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My go to ice cream base, the Chefstep Creme Fraiche ice cream, also comes out a bit crumbly after one spin in the Creami. Even at the light Ice cream program. The main reason is that one spin isn't enough to raise the temperature to the recipe's ideal serving temperature. Interestingly, the Pacojet (4) seems to emulsify the same ice cream base at a slightly lower temperature than the Creami, bur I have not done the measurements to document this, so it's just based on conjecture at the moment. For the sake of better scoopability, I usually spin the Creme Fraiche ice cream base twice in the PJ4 also. In the PJ, the number of portions you spin also affects the post spin temperature. Similarly, a recipe which requires two light Ice cream cycles for the perfect result with a full pint in the Creami, might need three spins if you only have the pint half full I actually made the modernist pistachio gelato about a week ago. I used the Chefstep version however to take advantage of their recipe scaling tool, but that is practically identical: I only spun 3.2 portions in the PJ. Slightly powdery after one spin. Two spins was probably enough to make it scoopable, but in order to mimic the flat surface seen post spin here: I opted for a third spin. The result was excellent, but ideally, it could probably go back in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to stabilize the temperature before scooping/plating.

Savory application will have to wait for another time and a base with slightly lower sweetness level. I did include a leek element however. As for the smoking, the initial base I made tasted absolutely horrible, so I didn't even bother to freeze it. Instead, I made a plain base which I flavored with the previously smoked base. In the end, I ended up using only 45g of the smoked base 😄 (could have used a bit more though): Smoked creme fraiche ice cream served with roasted hazelnut crumble, fluid gel made from sous vide leek stock (not visible in the picture) and pickled carrot tartare. This has the potential of a really interesting dessert, but it needs a few revisions. The smoke needs to be more pronounced, but without becoming acrid and overwhelming, like the 100% smoked base did. The carrot tartare could also need some minor tweaks (more acid and sweetness). To be continued once I figure out the smoke flavour and how to balance it...

Smoking is probably not what the OP had in mind when this topic was created, but since it is a type of infusion, it's at least somewhat related to the topic 😄 I just prepared a juniper needle smoked batch of the CS creme fraiche base recipe I've been using. This is the first time I've smoked anything, so I'm probably way off on the amount of smoke, but I guess we'll see how the flavour develops over night and in the freezer before I spin it. I smoked the complete ice cream base in the blender, so it should be relatively easy to adjust the intensity of the smoke flavour if this one is too strong or subtle. Has anyone had any success with smoked ice cream and suggestions on what to pair it with? My inspiration for trying this is the amazing smoke flavour of the cream emulsion in a starter I had at Restaurant Kontrast in Oslo about a year ago, so I may try to pair the ice cream with pickled root vegetables... https://www.instagram.com/p/CzL7xGyiM2w/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

I've posted my attempt to recreate the flavour of restaurant Maaemo's Brown Butter ice cream before, but here's an improved version: As usual, I've used the Chefsteps Creme Fraiche ice cream recipe as a guideline, but with a few major changes to accommodate for the fat in the browned butter. 45g Sucrose 51g Glucose powder 33DE 22,5g Skim milk powder 263g Water 54g Brown butter (heated to 130 Celsius with added skim milk powder) 1,1g Locust bean gum 1,5g Salt 150g Creme Fraiche 5% fat LBG was hydrated with water, butter and the other dry ingredients sous vide, then blended with the creme fraiche. The flavour of the brown butter in combination with the tang from the creme fraiche is absolutely amazing by itself, but the pairing with the roasted hazelnut "crumble" (hazelnuts, golden syrup and salt) really takes it to another level 😀 Disclaimer: I didn't actually spin this in the Creami, since I decided to give myself a PJ4 as an early Christmas gift about a month ago 😁 but the result in the Creami should be more or less identical...

