“How did they make old-timey ice cream?”

I continue to be fascinated by this Strawberry Festival poster, which I found in the archives room of my church a few months ago. As does The Five-Year-Old, who after hearing my explanation of why the soaring price of ice in 1890 could jeopardize an entire festival, asked, “How did they make old-timey ice cream, Mommyo?”

Poster for the Congregational Church of Needham’s 1890 Strawberry Festival. (Image: Danielle Jurdan)

My copy of The Original Fannie Farmer 1896 Cookbook includes several recipes for ice cream, but sadly no instructions for how one would actually go about freezing it. Marion Harland etal’s New England Cook Book from 1905 also includes lots of recipes, but no actual instructions on process.

So, how did they make ice cream in the days before automated ice cream makers?

Thank goodness for suite101.com. Their article on 1890-1920 Ice Cream Pudding Recipes is quite detailed on this point. Basically, to make homemade ice cream back in 1890, you would take today’s process and add a bunch of manual labor.

In other words, to make ice cream the old-fashioned way you:

1. Prepare fruit, nuts, and other ice cream mix-ins, and set aside.
2. Mix the liquid ingredients for the ice cream together in an earthenware jar.
3. Crush a bunch of ice and add salt to it. (1 part salt to 3 parts ice)
4. Put the ice and salt in a basin with plenty of room to hold the ice as well as your earthenware jar.
5. Cover the jar with a piece of cloth with a slit in it or with several layers of thick grease-proof paper. Carefully insert an egg beater through the slit in the cloth and/or paper.
6. Put the jar in the basin with the ice and salt. Let it sit for five minutes, then turn the crank on the egg beater slowly and steadily for a few minutes. Freeze to a mush.
7. Add mashed fruit, nuts and other flavorings when the mixture is half-frozen.
8. Keep stirring, increasing your speed steadily until the mixture freezes completely.
9. Once frozen, let the ice cream sit in the jar or a mold for at least an hour to “ripen.”

Suite101 includes a number of ice cream recipes, in case you want to try this at home. They sound interesting, but frankly I doubt our church’s Friendly Society would have served Irish Moss ice cream at a Strawberry Festival in 1890. They were much more likely to use something like these basic Ice Cream recipes from my 1896 Fanny Farmer:

Let me know if you do try this at home. I’d love to know how it turns out.

BTW: Although Agnes Marshall (1855-1905) included a recipe for an edible ice cream cone in her 1888 Mrs A. B. Marshall’s Cookery Book, ice cream cones didn’t become widely available until some time after the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. So for a truly authentic recreation, you’ll need to serve your 1890s-style ice cream in a bowl.

Related Links:

• • “How did they make old-timey ketchup?” A Caterpickles Investigative Report (Caterpickles)
  • “How could the price of ice jeopardize the entire Strawberry Festival?” (Once Upon a Time in Needham)
  • 1890-1920 Ice Cream Pudding Recipes (Suite101)
  • “How could the Friendly Society stage the 1890 Strawberry Festival when they’ve only been around 79 years?” (Once Upon a Time in Needham)

(Cross-posted at my historical blog, Once Upon a Time in Needham.)

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