Original Thomas Jefferson Ice Cream Recipe

The Original Thomas Jefferson Ice Cream Recipe

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 then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. put into the ice a handful of salt. put ice all around the Sabottiere i.e. a layer of ice a layer of salt for three layers. 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.

How The Thomas Jefferson Ice Cream Recipe Was Made

These early ice creams were laboriously frozen in a covered freezing pot
called a sarbotiere. These pots were often made of pewter, and they were
immersed in a finely crafted wooden bucket filled with chipped ice and either saltpetre or coarse rock salt.

The ice cream mixture had to be beaten by hand and poured into the sarbotiere, which then had to be agitated to freeze the cream. The method used was to hold the sarbotiere by its handle and rapidly swish it up and down in the bucket of ice water while simultaneously rotating it right and left in a strenuous wrist action that often had to be maintained for up to an hour. Not an easy process.

Occasionally, the semi-frozen ice cream mixture was scraped from the sides of the sarbotiere with a "houlette" or what the English called a spaddle, a small spade-like spatula with a long handle, and again beaten. It was a long and difficult process, but the results tasted delicious.

Because of the excessive time and labor involved in making ice cream and the requirement for a year-round source of ice, for many years ice cream remained a treat reserved for well-off families that had servants.

Thanks to today's ice cream machines, you can experiment with making ice cream using the Thomas Jefferson Ice Cream recipe, and you'll find it's an easier task than Jefferson experienced.

This was taken verbatim from the preserving food group @ yahoo groups.
If you'd like an easier method check out the recipes page above.