ice-cream, which consists of sugar, flavoring cream with or without condensed milk.
1. Plain with flavoring.
2. Fruit with flavoring.
3. Nut with flavoring.
4. Bisque with marshmallow, macaroon cake, wafers and other bread products well dried out.
II. Cooked
French ice-cream--sometimes called Neapolitan (though Neapolitan is really the many-colored layer ice cream only) made of cream, sugar, eggs and flavoring.
1. Parfaits
Highly flavored fruits, nuts, spices (Nesserold pudding, Roman and English plum puddings).
2. Custards
Flavoring, cornstarch, vanilla.
III. Sherberts and Ices
Water and milk, sugar, white of egg, fruit juices, etc.
1. Ices (granites frozen by oscillation and frappés--semi-frozen like mush.
2. Water Sherberts--Ices and egg, sometimes called soufflé.
3. Punches--with liquor (passing out).
4. Milk Sherbets.
5. Lacto--skimmed milk bases.
IV. Mousse
Rich cream sweetened and whipped, frozen in molds without oscillating or turning the freezer.
V. Fruit layers
Stabilizers and fillers.
Stabilizers--such as gelatine, ice-cream powders and gum tragacanth, are used in commercial ice-creams to give the product body, but manufacturers should, according to law, admit this addition if necessary.
Housekeepers often use gelatine; it is quite wholesome and not dangerous in any way.
FREEZING
Apart from the recipes, with which this chapter shall not deal, the most important part about ice-cream is the freezing of the mixture. Its dangers are many.
First of all, freezing incorporates air into the mixture and therefore increases its bulk.
Ice-cream can be frozen too slowly or too fast, and experience here is the best teacher.
If frozen too rapidly, says the Omaha State Experiment Station, the ice-cream doesn’t expand very much (this is more important to the commercial maker of ice-cream). Without the air incorporated, it is soggy and heavy. It will also be grainy and will fall apart.
If frozen too slowly, it is buttery, greasy, non-expansive and fat will rise.
If frozen too long, it will be churned creamy, it loses expansion, it is greasy, soggy and heavy.
These are the reasons why cream is not a velvety, smooth, ungrained stand-without-hitching quality.
Here are some other defects and their causes:
First, the cream must be clean and creamy, combined with flavoring material which blends with the cream to a full delicious flavor.
There may be defects in the flavor, due to the cream used, such as sour, old, bitter or metallic cream flavor.
It may be due to the filler or stabilizer, such as a starch, gum or gelatine.
Defects may also be due to other ingredients. It may be too sweet, not sweet enough, coarse flavor due to flavor material, stale fruit, rancid nuts, moldy nuts.
The cream must be firmly frozen to be smooth and velvety. If it is not, these conditions may prevail:
Icy: Due to improper packing.
Coarse: Too thin cream or packing while too soft.
Sticky: Due to fillers, such as gelatine or a sweetened condensed milk.
Buttery: Use of cream partially churned before freezing, or to cream too cold when put into freezer, or because freezer was operated at too high speed.
THE CURE
First, buy a good freezer, never less than a gallon, because you can always freeze a little in it and always be ready for a crowd.
There are various types of freezers on the market. (1) those that you turn by hand, (2) by motor, (3) ones that aren’t turned at all, (4) ones that are oscillated only and in which, at home, two flavors can be frozen at once. In this type it takes longer to freeze cream, but as the arm only works back and forth it is not so tiring. The can in the tub is
## partitioned in two segments and the paddles and dasher only turn half
way.
The freezer that isn’t turned at all needs no lyric from me. It tells its own story in making good ice-cream of a smooth mousse-like consistency, but real ice-cream. It is rapid and restful.
The various motorized freezers are good for large families and the small motors attachable to small freezers geared for motors are joys.
There are some kitchen units that are clumsy, some that are convenient which turn the freezer, polish the silver, sharpen the knives, in fact do everything but shine one’s boots. (See