How about tea time in an ice cream: tea and biscuit ice creams.

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Tea time brings images of hot beverages, tiny sandwiches, dainty cookies and an air of elegant refinement. What about turning all of that into ice cream flavors? Ok, you can stop looking at me funny. It really isn’t that much of a stretch, well at least not all of it. Come take a peek.

Tea and Coffee

First up, let’s put the teapot on ice!

Tea Cream Ices

M A K E tea very strong in a tea-pot, have your cream ready mixt with the proper quantity of sugar and yolks of eggs, pass your cream through a sieve, pass likewise your tea over it, mix the whole well with a spoon, when that is done put it in the sabotiere (double pail device used to freeze ice creams) and make it congeal (freeze) according to the usual method. (Borella, 1772)

 Iced Water Green or Black Tea

Make a pint of strong fine green or black tea; put it in two pints of cream, with six ounces of sugar and five yolks; thicken it over the fire, strain, and when cold ice it. (a Lady, 1827)

Tea Cream Ice (Creme de The).

Prepare a teacupful of very strong tea, sweetened with 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar, and add this to 1 pint of custard or cream and finish as for other ices. (Marshall, 1888)

Coffee was one of the other luxury beverages of the regency era, which of course means that it was ripe for turning into ice creams. The first of the recipes would produce a rich, caramel flavored coffee—if one managed not to burn the mixture. The second would be a much lighter almost café a’lait kind of flavor.

Coffee Cream Ices

TAKE about a pint of coffee made with water, and rather strong, when settled draw it clear (strain out the coffee grounds), and add half a pound of sugar, set it on the fire, and let it boil till your sugar is to the ninth degree; (The caramel stage) take it off from the fire and let it cool, after which, you make your cream as we said, with the yolks of eggs, and put your coffee in,  then for boiling, sifting, and icing, proceed as usual. (Borella, 1772)

Iced Water Coffee.

Make eight cups of strong coffee, which will require half a pound; sweeten, and add to it fifteen cups of cream, with two or three yolks: thicken, cool, strain, and ice it. (a Lady, 1827)

Perhaps you’d like your coffee ice cream a little more luxurious. In that case, these might do. Emy offered similar recipes in 1786, but these are very similar and a little easier to replicate.

Coffee Mousse (Mousse au Cafe).

12 yolks of eggs, 4 whites, 2 large tablespoonfuls of castor sugar, 2 large tablespoonfuls of strong coffee, also a little coffee colouring or essence; whip over boiling water till warm, then take off and whip till cold, and add a teacupful of whipped cream; whip these well together. Put in a mould, and place in the cave to freeze for about 2½ hours. To turn out, dip the mould in cold water. Serve with dish-paper, or napkin on the dish. [Marshall, 1888]

Coffee Souffle” (Souffle au Cafe).

Take a soufflé dish and surround it inside with paper standing about 2 inches above the top, and put it into the charged cave to get cold. Take and whip over boiling water 12 raw yolks of eggs, 6 whites, 4 large tablespoonfuls of very strong coffee, 4 ounces of castor sugar, until like a thick batter, then remove and continue the whipping on ice till the mixture is cold; to this quantity add 2 teacupfuls of whipped cream; pour this into the mould, letting it rise above the mould to near the top of the paper. Freeze in the cave for 2½ hours, and serve in the mould with napkin round or in silver soufflé* dish.  [Marshall, 1888]

If something more delicately flavored is your preference, fear not that can be accommodated as well with some white coffee ice creams. In both of these offerings, whole coffee beans are boiled in cream, then removed. The cream picks up the coffee flavor, but remains very pale and delicate looking.

White Coffee Cream Ices.

PREPARE your cream as we have explained, take then a quarter of a pound of coffee in grain, which you roast as it were to make coffee with water; when roasted put it in a fine cloth, which you tye as a bag, and throw it quite hot in your cream; then set it on the fire keeping stirring till it offers to boil; take it off, pass it in a sieve, &c. &c. and proceed as usual for the rest. (Borella, 1772)

White Coffee Cream Ice: (Crime de Cafe blanche). very delicate

Take a quarter of a pound of fresh roasted Mocha coffee berries, and add them to a pint of cream or milk; let them stand on the stove for an hour, but do not let them boil; strain through tammy (sieve); sweeten with 3 ounces of sugar. Freeze and finish as for vanilla cream ice. (Marshall, 1888)

Biscuits

If you like biscuits/cookies with you tea, there is most definitely an ice cream for that.

The original cookies and cream

Cookies and cream is one of my very favorite ice cream flavors. It seems the idea originated with Emy in 1768. His book included recipes for a number of cookie ice creams in which the cookies, macaroons or biscuits were crumbled up and added to the basic cream mixture. That mixture would be cooked down to reduce the volume, then strained like nearly all ice creams of the day, before freezing. It seems silky smooth ice creams were the preference in the day, not the crunchy-chunky textures we enjoy today. Emy did suggest that just before serving, the ice cream be sprinkled with crunchy crumbs. It’s not hard to make the leap from there to the cookie and cookie dough ice creams we enjoy today. (Quinzio, 2002)

Biscuit Ice Cream.

BREAK six eggs into a stew pan and beat them well with a wooden spoon; add one pint of cream, the rind of one lemon, two gills of syrup and a little spice; boil it till you find it just thickens, stirring it all the time; crumble some Naples biscuits and ratafia biscuits; pass them through a sieve with the other ingredients, and put it in your freezing pot. (Nutt, 1772)

Bread

If you sandwiches are you preference for tea time, that too can be accommodated. You may find a recipe for cucumber ice cream to complete your sandwich, if you like. Should you prefer ham for you sandwich, never fear! We’ve got that covered too. Keep your eyes open for a ham ice cream recipe, coming soon! In the meantime, would you rather have rye bread or brown for your sandwiches?

Glace de Creme au Pain de Seigle

Emy (1768) appears to have been the first (and possibly the only) one to suggest an ice cream flavored with rye bread. Much as with the cookie ice cream, he added crumbled rye bread to a cream mixture, cooked it down, strained and froze it. Admittedly, it’s a little hard to wrap my head around what that would taste like.

Brown Bread Cream Ices.

TAKE any quantity of cream, prepare it as we said before, boiling it alone with yolks of eggs. and the sugar, pass it through a sieve and put it in the sabotiere (double pail ice cream maker); when your cream begins to congeal (feeeze), have crumbs of brown bread, which you have grated and sifted as fine as powder, put it in the sabotiere and continue to work your cream for congealing. You may also make this sort of cream with plain cream alone, without yolks of eggs, nor boiling, adding only a proper quantity of  powdered (extra fine, not powdered in the modern sense) loaf sugar, and set it up to congeal, and when it begins to ice, then put your sifted crumbs of brown bread. But take care to have it so finely sifted, for it renders it infinitely more agreeable to the mouth.   (Borella, 1772)

I envision this one tasting rather like a piece of lightly sweet brown bread with sweetened butter on top. Not a bad image over all, really. This one might be worth trying.

I’m not so sure about ham or cheese ice creams though, watch for those, coming soon!

For more on Ice Cream in Jane Austen’s World, click HERE.

Find Cookbook References HERE