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Ever wondered what to do when you only have a cup of cream, a blob of ketchup in the bottle and three eggs? Personally, I would just make scrambled eggs and have a cup of coffee, but it turns out that with those ingredients you can also make a quick dessert!

This is Carnival Cream. Also known as Ketchup Ice Cream.

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Heinz Carnival Cream
Author: Mrs. Frank Flynn, 1959
Serves: 8-12
Ingredients
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup Heinz ketchup
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 Tbs Maraschino cherries
  • 2 Tbs toasted almonds
Instructions
  1. Whip cream until stiff. Fold in ketchup and vanilla.
  2. Beat eggs with sugar until thick. Fold into whipped cream mixture. Pour into individual molds or ice cube trays.
  3. Sprinkle with finely chopped cherries and almonds. Freeze until firm.

I know. I’ve shocked you speechless.

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Another shocking thing is that this recipe DID NOT come from the Heinz test kitchen, as you would expect. This is actually submission from a homemaker.  As part of their marketing campaign, Heinz paid $100 to anyone who sent in a recipe that they used in their advertising. She probably thought, cleverly, that the dessert section would have the least amount of entries and the biggest chance to be published, and she wanted to fill that void.

And boy, did she ever fill it.

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Cream, ketchup and vanilla.

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Is there anyone still out there reading this? You haven’t bailed on me yet, have you?

Completely random things often run through my mind while I am making a mid-century recipe, and this time was no different. All I kept thinking about was this poor woman’s family. I wonder how many versions of “Carnival Cream” she went through before she found one she liked? Any guesses?

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Just a quick note about the eggs: I didn’t add them raw. I combined the sugar and the eggs in the top of my double boiler and cooked them (stirring constantly, of course) until they reached about 160 degrees and I kept them there for three minutes and then let it cool before adding it into the ketchup cream. They were still liquid, although they had thickened a bit.

I’m all for accurate reproductions of recipes, but don’t use unpasteurized eggs.

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It actually ended up looking sort of pretty. It smelled terrible, of course, but didn’t look so bad.

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Even cuter! They would have been adorable tinted pink.

Except, you know, for the lurking ketchup.

“So, what’s the story with these?”

“Just take a bite and I’ll tell you.”

“Great.”

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“Why are you laughing?”

“This is really good.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“It tastes like cherry ice cream. Actually, it tastes like cherries in birthday cake ice cream. So, what’s in these?”

“Ketchup.”

“Holy crap.”

The Verdict: Delicious.

From The Tasting Notes:

Unbelievably, this is actually good. Thanks to the power of fat, sugar and maraschino cherries, you can barely taste the ketchup. It basically just tastes like cherry ice cream. Good cherry ice cream. And when you do get a bite without the cherries, the cream itself tastes sweet and mildly spicy, with more of the taste of cinnamon and cloves than tomatoes. We were actually so shocked that we ate a couple of them. And if Tom doesn’t get too sick to his stomach tonight, he is going to eat all the rest of them tomorrow.

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