Peach Ice

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Small heavy saucepan
• •Blender or food processor
• •Fine-mesh sieve
• •1½-quart ice cream machine or shallow metal freezing pan
• •Digital refractometer, optional

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the syrup

   Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Warm gently, stirring only until the liquid turns perfectly clear, then bring it to a quiet simmer for 1 minute. Remove it from the heat and cool completely. If crystals gather around the sides, add a tablespoon of water, cover the pan for 1 minute, and warm gently until they dissolve. Ça se rattrape.

2. 2

   Purée the peaches

   Peel and pit the peaches, catching every drop of their juice. Purée the flesh until completely smooth, then press it through a fine-mesh sieve and measure exactly 1 cup (240 ml / 250 g). Work promptly so the purée keeps its fresh colour. If the peaches fight the knife, smell of very little, or leave hard pale flesh around the stone, stop and choose better fruit; freezing will expose the weakness, not conceal it.

   Very ripe peaches often peel with a paring knife. If the skins cling, lower the whole fruit into barely boiling water for 15 seconds, cool it immediately, and slip off the skin without cooking the flesh.
3. 3

   Honor the formula

   Follow the governing preparation, Apricot Ice (No. 2761): whisk together equal measures of fresh fruit purée and cold syrup, then add the lemon juice. This home batch halves the source formula from 1 pint of each and 2 lemons to 1 cup of each and 1 lemon. Nothing else enters the bowl. The exact proportion is what gives the peach enough sugar to freeze tenderly while keeping the flavour clean.

4. 4

   Calibrate the sweetness

   The source pastry kitchen brought the mixture to 18° or 19° on its saccharometer. On a modern refractometer that is roughly 32° to 34° Brix, depending on the instrument's scale. Without one, chill a spoonful on a frozen saucer for 8 minutes: it should become softly slushy at the edge and taste slightly sweeter and sharper than you want at the table. If the reading is low and the sample freezes hard, dissolve sugar a teaspoon at a time in a little mixture; if it is high and remains syrupy, add water a teaspoon at a time. Fruit varies, and this small correction is precisely why the original measured.

   Do not judge the mixture warm. Chill the sample first, because a balance that tastes restrained at room temperature becomes dull once frozen.
5. 5

   Chill the base

   Cover the mixture and chill it for at least 2 hours, until thoroughly cold. A cold base freezes quickly and forms finer crystals; a warm one lingers in the machine and turns coarse. Stir it well before churning because dense fruit pulp settles.

6. 6

   Churn or stir-freeze

   Churn the cold base in an ice cream machine until thick, smooth, and softly mounded, usually 20 to 25 minutes. For the honest home equivalent without a machine, pour it into a shallow metal pan and freeze, scraping and beating it vigorously every 30 minutes for 2½ to 3 hours, until the crystals become fine and the mixture holds a soft scoop. The old salted-ice pail supplied constant movement; your whisk supplies the same grammar.

   Scrape the frozen edges into the softer centre each time. Those edges freeze first, and leaving them untouched is how large crystals take hold.
7. 7

   Harden and serve

   Pack the glace aux pêches into a chilled lidded container, press parchment directly against its surface, and freeze for about 3 hours. Let it stand in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes before scooping. If it has frozen into a coarse, stubborn block, soften it until a knife can enter, break it into pieces, pulse briefly in a food processor, and refreeze for 20 minutes. Ça se rattrape. Serve in cold bowls while the colour is bright and the texture yields easily. À table!

Chef Tips

• •A wall peach is not a separate variety. It is fruit trained against masonry that holds the sun's warmth, a practice celebrated around Montreuil. What matters in your hand is fragrance, yielding flesh, and juice at the first cut.
• •If good fresh peaches aren't available, unsweetened frozen yellow peaches picked ripe are more honest than hard fresh ones. Thaw them in the cold, purée them with their collected juice, and expect a quieter perfume.
• •Use yellow peaches for the warm coral colour associated with the dish. White peaches make a delicate ice, but their softer acidity may need a little more lemon after the chilled-saucer test.
• •Keep the finished ice covered with parchment touching the surface. It is most fragrant during its first 3 days, though it keeps for about a week.
• •For a picnic, pre-scoop the hardened ice into small lidded jars and carry them between deeply frozen gel packs in a hard cooler. Serve them on arrival rather than asking peach ice to endure an afternoon in the sun.

Advance Preparation

• •The sugar syrup can be made up to 1 week ahead, covered, and kept cold.
• •The peach mixture can be prepared and refrigerated up to 24 hours before churning. Press parchment against the surface to protect its colour.
• •Churn and harden the ice at least 3 hours before serving. For the smoothest texture, temper it in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes before scooping.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 150g)