Almond Cream

History

This almond cream is a recipe from Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife, first published in 1824 and considered the first regional American cookbook. As printed, it is a frozen dessert rather than a warm dish: 'Pour hot water on the almonds, and let them stand till the skins will slip off, then pound them fine, and mix them with cream: a pound of almonds in the shells, will be sufficient for a quart of cream—sweeten and freeze it'. It sits among the book's ice creams; the book 'contained the first ice cream recipe published by an American author'. Randolph's culinary reputation was formed in Richmond, Virginia, where she opened a boarding house in 1807, though much of the labor in her kitchen was done by enslaved Black women, whom scholars credit with significant influence on how she cooked. The record does not document an origin or lineage for this specific frozen almond cream before its 1824 appearance in print, and attaches no social-status meaning to it.

Ingredients

• 1 pound almonds in shells
• 1 quart cream
• sweetener

Instructions

1. Pour hot water over the almonds and let them soak until the skins slip off easily. Pound the blanched kernels fine and mix them thoroughly with the cream. Sweeten to taste and freeze.