I've made a few iterations of this since last time, including a control batch identical to the trehalose free version posted above. The control version was a bit too dense/sticky for my liking, and I couldn't make the quenelles release cleanly from the spoon. I'm guessing this may be caused by using the creami vs churning. Less aeration perhaps? It could perhaps also be the inulin I'm using: Sosa inulin hot. Mixing the two batches - approximately 3/4 control and 1/4 my original adaptation solved the scooping issue i experienced with the control batch: My favourite compromise of flavour release, sweetness and scoopability has been this however: 112.5g Boiron Strawberry puree 498g Clarified strawberry juice 25.5g Inulin (Sosa inulin hot) 33g Dextrose 57g Glucose powder DE42 22.5g Erythritol 1.5g CMC 0.75g Guar gum 0.75g Lambda carrageenan 0.75g Salt 2.5g Malic acid @paulraphael Have you considered Flaxfiber as an alternative/addition to this approach to sorbet? Seems to have very interesting properties and applications, not only for sorbets:

I've had this happen once myself (but just barely visible). Do you remember which processing mode you used when this happened? For me it happened when I selected the ice cream mode instead of light ice cream, which I normally use. My theory is that the reduced rpm and shorter processing time of the ice cream mode resultsled in excessive torque on the spindle when it was used in conjunction with a hard and/or cold ice cream mixtures.

I've not been able to source trehalose here in Norway, so I've just tried a version of your trehalose-free version in the Ninja Creami. To work around the somewhat dull colour of the Boiron strawberry puree I had available, I made two changes to the recipe: Puree replaced 1:1 with clarified strawberry juice with brix 9.2% (made in the Spinzall) and water replaced 1:1 with strawberry powder to reintroduce some (?) of the solids I lost because of the clarification. Finally, acidity was adjusted with a couple of grams of malic acid. I have not calculated PAC/POD and freezing point for this version, but the mouth feel and scoopabiliy was absolutely spot on after one spin in the Creami on the light ice cream setting, and the flavour was pretty close to perfect too, so thanks a lot for the recipe 😀 Next time, I'll probably try to reduce the sweetness a fraction without altering the total amount of solids. From the left-over strawberry juice, I also made a strawberry "creme anglaise". The sauce was good, and presented the strawberry flavour in a contrasting texture and temperature to the sorbet, but as a complete dish, the sauce and sorbet were just too similar in flavour profile...

Chefsteps presented this technique as a hack in the following recipe a few years ago: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/aerated-peanut-butter-brittle Considering the price tag on a chamber vacuum sealer, you may want to consult your machine's producer before you try it, but I would be very surprised if a "power outage" in the middle of a vacuum cycle would affect a vacuum machine negatively.

If your machine can't be programmed to run an extended vacuum cycle, as seen in the vide linked below, you could try to unplug your machine's power cord as soon as it has reached the desired vacuum level (before the seal and repressurization step). The stop button will usually just skip to the next step in the vacuum cycle.

Norway is correct 🙂 I don't mind the seeds when I pick them straight into my mouth (or if I don't have enough left for a reasonably sized vacuum pouch), but in a dessert, they should definitely be removed.

I pick them and make it myself: My cloudberry fluid gel is a mix between a cloudberry sauce/coulis I've made and improved upon for years and the Chefsteps fresh orange fluid gel recipe: https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/fresh-orange-fluid-gel The ingredients of the granita I made yesterday was identical to this, with the exception that gellan and xhantan gum was substituted with 2.5g gelatin, and I also omitted the salt. The granita was OK, but unlike the fluid gel, it needs more work, or maybe I just served it too cold?

