Strawberry Ice Cream

Strawberry Ice Cream from Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery (1851).  Page 325.

Molded strawberry ice cream, ready to serve.

The ingredients were straightforward: strawberries, sugar, and cream. I ended up wringing the strawberries through a cloth to extract the juice--a scant 2 cups from 1 quart of berries, after standing 1.5 hours with the sugar. Then, it was simply a matter of stirring in the cream and freezing it.  I halved the receipt, and ended up with enough cream to fill one 4-cup mold and nearly fill a second.

Not having a proper ice cream freezer, I tried using a two-bowl set up with salt and ice in the outer basin and the cream mixture in the inner bowl.  That proved ineffective, so I opted for the old standby of putting it in the modern freezer, and stirring at half-hour intervals. This worked moderately well, but the ice cream still didn't fully set until I left it overnight. At that point, it was a soft solid, so I stirred and froze it once more, then transferred it into the molds and let them set until needed.

I used hot water on the outside of the mold to loosen the ice cream: the short one worked easily, but the taller took several tries and came out a little more melted than anticipated. Both went back into the freezer for a half hour--I should have wiped off the excess a little sooner, as they were quite solid again in short order.

The second mold didn't come out so nicely.

The flavor was sweet and rich; the texture was pleasantly smooth, though I expect it would be even better with a proper freezer to provide continuous air incorporation while freezing. The molds worked better than they usually do for me, so I'm optimistic that they will become even easier to use with more practice.

Update: I have now tried this recipe with blueberries (moderately succesful, though more fruit is needed to get a balanced flavor), and with vanilla (milk making up the extra liquid). Both times, a hand-cranked freezer was used, and it produced a very smooth ice cream. This is definitely a receipt to hang on to.