Darienne

I looked it up on search and on google and just got more enmeshed in too many answers to figure it out. Please tell me if it has many variants, if it is one thing, how you make it, why should you make it, etc. I'm learning as fast as I can........

Interesting that Darienne mentioned sugar above, I wonder if there is a direct trade-off between salt and sugar content in these products across regions. ← I have never thought about the salt content issue, although it is obviously critical to our health, but have been following the sugar issue for some years now. A friend brought us a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream a couple of years ago, and I found it not like our Canadian version. Talked to the folks at the Ontario Liquor Board and they explained that Bailey exports their product made with a different formula to Canada and the US, the US obviously having more sugar in theirs. And so on and so on. I am horrified by the salt content problem, although like probably the majority of folks on eGullet, we eat very few packaged foods. Hmmmm...I know also that the American standards for ingredient disclosure in foods are stricter than the Canadian standards...so who knows what we are ingesting in Canada even in basic ingredients.

Well, hello Valerie, I didn't realize that this was your very first post until I read Kerry's reply. Welcome to the most amazing forum that I have ever come across!!

Thanks. That makes it clear.

which may very well be quoted from Cookwise. Alternatively, if we can agree that custard style ice-creams are referred to as French ice cream, then that leaves NY style, Philadelphia style and American style as non custard based ice creams. ← Someone will simply have to write Ms Damerow a note.

Michael Laiskonis's blog is a treasure trove. He knows more about ice cream than anyone else I've encountered. The Alinea book also has some well-studied recipes and approaches. There's a French book that's supposed to be the holy grail of high end ice cream, but its price has so far put it out of my reach. Unfortunately, most pastry chefs seem to buy pre-blended stabilizer mixes. Undoubtedly the blends include well tested mixes of gums and other colloids. But I don't like the approach. It's like buying curry powder instead of mixing your own spices. It puts you at the mercy of a company's whims (what if they change the formula?) and it cheats you out of any opportunity to learn about the individual ingredients. I've been working it out on my own ... starting with basic home recipes like David Lebovitz's, and gradually tweaking them, with knowledge picked up here and there, to improve the flavor and texture. So far I've gotten pretty comfortable manipulating cornstarch, xanthan, and gelatin. I hope to get my hands on some other potions eventually. I doubt anything out there will magically create textures that I like more than what i get now, but some may well do a better job preventing ice crystal growth, or graininess with brown butter flavors, etc. etc. ← Thanks paulraphael for all the information. I'll look up Laiskonis's blog now.

I don't think I am ready to play with the big kids yet. I found LBG =locust bean gum...I guess I could get that...and CMC = carboxymethycellulose...OMG I have no idea of what that is. Nor do I understand: carrageenan = kappa + iota for low fat bases, lambda for full fat bases I do have a BA in ancient Greek going back many years, but don't know what the Greek alphabet is doing in this equation. Agar, gelatin, Xanthan, guar, carrageenan...I know these...and perhaps even sodium alginate, but the others are not in my sphere of knowledge at all. Aaarrgghh But thanks for try...

Hello Weinoo, I am a Philadelphia style ice cream aficionado. My favorite vanilla ice cream recipe is that of Alton Brown, 'Serious Vanilla Ice Cream'. 2 cups half & half and one cup heavy cream. I then add whatever flavoring or inclusions to that mixture, my favorite so far being an adaptation of DL's Orange and Szechwan Pepper Ice cream. Other variations have included adding candied this or that. One small point: although I can find no reference to New York style ice cream in DL, Gail Damerow in Ice Cream: The Whole Scoop, refers to New York ice cream as being a custard ice cream with eggs. I have to admit that recently I have turned to making ice creams/ gelati with cornstarch. Lower concentration of fat. You sound as if you are really barreling along with your ice cream making.

I was in our local Dollarama today buying timers...I keep dropping them...the last one in the current ice cream makings...and saw a lady walking out with her purchases put into a wire basket. It was rather attractive, the shape of a flower pot. And they came in various colors.

Somehow this cold dessert, ice cream/gelato, has become a new obsession. I am very interested in making said with guar gum or xanthan or the like. I'll google for recipes, but would greatly appreciate any directions in finding useful recipes. (This from a woman who scarcely ever ate ice cream since teenage years when my folks had a freezer plan complete with ice cream and I thought that ice cream was strictly from hunger.) Perhaps I'll have to start another ice cream/gelato thread... Thanks.

You certainly learn something new everyday on this forum. Add yixing pot to the list. Thank you, Wikipedia. At least, that's always a good place to start. Thanks for all the posts. DH is very happy about it. We just finished lunch, with a pot of Chinese Jasmine tea. Thanks.

