Ices have been adored for centuries, either by kings on their feasting tables, or by working class folk from a ‘penny lick’ glass. They were moulded into various shapes; encased cake or fruit; were topped with chocolate, fancy sugar treats and meringue. Some prefer three different-flavoured scoops on their cone, some want plain vanilla and nothing else, nearly melted in a bowl.
The bill of fare for Charles II’s banquet course at the 1671 Garter feast, according to Elias Ashmole in The Institution, Laws, and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672), mentions ‘One plate of Ice Cream’ as one of the dishes for the sovereign’s evening table. This is the first record of the term ‘ice cream’ in England. However, the earliest English ice-cream recipe dates from about 10 years earlier and is by the hand of Lady Ann Fanshawe (who called it ‘Icy Cream’ rather than ice cream) in her manuscript recipe book of 1625–1680. This recipe predates the first recipe to appear in print in Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts from 1718 and is the earliest in the whole of Europe. Mary Eales’s recipe ‘To Ice cream’ had long been assumed the first English recipe before Lady Ann’s recipe for an ‘Icy Cream’ was discovered.
