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Comment by mchanson | Hacker News Reader

I can almost guarantee that there was not 3/4c sugar used in the ice cream in the 17th century. Sweets were no where that sweet. They would have just used heavier cream instead I bet (since the sugar helps with texture in the lower fat modern ice cream recipes).

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Any idea what the fat content of cream would have been? I know they’ve got single/double cream in England and light/heavy cream on this side of the pond, but no idea what it actually is if you make it the old fashioned way. (Skimming the top off of cows milk?)

Taking all the visible cream from whole milk that has been left to stand and separate gets you 15 - 20% fat, depending on the breed of cattle and what they've been eating.

That's comparable to what the UK calls "single cream" (18%) and the US calls "light cream" (18% minimum, can be up to 29%).

You can increase that ratio considerably if you take off most, but not all, the cream.

It depends a lot on the animal, as well. We owned a couple different family cows; first a Dexter, whose milk barely had cream worth mentioning, and the cream was thin and light, almost like store-bought half and half. Then we had a beautiful Jersey, whose milk was about a quarter cream, the richest, fattest cream you could ask for. (I put on forty pounds while we owned that cow.)

You can get a very rich cream by simply skimming if you let the milk sit undisturbed for a while.

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