Ices & Iced Puddings

The heat here in this part of the world is intense at present and one should always have a water ice or iced pudding on hand to serve as a refreshing dessert. Otherwise known as sorbet, ices may be flavoured with just about any type of fruit.  Ms Beeton flavours hers with raspberry, strawberry or red currant fruit water and also provides recipes for banana ice cream, lemon water ice, pineapple ice, raspberry ice and strawberry ice cream. I will confine myself here to the recipes for ices first and the iced pudding second.

Ices:

[For every pint of fruit juice mixture (aka fruit water) allow 1 pint of syrup]

• Firstly, one must make a fruit water.  Select ripe fruit, pick off stalks and put into a pan with a little sugar strewed over. Stir mixture about with a wooden spoon until it is well broken, then rub it through a hair sieve.  
• Make a syrup by combining 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water in a small saucepan and allowing mixture to simmer over medium to high heat until sugar is dissolved (about 5 minutes).  Remove from heat, let it cool, add the fruit water, mix well together and put the mixture into a freezing pan.  When frozen, put it into small glasses or plates.  

Cook's Tips:

For an elegant serving method, a loaf shaped cake tin may be used if you do not have a decorative jelly or cake mould or glass serving bowls.  Serve slices cut with a very sharp knife on plates for an elegant presentation.

Additions such as aromatics: mint, lemon mint, chocolate mint, spearmint, other fresh herbs, cinnamon sticks, vanilla beans, cardamom, cacao nibs, fresh lemongrass, fresh ginger, lavender, jasmine, coconut, rosewater or any other aromatic ingredient may be swirled into the mixture before freezing.*

Liqueurs such as wine, Cointreau, champagne, prosecco or Spanish Cavacrème de menthe or triple sec may also be included in the mixture prior to freezing.

Iced Pudding:

INGREDIENTS: 1/2 lb of sweet almonds, 2 oz. of bitter ones, 3/4 lb of sugar, 8 eggs, 1 and 1/2 pints milk, a few slices of citron or preserved cherries.

Blanch and dry the almonds thoroughly in a cloth, then pound them in a mortar until reduced to a smooth paste; add to these the eggs, well beaten, the sugar and milk; stir these ingredients over the fire until they thicken, but do not allow them to boil; then strain and put the mixture into the freezing pot and freeze it.  When quite frozen, fill an iced-pudding mould, put on the lid and keep the pudding in ice until required for table; then turn it out on the dish.  This pudding may be flavoured with vanilla, curacao or maraschino.

*Further flavour suggestions:
- Pink Grapefruit, Tarragon with Vodka
- Key Lime
- Bittersweet Chocolate
- Lime Basil
- Strawberry with Black Pepper
- Lemonade
- Iced Tea (made with English Breakfast Tea which forms the 'fruit water')
- Cherry (made with Cherry Jam)
- Rhubarb
- Orange
- Limoncello-Mint
- Buttermilk
- French Martini (Pineapple juice (3 cups) Lemon juice (1/4 cup) Chambord (1/4 cup) Vodka (2 tblspns)
- Spicy Lemon (2 tblspns finely chopped crystallized ginger, 1/4 tblspn white pepper added to previously made Lemon Sorbet)
- Mango Tequila
- Early Grey with Chocolate
- Peach, Watermelon and Cranberry
- Port and Plum
- Hibiscus Tea with Rosewater
- Watermelon with Rosewater, Mint Leaves or Rose Petals & Coconut Cream (optional)

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Raspberry Vinegar

Decanted into elegant glass containers, this recipe of Mrs Beeton's is an excellent addition to salad dressings even for those who do not have a paticularly sweet tooth.  I'm thinking the "jelly-bag" referred to in the recipe would equate to a coffee filter paper, as its purpose is to strain the liquid mixed with the raspberries.  Mrs Beeton recommends the recipe as "an excellent drink in case of fevers and colds," no doubt due to the addition of brandy, although she stipulates: "it should be diluted with cold water."  I'm sure the odd cook or other member of staff would have sometimes felt the need to take a sneaky swig from the raspberry vinegar bottle just to relax during or after a marathon Edwardian dinner, and who could blame them?  It's delicious, anyway, so here is Mrs Beeton's seminal recipe:

Raspberry Vinegar. - INGREDIENTS. - 3 pints of the best vinegar, 4 and 1/2 pints of freshly gathered raspberries; to each pint of liquor allow 1 lb of pounded loaf sugar and 1 wineglass of brandy. AVERAGE COST,  1s per pint.