I love the artistic flair of your plating, @EnriqueB. Lots of inspiration there, and your flavour combinations sounds intriguing too 🙂 I REALLY need to figure out a way to run ICC on one of my Linux computers soon. If not, I guess I'll have to invest in a cheap Windows tablet just for ICC... Here are a couple of my latest experiments by the way: Pineapple sorbet Adapted from the MC sour rhubarb sorbet recipe. 407g Boiron Pineapple puree 56g Glucose powder DE42 16g Sugar/sucrose 1,5g Salt 3g Citric acid (to taste) Everything added to blender for a quick blend before filling the Creami pint and freezing. The texture and flavour of the sorbet were both spot on. The toasted coconut milk curds (latik?) and pineapple caramel needs tweaking however. I should also have used a flavourful liquid when I compressed the fresh pineapple, but I didn't have anything available at the time. Today, I did a test of our Christmas Eve ice cream, which I prepared a triple batch of earlier this week. Thyme infused Creme Fraiche ice cream Served with vanilla panna cotta, cloudberry granita (will be replaced with cloudberry fluid gel on Christmas Eve for better flavour release) and honeycomb tuile. The ice cream base is as usual the Chefsteps creme fraiche ice cream, which has been infused (sous vide) with fresh thyme for 20 minutes at 80 degrees Celsius. A big thanks to @paulraphael for the inspiration and ratios for the infusion. Unlike the pineapple sorbet, the thyme ice cream was not a hit with my nephew and niece, but it's one of my absolute favourites, and as a bonus, the flavour pairs really well with cloudberries 😀

Approximately, somewhere along the west coast of Norway...😋

I got lucky and caught the back end of a decent Boletus edulis "fruiting" about a month ago. Ended up with over 2 kilograms, including a few bay boletes (Imleria badia), which was a first for me 🙂 Not that I really need more boletes now, but I'm hoping for a second fruiting later this month or early October.

I'm really looking forward to see what you'll make with your Creami, Mars. Once I'm done with the mushroom foraging season, I also have to have a proper look at your IG 🙂 Between fly fishing and vacation trips, I've not had much time to make ice creams. I finally gathered all the ingredients (minus freeze dried strawberry powder) and the time to make the complete Modernist Cuisine sour rhubarb sorbet dish. Both the salad and the gazpacho tasted great, but I feel that they didn't work 100 per cent together with the rhubarb sorbet. Sorbet made with Fulton's strawberry surprise rhubarb. Good flavour, but the texture was a bit too sticky. I think maybe the length the rhubarb stems are cut before you sous vide them impact the amount of pectin you end up with after the straining step? At least I've had my best result when I cut the rhubarb in 2-3cm pieces. I also made a strawberry version of the blueberry/creme fraiche recipe I posted back in March: Good flavour, but the highlight of the dish is definitely the pairing of strawberry and roasted pumpkin seed praline (hidden under the fresh strawberries), which I've tried to recreate from a strawberry desert I got at restaurant Kontrast in Oslo two years ago. Lastly, I found over 2 kilos of cep/penny bun/porchini mushrooms (Boletus edulis a couple of weeks ago, so naturally, I had to try to make a mushroom ice cream.... As usual, I used the CS creme fraiche recipe as the base, and modified it with cues from this grilled cep ice cream recipe from El Celler de Can Roca: http://www.lomejordelagastronomia.com/en/dishes/grilled-cep-ice-cream-0 I made two batches. This one is without the deglazed pan juices and had a very clean, fruity and distinct cep flavour. I skipped the caramel, smoke and confit cep caps from the El Celler de Can Roca recipe, but together with an almond crumble (100g peeled and roasted almonds, 2g salt, 68g Scandinavian dark syrup) and pickled chanterelles, it was simply amazing 😀 The pickled chanterelles were made following Mikael Svensson's recipe, and aged for three years in the back of the fridge... I can't link directly to the translation, but if you copy the link to https://translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&op=websites, you should be able to get a decent translation of the recipe: https://www.dn.no/smak/sylteskolen/smak/mikael-svensson/sopp/-sopp-blir-bedre-jo-lenger-den-star-pa-glass/2-1-679891

I didn't have PX vinegar at hand, so I used oloroso sherry vinegar instead, which I sweetened and diluted a bit with sugar syrup and gelled/thickened with ultra-sperse 3. I liked it, but I had to use it sparingly to not overpower the ice cream. For this pairing, it would probably be a better match to make the fluid gel from PX and/or PX vinegar, so I guess I'll have to try that once I make the next batch of coffee ice cream in the fall/winter. As far as I could tell, it didn't affect the texture, so you're probably right that it's unnecessary to strain out the coffee speckles.

