"The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz on ice cream

[Deborah]

This week I wanted to make pumpkin ice cream which David doesn't have in his book so I tried one that came with the machine. It was not very good--very mushy and the flavor wasn't right. David if you have a good recipe for pumpkin ice cream please post it on your blog. Thank you again for an amazing book!

[John DePaula]

I think I'm hooked!   My husband loves Peanut Butter cups so here is David's Peanut Butter Ice cream with chopped up peanut butter cups in it. This was fabulous!

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That's just beautiful, Deborah!

[John DePaula]

Well, I took this week as a “domestic” one and experimented with some ice creams and sorbets. The flavors I played with this week were Kinako (mentioned in The Perfect Scoop) and Mesquite (mentioned recently on David’s site A Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe with Two Secrets ).

I had two starting points for the basis of these experiments: Chocolate Sorbet and the Philadelphia-style Vanilla Ice Cream.

Here’s what I made:

Kinako in the Philadelphia-style Ice Cream base I thought this one was a surprising success given that I didn’t really care for the base just after mixing it up. I used the same amount of Kinako as David used for his French Custard style version in the book. The flavor of Kinako is very subtle and peanutty. If you’re allergic to peanuts, this might well be an ideal substitute. Nice smooth texture. Delicious.

Kinako in the Chocolate Sorbet base This just didn’t work at all. Grainy and “annoying,” the flavors just didn’t meld. Blech! If I never taste Chocolate Kinako again, it’ll be too soon. Yuck.

Mesquite flour in the Chocolate Sorbet base Wow! I loved this one. (I can tell you that mesquite is soon going to make an appearance as my newest bonbon flavor.) A little smoky and sweeter than expected, the flavor blends well with dark chocolate. The texture on this one could have been better and I suspect that I might actually prefer a French custard chocolate base; more experimentation is needed. However, I’d certainly order this at an ice cream parlor even though it was a little “dusty.” Transcendent.

As an aside, I will say that I started out by reducing the sugar by 50% since the mesquite flour is somewhat sweet. Then I kept adding a little more sugar syrup, and a little more until I was back at the original 200g of sugar. Funny. That final addition of sugar just made the whole thing blossom; the mesquite really opened up. Love it!

Edited November 2, 2007 by John DePaula (log)

[Priscilla]

Last wknd. Ivan made the Philadelphia-style ice cream and swirled in the aforementioned fudge sauce plus salted caramel sauce. Just because it's my favorite flavor combination in ice cream. Sososo good. That Philadelphia-style base is absolute perfection.

Yesterday, he made the base again and we mixed in tiny frozen bits of cut up Milky Way minis left over from Halloween. Really good, but the commercial candy flavor was nowhere near as good as homemade fudge/salted caramel sauces, which I guess is only to be expected. However nobody was kicking it out of bed for eating crackers, neither.

Also the banana sorbetto gets made every time.

[Deborah]

Holiday dinners are perfect for homemade ice cream. For Thanksgiving I made a cranberry apple crisps served with Vanilla Ice Cream and warm caramel sauce. I also made a batch of the Cranberry-Orange Sorbet which was delicious.

For Christmas dinner, I tried the Eggnog Ice Cream, which was very good. My family loved it, although personally, I'd make it with less alcohol next time.

Edited December 30, 2007 by Deborah (log)

[MelissaH]

I've made two batches of ice cream in the last two days.

Yesterday, I did the lemon ice cream. I had Meyer lemons on hand, so that's what I used. Because so many of the recipes have been so tooth-achingly sweet as written, I started out with half the sugar in the recipe. The directions have you zesting the lemons directly into the blender, adding the sugar, and whizzing them together till both zest and sugar are fine. I couldn't get this to happen in my blender; the blades whirred around but didn't do anything to zest or sugar. I added the juice and then was able to get things moving. I added half-and-half and a pinch of salt, whizzed, and tasted. Much to my surprise, it was TOO tart. I wound up dumping in spoonfuls of sugar till it tasted right. After an hour in the fridge, it went into my ice cream maker. It got another hour or so in the freezer to firm up, and was perfect for after lunch.

Today, it was my turn for the malt ball ice cream. I made the custard base last night. Following Kerry Beal's advice, I started with half the sugar. And that was about right. Today, about the time our homebrewing session was wrapping up, I was churning ice cream. It's still in our freezer firming up a bit more, but what I licked off the dasher was marvelously decadent and worth doing again.

