Apple Ice Cream, Mrs. Charles Gibson
Marietta Gibson dedicated an entire section to “Ices” in her irritatingly repetitive 1894 cookbook, “Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland And Virginia Cookbook.” In it, you will find recipes for grape sherbet; coffee ice cream; a ‘bisque’ ice cream filled with crushed meringues; several recipes for chocolate ice cream; a frozen punch spiked with champagne, rum, and maraschino; the unappetizingly named “Strawberry Acid,”; and more.
Ice cream in the 19th century was still somewhat open to interpretation. Whether its Mary Randolph’s infamous recipe for Oyster Ice Cream or the old-fashioned, fruit-cake inspired flavor combinations like Tutti-Frutti filled with currants, raisins, and candied citron, people were not as likely to hear “ice cream” and think chocolate or vanilla. Both of those ingredients were still somewhat luxurious.
Lemon ice cream is probably one of the most popular flavors found in my older cookbooks. This makes sense: Lemon Pie is the single most dominant dessert in my recipes overall. Lemons may not have been abundantly growing in Maryland, but a little lemon goes a long way.
The same could not be said of some of the fruits more commonly found here. This is what intrigued me about Mrs. Gibson’s “Apple Ice Cream,” along with the confident assertion that “This is a delicious dish.”
I suspect many of Gibson’s recipes to have been copied from other sources, but if not Marietta herself, SOMEONE declared Apple Ice Cream to be a “delicious dish.” I had to know if it were true.
The method is simple enough: “coddle” the apples by simmering them in sugar water (with optional lemon), pulverize the pulp, add sugar and cream, and freeze.
This eggless ice cream recipe is an example of the Philadelphia-style recipe popularized by Augustus Jackson, a free Black caterer and former White House chef who went on to vend ice cream in Philadelphia. (Note: There is an image that frequently accompanies stories about Augustus Jackson. It is a photograph of Catholic priest Augustus Tolton.)
There are many brief articles online mentioning Jackson’s influence on the ice cream business, but a thorough accounting is somewhat lacking. Culinary historian Sarah Lohman has a book coming out in 2027 that will remedy that with a more complete history.
I’m a fan of Lohman’s books, which share my own commitment to thorough research combined with practical everyday writing and sense of humor. (At least, I like to think I do those things.) I recently contributed to a Kickstarter to help wrap up “Ice Cream Land,” which will cover Jackson’s story along with others deserving of attention.
My Maryland database has four recipes for Apple Ice Cream. Two of them are contemporary to Mrs. Gibson’s recipe but contain raisins and spices. The other one is from a 1948 cookbook compiled by home economics teachers, and it at least has some nutmeg in it.
I checked with Lohman to find out if Apple Ice Creams got much traction elsewhere, and she shared that she had tried a recipe from Agnes Marshall, a British author who wrote “The book of ices” in 1894. Marshall, described by Lohman as an “ice cream maven,” who “loved new technologies.” As such, her Apple Ice Cream included “powdered & sheet gelatin [which] was a new innovation at that time,” Lohman told me, adding, “however, I think it makes the texture of ice cream real gross.” One of the risks we engage in is repeating past mistakes of adventurous chefs.
Aside from the unfortunate gelatin, Marshall included cinnamon and lemon peel in her recipe as well as a surprising addition: Bay Leaf.
Cinnamon or nutmeg would have been a welcome addition to Mrs. Gibson’s recipe, which was ultimately not as delicious as purported. Coddling is a gentle way of cooking apples. I think more flavor would be extracted if the apples were roasted, and cinnamon and/or nutmeg would further enhance the effect. I’m envisioning Apple Toddy meets Eggnog in ice cream form. Christmas in July.
Innovation has certainly returned to the world of ice cream in a major way. Hopefully the release of Sarah Lohman’s book next summer will inspire a wave of history-influenced creations from our modern day mavens of ice cream. Oyster Ice cream will almost certainly not be among them.
Recipe:
- .5 Gallons apples, coddled
- 1 pound sugar.
- 5 Gallons cream
“To half a gallon of coddled apples, add one pound of white sugar and half gallon of sweet cream; stir well and have it frozen hard. This is a delicious dish.”
Mrs. Charles H. Gibson’s Maryland And Virginia Cookbook by Mrs. Charles H. Gibson (1894). Page 121