I finally had the opportunity to test the MC Sour Rhubarb recipe as written, with the straining step done before blending. It clearly made a difference, resulting in a much lighter and less creamy sorbet. The texture was easier to scoop (less sticky) - training/experience and a better spoon helps too - but as far as mouth feel goes, the perfect balance might be somewhere in between the two extremes. I have another batch in the freezer where I used a slightly coarser sieve (and a different type of rhubarb), so the experiments will continue...

I never had the time to make the dish I envisioned, and the Pedro Ximenez fruit glass ended up as a (very tasty) fruit leather which didn't make the plate. So the coffee ice cream ended up with a simple pairing of dark chocolate crumble and sherry vinegar fluid gel: The accessories needs work, but at least the ice cream tasted great and had a wonderful texture. The only thing I would change in future iterations, is to strain the ground coffe before infusion, as the grinder I have access to made some powder which went through the sieve I used when straining the infused mixture. I don't think it affected the flavour or texture though, so it's just a visual refinement. I used the light ice cream program + one respin in the Ninja Creami by the way. That made the ice cream perfectly smooth, but a bit too warm. After approximately 20 minutes in the freezer, it had the right temperature and consistency for quenelling though 🙂 When I use this base recipe in the future, I might experiment with a drop of polysorbate 80 to increase resistance to melting a bit.

If I use a heat sensitive flavoured liquid, like blueberry juice, with the CS creme fraiche recipe, I only hydrate the LBG in the milk and sugars, and add the flavoured liquid during the blending (homogenizing) stage. If I use sous vide to hydrate the LBG, I often include the creme fraiche in the vacuum pouch as well, but I'm not sure if that makes a noticeable difference.

That's amazing! For others, like me, who don't know French, I managed to track down the recipe (including a helpeful video showing the process and the final consistency of the batter) on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/100052198772871/videos/bonsoir-à-tousjespère-que-vous-avez-passé-un-bon-week-end-de-pâques-ce-soir-je-v/221215442525859/ That made it possible to translate the whole thing in google translate: English translation of recipe I'll give the recipe to my mom and see how it turns out

I'd have to find a good gluten free recipe for that to be an option, and I don't think I have the time to spare for that this time of the year. I'll keep it in mind as an option for future coffe ice cream pairings though. The Spinzall 2.0 preorder on top of a huge tax bill has left little room for extra expenses these last couple of weeks, but that's taken care of now, so I just ordered a few different oloroso sherry/PX bottles. If I get them early next week, I should be able to make a couple of different sherry elements and try them together with the ice cream next weekend. A fluid gel is still on the table, but this could also be a good opportunity to finally test Eddie Shepherd's Fruit Glass recipe:

It's still possible to preorder, but it looks like the goal of 500 units sold has been reached. Can't wait to get my hands on it and start to experiment. Hopefully, the time-frame with expected delivery by the end of the year holds true 🙂

Thanks for that. Now I just have to stumble across another patch in a location with no (obvious) risk of contamination. The fully grown ferns are relatively easy to identify, so with a bit of luck, and strategic planning of where I go fly-fishing/mushroom foraging during the summer/early fall, it should be possible to find a location for future fiddlehead foraging.

What's your favorite way to prepare/use the fiddleheads, @Senior Sea Kayaker? I've been looking for a place to forage fiddleheads locally for a few years now, but I've only identified it in two locations, and unfortunately, both of them are questionable for human consumption because of close proximity to agricultural activity ☹️ If only male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas), which is found everywhere here, was edible too...

The scale and reduction by weight feature is the main reason my interest was peaked when I stumbled across the Njori Tempo recently, but the sous vide circulator attachment might be interesting for people who doesn't want/need a dedicated immersion circulator: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/njori-tempo-a-smart-cooker-for-adventurous-chefs#/