MelissaH

[Shelby]

Well, you guys finally pushed me over the edge and I ordered the book from Amazon (that one click shopping thing is addictive).

I can't wait to try the salted butter caramel ice cream!

[mukki]

After devouring a pint of Salty Caramel ice cream that I had shipped from Jeni's Ice Creams last year, I decided that it would be a lot cheaper to learn to make it myself. Since Jeni's ice creams don't contain eggs and I prefer a less rich ice cream, I turned David's Salted Butter Caramel version into a Philly-style ice cream by eliminating the eggs. I think it worked out rather well, except that the butterfat rose to the top of the mixture while it chilled. In retrospect, I should have run the mixture through the blender (rather than just whisk it) prior to churning it since there was a bit of graininess in the final product. Still, it's an excellent ice cream... and very close to Jeni's!

[LizD518]

After devouring a pint of Salty Caramel ice cream that I had shipped from Jeni's Ice Creams last year, I decided that it would be a lot cheaper to learn to make it myself. Since Jeni's ice creams don't contain eggs and I prefer a less rich ice cream, I turned David's Salted Butter Caramel version into a Philly-style ice cream by eliminating the eggs. I think it worked out rather well, except that the butterfat rose to the top of the mixture while it chilled. In retrospect, I should have run the mixture through the blender (rather than just whisk it) prior to churning it since there was a bit of graininess in the final product. Still, it's an excellent ice cream... and very close to Jeni's!

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That's so funny! I made the Saled Butter Caramel recipe from David's website this weekend because I was at Jeni's at the North Market when I was in Columbus last week and this is what I had! I had to see if I could make it as well. I loved the homemade version, but I did have a little trouble with it firming up, both when I churned it and in the freezer. The ice cream itself firmed up enough in the freezer, but it was loose enough that when the praline bits melted, it all leaked to the bottom of the container and made a gooey layer of caramel sauce on the bottom. Still tasted awesome though. Next time I might decrease the amount of sugar for the caramel by half a cup and see what happens

After reading this entire thread I HAVE to buy this book soon!

Edited March 12, 2008 by LizD518 (log)

[Soupcon]

Has anyone made this? http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2008...n_i_1.html#more

I am salivating just imagining eating this stuff and am on my way out the door to buy and icecream machine - not that I really neeeeeeeded one before - I do now. Wow.

[Jean Blanchard]

I haven't made the bacon ice cream yet but I agree, it looks really interesting. I will say that all of his recipes have been great. Let us know if you try it.

[LizD518]

I got the book and I just made my second batch tonight. Last week I made the Chocolate Sorbet witch was lovely. My only problem was that I didn't blend the mix so it came out a bit grainy. It was just me though, so not biggie.

Tonight I made the mango sorbet. Yum. I decided to add about a half cup of toasted shredded coconut at the last minute and it worked really well.

I hadn't used my ice cream maker in about a year because I had thought it just didn't work well enough, but I agree with whoever it was above who said that it is just the recipes that weren't working. I have noticed the difference immedately. Other recipes have formed a large amount of frozen solids on the outside and soft ice cream in the center of the canister. They usually froze into a solid brick after an hour in the freezer. These are much more evenly frozen when I take them out of the canister and don't freeze as solid in the freezer.

If this keeps up I will never buy ice cream again!

[jm chen]

This week I wanted to make pumpkin ice cream which David doesn't have in his book so I tried one that came with the machine. It was not very good--very mushy and the flavor wasn't right.  David if you have a good recipe for pumpkin ice cream please post it on your blog. Thank you again for an amazing book!

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I've made pumpkin ice cream by substituting pumpkin puree for the sweet potatoes in the book's ube-inspired ice cream recipe... taste was fantastic. (Texture was not good but that was because I overfroze the container... same thing happened on a different ice cream made the same day.)

Made my first custard base last night and am looking forward to churning it tonight. My husband brought home some honey from Patagonia so I made the lavender honey ice cream without the lavender, and will mix in some buttered almonds to add texture.

Made the sour cream-strawberry last week to use up some leftover sour cream and it was just wonderful. I usually find strawberry ice cream too sweet so the tang was perfect.