Let the raspberries be freshly gathered, pick them from the stalks, and put 1 and 1/2 pint of them into a stone jar; pour 3 pints of the best vinegar over them, and let them remain for 24 hours; then strain the liquor over another 1 and 1/2 pint of fresh raspberries.  Let them remain another 24 hours, and the following day repeat the process for the third time; then drain off the liquor without pressing, and pass it through a jelly-bag (previously wetted with plain vinegar) into a stone jar. Add to every pint of the liquor 1 lb of pounded loaf sugar; stir them together, and, when the sugar is dissolved, cover the jar, set it upon the fire in a saucepan of boiling water and let it boil for an hour, removing the scum as fast as it rises; add to each pint a glass of brandy, bottle it and seal the corks.  This is an excellent drink in cases of fevers and colds; it shoud be diluted with cold water, according to the taste or requirement of the patient.
TIME. - To be boiled 1 hour
SEASONABLE. - Make this in July or August, when raspberries are most plentiful.

I couldn't help but notice Mrs Beeton's recipe for Raspberry Jelly, which I also reproduce below,  seeing it is summer at present in the southern hemisphere and raspberries are just starting to appear. They may even appear on my own raspberry cane, if the local bush turkeys do not dig it up for its roots.

Raspberry Jelly. - INGREDIENTS. To each pint of juice allow 3/4 lb of loaf sugar. AVERAGE COST, 9d. per pot.

Let the raspberries be freshly gathered, quite ripe, and picked from the stalks; put them into a large jar, after breaking the fruit a little with a wooden spoon, and place this jar, covered, in a saucepan of boiling water.  When the juice is well drawn, which will be from 3/4 to 1 hour, strain the fruit through a fine hair-sieve or cloth; measure the juice, and to every pint allow the above proportion of loaf sugar.  Put the juice and sugar into a preserving pan, place it over the fire, and boil gently until the jelly thickens when a little is poured on a plate; carefully remove all the scum as it rises, pour the jelly into small pots, cover down, and keep in a dry place.  This jelly answers for making raspberry cream and for flavouring various sweet dishes, when, in winter, the fresh fruit is not obtainable.
TIME. - 3/4 to 1 hour to draw the juice.
SEASONABLE. - This should be made in July or August.

Reading that Mrs Beeton's Raspberry Jelly is used in making her Raspberry Cream recipe, I feel compelled to reproduce that recipe as well:

Raspberry Cream. - INGREDIENTS for quart mould. - 3/4 pint of milk, 3/4 pint of cream, 1 and 1/2 oz. of gelatine, raspberry jelly, sugar to taste, 2 tablespoons of brandy.
AVERAGE COST, 2 s. 3 d.

Boil the milk, cream and gelatine together for 1/4 hour, or until the latter is melted, and strain it through a hair sieve into a basin.  Let it cool a little; then add to it sufficient raspberry jelly, which when melted, would make 1/2 pint, and stir well until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.  If not sufficiently sweet, add a little pounded sugar with the brandy; whisk the mixture well until nearly cold, put it into a well-oiled mould, and set it in a cool place till perfectly set.  Raspberry jam may be substituted for the jelly; but must be melted, and rubbed through a sieve, to free it from seeds: in summer, the juice of the fresh fruit may be used, by slightly mashing it with a wooden spoon, and sprinkling sugar over it; the juice that flows from the fruit should then be used for mixing with the cream.  If the colour should not be very good, a few drops of prepared cochineal, or carmine, may be added to improve its appearance.
TIME.- 1/4  hour to boil the cream and gelatine.
SEASONABLE, with jelly, at any time.

Note - Stawberry cream may be made in precisely the same manner, substituting strawberry jam or jelly for the raspberry.

Now all I need is Victorian mould to present my Raspberry Cream - preferably one that looks like a castle, with turrets.  What a conclusion to Christmas dinner that would be!