Strawberry Ice Cream (1896)
Reader ratingsFannie Merritt Farmer’s strawberry ice cream, from her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book of 1896: fresh berries sugared, mashed and sieved, folded into a light cream base thickened with a little arrowroot.
- Recipe makes
- About 1 quart, 6 servings
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
The berries stand in their sugar for an hour while the milk base cooks and cools. Chill the base for at least 3 hours, churn for 20 to 30 minutes, then freeze for about 2 hours to firm.
Strawberry ice cream in a pressed-glass dish, with fresh strawberries.
The story behind the recipe
The ice cream in Witch Winnie came shaped as little ducks, “with strawberry heads and pistache wings.” Elizabeth W. Champney’s novel of 1889 doesn’t say who made them or how, but strawberry was one half of the order, and Fannie Merritt Farmer printed a plain strawberry ice cream seven years later.
Three pints of cream
Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book of 1896 makes it in quantity, with three pints of thin cream to two boxes of berries. The fruit is sugared and sieved while milk thickened with arrowroot cooks over hot water. The cooled base, cream and milk together, is frozen “to a mush” before the fruit goes in, and the freezing is finished.
Freezing was done by hand. Farmer packed the freezer with “three level measures ice to one of salt” and had the cook turn the crank slowly until the mixture reached a mush, then faster. Shaped ices like Champney’s ducks took one step more: “When frozen mixtures are to be bricked or moulded, avoid freezing too hard,” she wrote, and the filled molds went back into ice and salt.
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The fruit goes in last
Modern recipes still hold the fruit back: the base is churned to soft-serve, and the strawberries go in for the last minute or two. Farmer’s base has no eggs at all; the arrowroot gives the milk a little body.
Making it today
We make a quarter of Farmer’s batch, for a home ice cream maker. Light cream stands in for her thin cream. Chill the base well before churning, as modern makers do; a warm base churns slowly and freezes coarse. For the wings, make the Pistachio Ice Cream (1896); the story behind the ducks is in What Did a Total Abstinence Candy Society Eat Instead?.
3 pints thin cream. 2 boxes strawberries. 1¾ cups sugar. 2 cups milk. 1½ tablespoons arrowroot.
Wash and hull berries, sprinkle with sugar, let stand one hour, mash, and rub through strainer. Scald one and one-half cups milk; dilute arrowroot with remaining milk, add to hot milk, and cook ten minutes in double boiler; cool, add cream, freeze to a mush, add fruit, and finish freezing.
Recipe makes: About 1 quart, 6 servings
Ingredients
For about 1 quart, 6 servings. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for about 1 quart, 6 servings.
- Fresh strawberries12 oz
- Sugar7 tbsp
- Whole milk6 tbsp
- Arrowroot1 1/8 tsp
- Whole milk, cold2 tbsp
- Light cream1 1/2 cups
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 12 oz fresh strawberries
- 7 tbsp sugar
- 6 tbsp whole milk
- 1⅛ tsp arrowroot
- 2 tbsp whole milk, cold
- 1½ cups light cream
Equipment
- Medium bowl and potato masher
- Fine-mesh strainer
- Double boiler, or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water
- Ice cream maker, 1½-quart size or larger
- Freezer container with a lid
Instructions
Put the bowl of your ice cream maker in the freezer the day before, if it needs it.
Rinse and hull the strawberries, put them in the medium bowl and sprinkle with the sugar. Let them stand for 1 hour, stirring once or twice.
Meanwhile, heat the larger share of whole milk in the top of the double boiler over simmering water until small bubbles form at the edge. Stir the arrowroot into the cold milk until smooth, then stir it into the hot milk. Cook over the simmering water, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Let it cool.
Stir the light cream into the cooled milk base. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, until very cold.
Mash the sugared berries well and rub them through the strainer with the back of a spoon, pressing out all the pulp and juice. Discard the seeds left in the strainer. Cover and refrigerate the purée.
Churn the cold base in the ice cream maker until it is thick, like soft-serve, 20 to 30 minutes. Pour in the strawberry purée and churn 1 to 2 minutes more, until evenly pink.
Scrape it into the freezer container, press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface, cover and freeze for about 2 hours, until firm enough to scoop.
Nutrition
205calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1 quart, 6 servings
- Servings
- 6
Estimated per ⅔-cup serving from USDA FoodData Central values for the listed ingredients.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
A quarter of Farmer’s batch, sized for a home machine. Her full batch makes several quarts.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.
Taste the berries after they have stood in the sugar; very tart berries may want another tablespoon. Keep the water under the double boiler at a gentle simmer; the base should thicken only slightly. The ice cream is best within 2 days. Contains milk.
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 Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Boston, 1896), Strawberry Ice Cream
Recipe details
- Course
- Dessert
- Dish family
- Desserts & Sweets
- Region
- American
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1890s
- Main ingredient
- FruitMilk & cream
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- Season
- Summer