Also very successful: cheesecake flavor. SO easy.

[emmalish]

Made the sour cream-strawberry last week to use up some leftover sour cream and it was just wonderful. I usually find strawberry ice cream too sweet so the tang was perfect.

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Oh, that sounds amazing. I haven't made any of these recipes since last summer, but I've just cleaned out my freezer and suddenly have space to fill up. I usually go for the chocolate or citrus-y recipes, but I think I'm going to have to try this one.

[mukki]

Like another poster, I had problems with the chocolate peanut butter freezing too hard. I did use natural PB and I'm not sure if that had an impact. I like HD's chocolate PB a lot more -- it has a ribbon of soft peanut butter running through chocolate ice cream that's more to my liking.

Right now I have the Fleur de Lait base chilling in the fridge.

After that I might go with the Oatmeal Ice Cream -- man, that sounds so good! Oatmeal praline mixed into a brown sugar base (I'll be skipping the raisins).

[Aria B.]

Has anyone tried making ice cream sandwiches with either of the brownie recipes in David's book? I am in search of a good brownie ice cream sandwich recipe! Thanks.

Edited April 11, 2008 by Aria B. (log)

[emmalish]

I decided to make both the sour cream strawberry ice cream, and the Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream with fudge ripple and the salted caramel swirled in. I just made the two sauces. The fudge ripple? Amazing chocolate sauce. The salted caramel sauce? Oh. My. God. David, that is the most amazing caramel sauce I've ever had. Let me just say it didn't all make it into the fridge. I can't wait to try it with the ice cream.

[SondraG]

I decided to make both the sour cream strawberry ice cream, and the Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream with fudge ripple and the salted caramel swirled in. I just made the two sauces. The fudge ripple? Amazing chocolate sauce. The salted caramel sauce? Oh. My. God. David, that is the most amazing caramel sauce I've ever had. Let me just say it didn't all make it into the fridge. I can't wait to try it with the ice cream.

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Thanks for the review. We make the Philly Vanilly (and a coffee version) all the time here, but haven't tried the sauces. Nor have I tried the strawberry. But I will today, thanks again.

[Sam Iam]

After all of the great reviews, I ordered this from Amazon a few minutes ago. The new Kitchen-Aid ice cream maker is in the freezer, chilling. Now to list my White Mountain electric and several other makers to pay for lots of chocolate!, nuts, cream, etc!

[emmalish]

The salted caramel sauce? Oh. My. God... I can't wait to try it with the ice cream.

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Tried it. Phenomenal. I'm making more Philly Vanilly (hee!) right now to use up the rest of the syrups. I'll make the strawberry tomorrow.

[Alisuchi]

Just an FYI for those who might want to make a slightly "lighter" ice cream, but are wondering how the finished product may be affected...

I am not a fan of really heavy, creamy vanilla ice cream (my store-bought fave is Haagen-Dazs vanilla frozen yogurt, for reference), so when making the "Philly Vanilly" I used 1 c. heavy cream, 2 c. 2% milk. The finished product was not grainy or icy at all, but really allowed the vanilla flavor to shine through. It still tastes great with the fudge ripple and caramel, though

[John DePaula]

Just an FYI for those who might want to make a slightly "lighter" ice cream, but are wondering how the finished product may be affected...

I am not a fan of really heavy, creamy vanilla ice cream (my store-bought fave is Haagen-Dazs vanilla frozen yogurt, for reference), so when making the "Philly Vanilly" I used 1 c. heavy cream, 2 c. 2% milk.  The finished product was not grainy or icy at all, but really allowed the vanilla flavor to shine through.  It still tastes great with the fudge ripple and caramel, though 

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Thank you, Alisuchi! I've actually been wondering what would be the best way to lighten some of these - I'll make a note and give this a try next time I do the Philly.

[emmalish]

Me too, thanks Alisuchi!

[SondraG]

And another thanks for the tip on lightening. I just bought a second canister so we can give the ice cream maker a workout this Summer. So we need to cut calories (lol) where we can.

[Alisuchi]

I hope this works for everyone! I know everyone has slightly different tastes when it comes to flavor, texture, etc. but to me, it tastes like an improved version of HD Vanilla Fro-yo (which doesn't actually taste like yogurt, but I digress...) AND I don't feel so bad about having scarfed half the batch