Apricot Ice (1907)
Reader ratingsRipe apricot purée, sugar syrup and lemon juice, frozen smooth: Escoffier’s apricot ice of 1907, the Glace aux Abricots on a 1945 train menu.
- Recipe makes
- About 1 quart, 8 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The syrup must cool and the mixture chill for at least 2 hours before churning, and the churned ice needs about 2 hours in the freezer to firm. Make it the day before if you can.
Two scoops of apricot ice in a glass coupe.
The story behind the recipe
Only the word “Desserts” comes after Glace aux Abricots on the sultan’s train menu of 1 July 1945, which makes this apricot ice the last dish the card names. Escoffier printed an ice of the same name in 1907, two sentences long, and this page follows it.
Three ingredients and a number
His recipe is a single short paragraph. It takes “one pint of fresh apricot purée, one pint of syrup, and the juice of two lemons,” and then gives a number in place of a method: the mixture “should measure 18° or 19° (saccharometer).” That was the reading of a hydrometer floated in the mixture, and it told a professional ice-maker how much sugar the ice held, which decides how soft it freezes.
His general rules for fruit ices fill in the rest. The syrup is “a syrup of sugar at 32°,” the fruit is rubbed through a fine sieve, and the purée is diluted “with an equal quantity of cold sugar syrup.” Lemon is never left out: even the tartest fruit gets the juice of at least a whole lemon per quart.
He froze his ices in a tin freezer set in a wooden case and packed around with broken ice, salt and saltpeter. The freezer was rocked or turned so the mixture splashed against its cold sides, and the frozen layer was scraped off with a spatula as it formed, until the whole became “a smooth and homogeneous mass.” The ice cream maker is that freezer’s descendant.
Read more about this recipe
Making it today
A measuring cup stands in for the saccharometer. Our syrup of 1¾ cups of sugar in 1 cup of water comes close to his 32°, and an equal measure of apricot purée with the lemon juice brings the mixture near his 18° to 19°. The result is a sweet, soft ice by present-day standards, as his was. Raw ripe apricots, pitted and puréed, are our choice, since he asks only for “fresh apricot purée.”
Why the timetable and a newspaper disagree about when the train left is told in What Was on the Royal Train’s Menu in 1945?. The meal on the card opened with Escoffier’s Consommé Printanier Royal (1907).
Take one pint of fresh apricot purée, one pint of syrup, and the juice of two lemons. ...
Recipe makes: About 1 quart, 8 servings
Ingredients
For about 1 quart, 8 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 1 quart, 8 servings.
- Sugar1 3/4 cups
- Water1 cup
- Ripe apricots1.25 lb
- Fresh lemon juice1/3 cup
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 1 3/4 cups sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 1/4 lb ripe apricots
- 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Equipment
Saucepan- Blender or food processor
Fine sieve- Ice cream maker
- Freezer container with a lid
Instructions
Put the sugar and water in the saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring it just to a boil, take it off the heat and let the syrup cool completely.
Halve and pit the apricots. Purée them in the blender until completely smooth, then press the purée through the fine sieve.
Stir the lemon juice into the purée at once, so it keeps its color.
Measure the purée and the cooled syrup, and stir them together in equal measure. Cover and chill until very cold, at least 2 hours.
Churn the mixture in the ice cream maker, following the maker’s directions, for about 20 to 25 minutes, until it is thick and smooth.
Pack the ice into the freezer container, cover, and freeze for about 2 hours, until firm enough to scoop.
Nutrition
205calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1 quart, 8 servings
- Servings
- 8
Estimated per serving from USDA FoodData Central values for apricots, sugar and lemon juice.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep the purée and the syrup in equal measure, and churn no more than your machine’s stated capacity at a time.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Without an ice cream maker, freeze the mixture in a shallow metal pan and stir it hard with a fork every 30 minutes for about 3 hours; the ice will be grainier. If it has set hard, leave it in the refrigerator for 10 minutes before serving. It keeps, covered, for about a week.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
After A. Escoffier, A Guide to Modern Cookery (London, 1907), no. 2761