What about baking soda?

I am not very practiced at any of this but I have now made ice cream/gelato about five times with cornstarch, including the last one, a Fresh Cherry Gelato which I pretty much messed up and had to go back and reheat it and add more cornstarch to it, and so far (knock on wood ) all the results have had NO grittiness and have had incredible smoothness in fact. I can't really describe how I 'cook it out', just mix it first with cold milk/cream and then do the pudding mixing sort of thing. Sorry.

My abject apologies. The teapot in question is NOT fifty years old...that's my other teapot and it's probably older than 50 years if it belonged to one of our sets of parents. The teapot we are using for Chinese tea is glazed, but it is one of those familiar Chinese designs with the translucent rice pattern in it which we bought about 35 years ago when driving to Toronto and into Chinatown was still a pleasure and not something to be done with gritted teeth and only when forced. The pot has a wrapped bamboo handle and I don't think it would withstand too many dishwasher trips. Back to the drawing board?

My teapot is very humble. It's a glazed ceramic teapot that we have owned for about 50 years...can't remember which Mother gave it to me. So far no mineral deposits in the teapot, just tea stains and my DH, somewhat of a cleanliness fanatic...although why he married me I can't imagine...doesn't think that a teapot with stains in it is clean. He'd take Comet to it if I would let him. Sorry for the shock. Otherwise he is wonderful.

Sad to say I have never tasted a macaron and indeed had never even heard of them until recently, but I have to say that you do make the most exquisite macarons. They are so perfect. Someday, maybe...

But what about the stains? I should note that our well water is very hard, with lime. All our taps are on softened water, except for the cold water in the kitchen. We do like our water, BTW. We have to run vinegar through our coffeepot every couple of weeks. Thanks.

DH and I have just begun to drink tea for the first time...Chinese tea with our Chinese meals...and I have no idea of how exactly to clean a teapot nor how often. All help gratefully received. Thanks.

My husband's macaroni and cheese reheated on the second day. He always makes enough for two meals and it's even better the second time around. I love the crunchy bits.

I'm not at all sure what your line of basketry is, whether gift baskets, formal or informal...what about plastic containers or even aluminum cooking containers that you can buy in the dollar stores. If you are filling them with dish towels and brownies, they might do the trick. If your containers could be more expensive...again I have no clear sense of your purpose...what about real baking pans? Just some ideas. I suppose that dollarama basins might be too large... Or what about the dollarama dishes...the bowls and such like...little trays. They are usually brightly colored.

A man of many strong opinions!

Maltodextrin is made from cornstarch. Hence, any ice cream that lists maltodextrin in it's ingredients has a form of cornstarch in it. Theresa ← Gotcha. Thanks.

This is one of those 'why didn't I think of that in the first place?' posts. I googled 'cornstarch gelato' and came up with more recipes than I could make in a year: cappuccino, Mexican chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, limoncello, ricotta, pistachio, etc, etc. Oddly enough, I have an Italian cookbook with a great number of gelato recipes and not one of them uses cornstarch. Is there any commercial ice cream or gelato out there made with cornstarch I wonder? I mean commercial as in a store... I know that many of you have the experience to just use this flavor or ingredient instead of that one...I can do that with spaghetti sauce, etc...but I am very unsure of myself in this new endeavor so I'll try the recipes once until I get it in my mind the theory behind making the different flavors. One thing I have yet to try at all, is to cut down on the fat content of the gelato to say 2% milk and see what happens. Today we make the Fresh Cherry Gelato in honor of the abundance of good cherries at the markets. And my DH loves cherries. Thanks all for all the help.

Adding a few tablespoons of cornstarch to an ice cream recipe instead of 5 or 6 egg yolks, while using mostly milk instead of heavy cream is of great interest to me. A number of obvious reasons spring to mind. I have made DL's Fleur de Lait and loved it and now today I made a recipe on Epicurious for Chocolate Gelato. And just my luck, while searching to ascertain whether there was a past thread on cornstarch in ice cream, I found the Fat Guy's thread on Gelato vs Ice Cream. A post by Krazed Mom said she had made the Epicurious chocolate gelato and tweaked it with added cocoa and vanilla. And so I did. With wonderful results. Has anyone else made any other cornstarch gelato or ice cream recipes which they would like to share? Any disasters / tips which we should all know about?

This post is two years old but I thought I'd try. Thank you Krazed Mom for your tweaking. I just made the recipe myself and thought...hmmm this is really lacking something, but I have so little experience that I am not comfortable tweaking some things. Then huzzah! I found your post, went back, pulled the mixture out of the fridge, tweaked it up, and yumm! what a difference! Thank you, mille fois !