Week Twenty-One: Royal

We’re back on a proper genuine Gunter’s recipe, for the first time in weeks! There is literally a recipe from Nutt called Royal Ice Cream. Quite what makes this one in particular royal I’m not sure, except it’s going to be very rich with a lot of egg yolks - the most I’ve seen in any recipe - and all the ingredients. Nutt wrote a second book called The Imperial and Royal Cook, although I’ve so far failed to find out whether Nutt ever was a royal cook or if he simply shared recipes that would have been well suited to the royal household. Ice cream was in good company there.

The first known mention of ice cream in England was for a royal banquet, and confectioners who knew how to get cream to freeze were valued. Ice cream was expensive, both for the skill taken to make it and the ingredients to make it. Sugar was expensive, vanilla was expensive, chocolate was expensive, and in none of the recipes did the confectioners seem to give much thought to using expensive ingredients which tells you everything you need to know about who ice cream was being made for: the wealthy. A pound of chocolate cost $0.393 in 1783; it’s difficult to exactly convert to modern day costs, but it works out as roughly $11.54 or £9.08 as of May 20th 2024. Nutt suggests using an ounce and a half of chocolate in his chocolate ice cream recipe, or about 85 British pence in modern money. That doesn’t sound a lot, but a labourer in 1800 Britain only earned £12 a year. That’s a fraction shy of £1260 now or, once all calculated, Nutt is suggesting spending 3.5% of the week’s money just on chocolate for a single ice cream. That doesn’t even take into account the eggs, sugar and cream. Ice cream was not for labourers. 

Royal ice cream

Ingredients

I’ve made the amount in Nutt’s recipe, but as usual use the percentages to make the amount you want; I’d suggest about 750g is a good amount.

280.02g single (19% butterfat) cream (22.91%)
297.99g whipping (39% butterfat) cream (24.38%)
180.77g egg yolk (14.79%)
68.36g egg white (5.59%)
359.71g syrup (50% water, 50% sugar) (29.43%)
33.69g orange flower water (2.7561%*)
1.76g mixed spice** (0.1439%)
(40.95g mixed peel, chopped into small pieces, 3.35% of total weight; you could make your own peel pieces, I didn’t, I bought mixed peel)
(24.08g pistachios, blanched and chopped into small pieces, 1.97% of total weight; to blanch pistachios, soak them in cold water in a frying pan or skillet for five minutes then heat until you can see steam, then rinsed in cold water and keep them in cold water as you remove the skins; it’s easy enough but time consuming)

* it’s a very specific amount even for me, just to make the maths work!
** the recipe calls for spices, which basically translates to ‘what you have that is suitable’ - things like cinnamon, mace, nutmeg… Basically mixed spice, or pumpkin spice

Method

1. Lightly beat the egg yolk and white together

2. Put all ingredients except the pistachios and mixed peel into a pan and heat whilst whisking constantly, until a custard is formed (when you can draw a line in the mixture on the back of a spoon)

3. Strain the mixture

4. Chill for several hours, preferably overnight; for best food safety use an ice bath to cool to 20C before putting it into the refrigerator 

5. Rewhisk just prior to churning

6. Churn according to your ice cream machine’s instructions

7. At just about soft serve texture, add the pistachios and mixed peel and allow it to be distributed throughout the ice cream

8. Put into a container and freeze for at least four hours, preferably overnight

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1jKdrBeY5u2bjdQ-D5zMTx4khIPWR-iIW

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1fWReQTrEAUoL5XTcLUxSwkT-_VKIblDC

Having made the ice cream, I wonder if it’s called royal ice cream because it looks like it’s bejewelled. It’s so pretty! The mixture was overwhelmingly orange flower water flavoured but that practically disappears in the final ice cream. The mixed spice comes through nicely in the end, and how much pistachio and mixed peel flavour you get depends on how much you use, Nutt didn’t give any instructions on how much of either to use (nor did he any for the orange flower water or mixed spice, I used amounts based on how much similar recipes use) so I just used the amounts that looked right. I do quite like it but there’s a lot going on, it’s a busy ice cream. But the flavours work well together, so it’s busy in a nice way. It’s also inspired me to experiment with a ‘royal’ base - would a coffee ice cream made in this way be better than a coffee made in the normal way? I don’t know, but I shall see and share.

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