In the hottest days of summer, we’d make ice cream. We had an old wooden ice cream machine—the sort that looks like it belongs in a scene out of The Music Man or Meet Me in St. Louis, with a silver hand crank and a spindly metal handle and a red medallion on the front that spelled out the words White Mountain. It held four quarts of ice cream: first you’d make the custard base, then pour it into a narrow metal canister which fit inside the wooden bucket. You’d pack the space between the canister and the bucket walls with ice and rock salt, then fit the crank on top and get to work.
As the ice cream slowly froze, the crank would get harder and harder to turn. I’d sit on the porch steps or out on the lawn with my sisters, swapping on and off when our arms got too tired. When it was ready, we’d scoop it into rectangular plastic containers and stack them in the freezer.
That ice cream was some of the best I’ve ever had—not because it would have held up again a pint of Jeni’s, say, in a blind taste-test among 100 strangers, but because of the novelty and adventure and sweat and excitement that went into it all. It tasted like summer and home and sweet cream; it wasn't just dessert, it was the smell of freshly cut grass and the sound of the bucket clinking when we went out with my mom to milk our Jersey cows and the sensation of sunburned skin and bug bites. It was freckles on the bridge of my nose and calloused feet from running around barefoot and fingers stained purple from berry-eating and quickly blanched sugar snap peas for dinner and hot humid thunderstorm weather and the polka-dotted cotton nightgown I wore to bed all summer.
That’s not to say it wasn’t excellent ice cream. It was. We made ice cream in three flavors usually: vanilla, chocolate, or Grape-Nut. The recipe for the vanilla or chocolate base, handwritten in my mom’s neat script, calls for milk and heavy cream and sugar and cornstarch, and comes from an old magazine article on classic Sicilian-style gelato.
The gelato tastes deeply of cream, so it’s imperative to use the best you can get your hands on. Luckily for us, that meant raw cream from our Jersey cows, which is one of the finest ingredients you will ever taste.
Gelato made this way—heavy on the cream (praise be for high milkfat content)—coats your tongue in a way store-bought ice cream never can. But the very best—and everyone’s favorite—was the Grape-Nut ice cream. For that version, we used an old Gourmet recipe that calls for…wait for it…six egg yolks, 3 1/2 cups of cream, 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1 cup of Grape-Nuts. So, obviously it’s good.
If you don’t know what Grape-Nuts are, I am extremely sorry on your behalf. (Unfortunately I have to report that they contain neither grapes nor nuts.) If you always thought of them as a weird fringe health food cereal, lower on the totem pole than Shredded Wheat, then you’ve missed out. They’re made with wheat flour and malted barley flour and have a fantastically nutty taste, and an intensely crunchy texture that stands up to a very long time sitting in milk. We’d pour milk, then heavy cream, over them which is the only way any of us should probably be eating cereal to begin with.
Because they don’t get soggy, you can steep them in a custard base and they’ll retain their crunch once the ice cream is churned. Anyone who has tried this flavor is won over by it. I’d rather eat Grape-Nut ice cream than any other kind, even mint chip, and that’s saying a lot.
Although I’ve already given you the rough recipe to make the ice cream, I’m going to go one step further, because I realize lots of people don’t have an ice cream machine and are far more likely to make a baked dessert. And I’m really trying to spread the Grape-Nut gospel here.
As it turns out, Grape-Nut desserts are a classic New England phenomena (gotta love those crusty Bostoners and their food traditions). If you search in old regional cookbooks (which I have), you’ll find references to both Grape-Nut ice cream and Grape-Nut custard and Grape-Nut pudding. All of which are, as a New Englander would say, wicked good.
Being such a fan, I had to try the pudding, which was actually published for awhile on the back of the cereal box starting in 1952. And it’s excellent! It has the same creamy texture and nutty flavor that Grape-Nut ice cream does, but also a comforting and cozy quality, reminiscent of rice pudding and bread pudding and tapioca and pudding cake all rolled into one.
(Secretly, because it gets its flavor from the cereal steeping into the dairy, I think of it as the O.G. precursor to all this modern cereal milk craze. New Englanders have been doing it for generations! We’re already cool!)
Grape-Nuts Pudding
Serves 4
1/4 cup (56g) butter
1/2 cup (99g) sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
2 eggs, separated
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons (15g) all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Grape-Nuts cereal
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (227g) milk
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 1-quart baking dish or four 6-ounce custard cups or ramekins.
Cream the butter with the sugar and lemon zest (if using) until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks and beat well.
Add the lemon juice, flour, cereal, salt, and milk. Beat until well-combined. It will look slightly curdled, but that's okay.
In a separate, clean bowl, beat the egg whites until they have stiff peaks.
Fold the egg whites gently into the batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish(es), and bake. If using a 1-quart dish, bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. If using ramekins, bake for 40 minutes. The pudding is ready when the top springs back when pressed gently. Serve warm or cold.