“½ cup of milk, 2 cups of sugar, 25 grams copha, 3/4 cup of coconut. How hard can it be to make coconut ice?” For the past few months a dedicated team of passionate and curious volunteer cooks have been testing out manuscript recipes from our families’ collections. One of the team, Paula Southcombe, reflects on one of the more challenging recipes:

I have cooked for years and am pretty proficient at most recipes and methods, but I have not however, ever cooked coconut ice before. Our manuscript ‘cocoanut’ ice recipe from the family collection at Meroogal gave a method by which these ingredients should be combined to form the delicious and attractive sweet called coconut ice which has been made in Australian kitchens for many generations.

A process of trial and error

Well, it has taken me four attempts before I have finally arrived with a method that is foolproof. Each of the first three attempts had a result which left our team wanting. One crumbly, one too smooth, one just plain unrecognisable as coconut ice. The method recorded in the heirloom recipe was not very specific, nor perhaps suitable for today’s stoves and cooking utensils. But our final attempt was smooth and very acceptable once we refined and re- interpreted the instructions.

The proof of the pudding… is in the making

You might think that this sounds like a frustrating experience, but I found it to be enjoyable at every level, being part of a small team of lovely people who share their knowledge of contemporary and colonial cooking. Each fortnight we have met at Elizabeth Farm to “test” the recipes found in a wonderful old handwritten cookbook. Some of the recipes have not always been the tastiest, most edible recipe, others surprisingly delicious and highly covetable. There are many cookbooks of today which will offer a better quality product, but that is not the purpose of the exercise. The process has allowed us to learn more about the way this 19^th century family cooked cakes and biscuits, the ingredients they used, and the methods by which they recorded and shared their recipes. From reproducing them, we get a good idea of the tastes of the day, interesting to compare with our modern palates and expectations. Cooks these days need a little more detail in the method than was often offered in a woman’s own personal recipe book. In this instance we have definitely found that the method of putting things together can “make or break” the success of a recipe.

At last, after four wonderful attempts, we are ready to ‘publish’ our successful method of combining the ingredients in this old recipe, while still retaining the integrity of the original, to produce a ‘cocoanut’ ice to be proud of.