Free Regency Recipe: Apricot Ice Cream

A Regency Romance for Your Tastebuds (with modern freezer privileges) 

You may not realise how often Regency heroines flirt over frozen treats, but I do. You see, I’m ice cream’s most devoted admirer - and apparently, so are many of Jane Austen’s most refined characters. Ice cream, or “ices” as they called them before Haagen met Dazs, only sashayed into English society around 1718.

By the time Darcy was brooding in drawing rooms, it was still the culinary equivalent of a handsome stranger; mysterious, expensive, and absolutely swoon-worthy. Flavours, however, were... daring. Rye ice cream, for example, is the sort of experience best left to history. Fruit ices, however, became the ultimate luxury in Austen’s time, not only because of the delicate flavours, but because summer - when fruit was available - was also when everything melted faster than Marianne Dashwood’s heart. 

Since I like to imagine I’m the sort of person who could afford an ice house in 1813, here’s a delightful recipe from Hannah Glasse’s 1755 Art of Cookery Made Plain. They used moulds back then for serving, because nothing says “Regency elegance” like your dessert arriving in the shape of a pinecone or a miniature temple. 

Need more inspiration? There you go...

Ingredients: 

• 12 ripe apricots (romantically blushing) 
• 170g / 6 oz / ¾ cup powdered sugar 
• 470ml / 16 fl oz / 2 cups cream (luxuriously scalded) 

Regency Method (involving mortar, sweat, and social status): 

1. Boil your apricots like they just insulted your bonnet. 
2. Skin, pit, and pulverise them with a mortar, ideally while making eye contact with a footman. Add sugar and cream (the double refined kind - because obviously). 
3. Sieve, pour into a tin, and play Regency ice tetris.
4. Surround with salted ice in a tub. 
5. Stir occasionally, with gentle disdain. 
6. When thickened, scoop into a decorative mould and repeat the ice bath ritual. 
7. Let it chill for four hours while you embroider or fend off suitors. 
8. When ready, dip the mould in spring water (not tap, darling) and unmould with grace. 

Modern Method (for those lacking a scullery maid): 

1. Blend apricots, sugar, and cream like a sensible modern human. 
2. Freeze in a lidded dish. 
3. Stir every so often until it firms up like a hero’s jawline. 
4. Spoon into moulds, or eat it straight from the dish while bingeing Austen adaptations. 

Serves: 6-8 refined guests - or 1 shamelessly indulgent author (because some romances, like apricot ice cream, are meant to be frozen… and then devoured).