Thomas Jefferson’s Handwritten Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

Anoth­er thing you can cred­it Thomas Jef­fer­son with — being the first known Amer­i­can to record an ice cream recipe. It’s one of 10 sur­viv­ing recipes writ­ten by the found­ing father.

Accord­ing to Monticello.org, ice cream began appear­ing “in French cook­books start­ing in the late 17th cen­tu­ry, and in Eng­lish-lan­guage cook­books in the ear­ly 18th cen­tu­ry.” And there “are accounts of ice cream being served in the Amer­i­can colonies as ear­ly as 1744.” Jef­fer­son like­ly tast­ed his fair share of the dessert while liv­ing in France (1784–1789), and it would con­tin­ue to be served at Mon­ti­cel­lo upon his return. By the first decade of the 19th cen­tu­ry, ice cream would become increas­ing­ly found in cook­books pub­lished through­out the U.S.

You can see the entire recipe for Jef­fer­son­’s vanil­la ice cream recipe here, and a read tran­script below.

2. bot­tles of good cream.
6. yolks of eggs.
1/2 lb. sug­ar

mix the yolks & sug­ar
put the cream on a fire in a casse­role, first putting in a stick of Vanil­la.
when near boil­ing take it off & pour it gen­tly into the mix­ture of eggs & sug­ar.
stir it well.
put it on the fire again stir­ring it thor­ough­ly with a spoon to pre­vent it’s stick­ing to the casse­role.
when near boil­ing take it off and strain it thro’ a tow­el.
put it in the Sabottiere[12]
then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. put into the ice a hand­ful of salt.
put salt on the cov­er­lid of the Sabotiere & cov­er the whole with ice.
leave it still half a quar­ter of an hour.
then turn the Sabot­tiere in the ice 10 min­utes
open it to loosen with a spat­u­la the ice from the inner sides of the Sabotiere.
shut it & replace it in the ice
open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides
when well tak­en (prise) stir it well with the Spat­u­la.
put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee.
then put the mould into the same buck­et of ice.
leave it there to the moment of serv­ing it.
to with­draw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turn­ing it well till it will come out & turn it into a plate

via @Biblioklept

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