Cederata: The Return

Remember citrus week and the insanely expensive cederata or citron ice cream? As we left it, I had a bag of sugar and grated citron peel slowly making cederata essence for a month. Today is the day that we find out how that went. 

Making the cederata essence 

Ingredients 

Finely grated citron rind (the yellow bit and a bit of the pith, the white bit, although this doesn’t grate easily - trust me!) 
Caster sugar 

You notice I have no weights; that’s because Nutt didn’t either; he said ‘allow for every quarter of a pound (of grated rind) two pounds of sugar’ … so multiply the weight of your grated citron rind by eight, and use that much sugar.

Method

1. Mix the grated rind and sugar together, so the rind is well mixed in and the sugar turns a pale yellow colour.

2. Place into a bag, squeeze it tightly and tie it to be as airtight as possible.

3. Put the bag into a pot - I used my stock pot - and compress the bag - I used a cake tin filled with heavy stones. 

4. Leave it for a month.

Using the cederata essence 

My first concern was, would it have gone mouldy? Sugar is considered a preservative at a concentration of 68% and over, this is how it works in jams; at nearly 89% sugar, cederata essence easily meets this criteria. However, that’s against bacteria, mould isn’t as susceptible to its osmotic properties. It didn’t look visibly mouldy and so I decided to risk it, but not all mould (or other deterioration) would be visible and if in doubt or if you’re someone more vulnerable, don’t eat it.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1QL2WjH0Kd1d5ogvyJR6hpAb70_65Zmhp

My second thought was, why did I leave it for a month? I was expecting it to have turned into a paste. It hadn’t, it remained sugar with some now slightly discoloured citron rind mixed in. I wouldn’t even say it tasted more citron-y than when it started, I tasted it at both ends of the process.

Ingredients 

(As usual, percentages are here to use, I made 800g)

243.2g single (19% butterfat) cream (30.4%)
287.28g whipping (39.5% butterfat) cream (35.91%)
181.04g cederata paste (22.63%)
88.48g lemon juice (11.06%)

Method

(I use a stand mixer and balloon whisk)

1. Put the creams and lemon juice in a mixing bowl.

2. Slowly whisk whilst gradually adding the cederata paste.

3. Continue whisking until sugar has fully dissolved.

4. Leave to chill for several hours, preferably overnight.

5. Rewhisk just prior to churning.

6. Sieve just prior to churning.

7. Churn according to your machine’s instructions, stopping at a soft serve texture.

8. Place in a container and freeze for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1qK1x6vfpaKgRMXk_5CB0z9ibq6_JBXjn
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1BaXza2YAHE1KROAwTPhUTPbYBxqmaU4K
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1m71lM5_jbXRR55w-tEvsqPpBOeoty2t2

How does it compare to the first cederata ice cream? Not as nice, in my opinion. It is a lot less expensive - you could do this with probably one, at most two, citrons - but it suffers for it. Because of the inclusion of the juice of three lemons (as per Nutt’s original recipe) it is a glorified lemon ice cream. I wouldn’t bother making this rather than a lemon ice cream, and that would save all the hassle of obtaining the citrons and making the cederata paste. If you’re going to make cederata ice cream, do it properly, as in use the first recipe, but in all honesty don’t bother; I did prefer the cederata ice cream to the lemon ice cream, but I doubt many people are going to taste the difference unless asked directly to compare them, and even when asked directly only about half of my testers guessed which one was which correctly. You’ll be equally happy with a nice lemon ice cream.

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