Cucumber Ice Cream

Refreshing cucumber ice cream made with modern, non-toxic green food coloring

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City/Region: England

Time Period: 1885

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Agnes Bertha Marshall was quite the accomplished woman. She wrote cookbooks, invented and sold kitchen gadgets and appliances, ran a cooking school, and gave cooking lectures and demonstrations to crowds of hundreds. In her cookbooks, recipes often instructed the reader to use ingredients, equipment, and other recipes from her culinary empire. In the case of ice cream, she wrote two whole cookbooks devoted to the dessert, often suggesting the use of her patented ice cream maker, ice crusher, and ice cave.

This ice cream, though churned in a modern electric ice cream maker and hardened in the freezer, still turned out beautifully. It’s smooth and creamy, but refreshing at the same time. The cucumber flavor really stands out, and the ice cream is sweet without being overpoweringly so.

“Cucumber Cream Ice (Crème de Concombres)
Peel and remove the seeds from the cucumber, and to 1 large-sized cucumber add 4 ounces of sugar and half a pint of water; cook till tender. Then pound and add to it a wine-glass of ginger brandy and a little green colouring and the juice of two lemons; pass through the tammy, and add this to 1 pint of sweetened cream or custard. Freeze and finish as usual.”

— The Book of Ices by Agnes Bertha Marshall, 1885

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Ingredients:

• 1 large cucumber
• Heaping 1 cup (230 g) castor sugar, divided
• 1 1/4 cup (295 ml) water
• Green food coloring
• Scant 1/4 cup (55 ml) ginger brandy
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) lemon juice
• 2 1/2 cups (590 ml) cream

Instructions:

1. Peel the cucumber, then slice it in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Chop it into small pieces, then put them into a small saucepan with the water and half of the sugar. Cook it over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until it’s very tender.
2. Mash the cucumber until it’s as smooth as you can get it, then add the ginger brandy and green food coloring. How much of the food coloring is up to you and how green you want the ice cream to be. Keep in mind that you’re going to be adding a bunch of cream to it, so it will turn out lighter than it looks at this point. Stir in the lemon juice, then pour the mixture through a sieve.
3. Mix the cream and the remaining half of the sugar together. Stir this into the cucumber mixture. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
4. Serve it forth right away, or you can do as A.B. Marshall suggests and let it harden in the freezer, in an ice cream mold if you have one.

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