Home Made Ice Cream (2002–2012)

[Marmish]

Churn longer than you think it needs. I read somewhere the overrun takes place mostly in the last minutes of churning. I started letting my ice creams churn longer and they improved. Ditto on keeping the canister and dasher in the freezer and prefreezing the container you are putting it into.

[djyee100]

To be fair the 'Preparation' lines at the top of the recipe call for :"5 - 10 minutes, plus 2 hours for the strawberries to macerate. 20-25 minutes chilling time; optional 2 hours to ripen."

Is this the recipe? Sounds like it.

http://www.cuisinart.com/recipes/desserts/96.html

Darienne, I think your first impression is correct. The recipe doesn't clearly tell you to chill the mixture in the fridge, and it should. A line is missing from the body of the instructions. The Preparation notes at the beginning of the recipe are only a synopsis. It's not supposed to substitute for the instructions. Notice how the Preparation notes are missing from the online version.

Unless, of course, Cuisinart thinks that a mixture of strawberries at room temp, plus milk, sugar, and cream that have been warmed by beating with a mixer can still be frozen in this maker. I've never encountered a freezer container type maker that could do that--not without thoroughly chilling the ice cream base first. I would expect results like the OP's with this recipe.

[Darienne]

To be fair the 'Preparation' lines at the top of the recipe call for :"5 - 10 minutes, plus 2 hours for the strawberries to macerate. 20-25 minutes chilling time; optional 2 hours to ripen."

Is this the recipe? Sounds like it.

http://www.cuisinart.com/recipes/desserts/96.html

Darienne, I think your first impression is correct. The recipe doesn't clearly tell you to chill the mixture in the fridge, and it should. A line is missing from the body of the instructions. The Preparation notes at the beginning of the recipe are only a synopsis. It's not supposed to substitute for the instructions. Notice how the Preparation notes are missing from the online version.

Unless, of course, Cuisinart thinks that a mixture of strawberries at room temp, plus milk, sugar, and cream that have been warmed by beating with a mixer can still be frozen in this maker. I've never encountered a freezer container type maker that could do that--not without thoroughly chilling the ice cream base first. I would expect results like the OP's with this recipe.

Can you believe it? The online version is even worse than the printed manual's version. As I said...I never bothered with any recipes at all after making ice cream once. My first 'real' recipe was Alton Brown's Seriously Vanilla Ice Cream which is online...and I never looked back.

[weinoo]

I really think, and I'm sure the ice cream topics agree, that overnight chilling of the base makes for a better end product.

[Darienne]

Churn longer than you think it needs. I read somewhere the overrun takes place mostly in the last minutes of churning. I started letting my ice creams churn longer and they improved. Ditto on keeping the canister and dasher in the freezer and prefreezing the container you are putting it into.

Good points Marmish. I would add as a proviso to beginners to make sure that the mixture is not frozen to the sides of the cannister while this extra churning is taking place.

I don't know about the overrun time frame. I'll google it and see what I can find. I have seldom found the churning takes as long as the manual calls for...but then I always put my base into the freezer for a while before churning it. We live in a century farmhouse with no A/C in the kitchen, in the great frozen north's version of summer: hot and extremely humid. I think the humidity does us in.

[RobertM]

Everyone - thank you SO MUCH for your responses, we are going to reconfigure our process and make another batch this weekend - in fact, the freezer already has the unit in it, so, unless there is a major power outage, that thing will be COLD....

THANK YOU ALL

[Rick Mogstad]

A couple things I have learned in my first couple of batches of ice cream (just bought the ice cream maker attachment, so I am by no means an expert).

-Turn your freezer as cold as it will go, especially if you are using the one attached to your refrigerator.

-Chill the base thoroughly before churning, even if the book says "chill to room temperature or a little cooler"

-If you add room temperature sugared strawberries to what appears to be nicely setting up strawberry ice cream, it will turn into frozen strawberry soup in mere minutes. This is delicious, and on top of it can be re-churned into delicious strawberry ice cream the next day, after re-freezing the bowl.

-It's hard to eat a reasonable amount of ice cream when it tastes this good.

-Rick

[jayhay]

I've found adding alcohol to the base mixture helps keep ice crystals from forming. In the highly recommended book THE PERFECT SCOOP, David Lebovitz advises 3 tablespoons of vodka, rum, etc. to one quart of custard or sorbet, etc. to keep the mixture from freezing too hard.

[paulraphael]

All good advice. A few more thoughts:

-check your freezer temperature, both for when you chill the canister and for when you harden the ice cream after spinning. The colder the better. Below 0°F is ideal.

If you can get the canister this cold, you should be able to spin the ice cream in well under 15 minutes, depending on the quantity you're making. This will help keep the ice crystals small.

-check the temperature of the ice cream when you're done spinning it (the drawing temperature). This should be around 23°F.

-try your luck with a simpler flavor, like vanilla. Make sure you can get this right before venturing into fruit. Fruit flavors throw unpredictable amounts of added water and sugar into the mix, both of which can mess with your results from batch to batch. If you want to get serious, you can measure the brix of the mix ... basically the percentage of disolved solids. This will help you compensate for variances in your fruit.

-try some stabilizing ingredients, like commercial ice cream stabilizer, or gelatin, or a mix of gelatin and corn starch or gelatin and xanthan. These help improve (and adjust) texture and prevent ice crystals from forming during spinning or storage.

[RobertM]

Everyone

I printed out the topic discussion and followed most, if not all, of the advice given and thanks to you ALL there was a wonderful, non-icy batch of Strawberry ice cream created this past weekend - as usual, you folks on Gully are TRULY AMAZING and I thank each and every one of you -

[weinoo]

Jeez, we're so smart !

[Lindacakes]

Reminds me of a scene in Mother with Debbie Reynolds and Albert Brooks.

She takes a year old carton of ice cream out of the freezer and then removes the "protective coating" of ice . . .

[bigchef]

A few ago I made a large batch of french vanilla icecream at my restaurant. I cooked it for quite a long time to ensure the egg yolks where all cooked through. There was some light scorching at the end but not much. It took ages to churn as the AC was broken at the time. The flavour was so deep and rich. I can't figure out if the fats caramalised through the long cooking process (like baked milk), or the egg yolks cooked more than they should or what. I sieved it before I churned it of course. Any ideas on what might have happened? Maybe I should cook the mixture in a slow cooker for a long time on low? Then add the yolks?

[Tri2Cook]

I don't know what it was you loved about your ice cream but I'd guess that you're on the right track in relating it to the light scorching. There's a recipe in Francisco Migoya's Frozen Desserts for a burnt milk gelato that is incredibly delicious. I was skeptical going in but it's now one of my favorites. The (over)cooking of the milk really does do something special to the flavor.

[bigchef]

That looks like a promissing leaed. What about cooking milk and cream for a long period? What happens? Some of the water evaporates I know but what about the fats and the solids? Do they caramalise? What about the egg yolk? Do you think the long cooking time does something to its flavour / composition? Or maybe the long churning time?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Well, as a dulce de leche fanatic, I can tell you that the longer you cook milk with sugar in it, the more it caramelizes and the rounder and fuller the flavour gets. The egg yolk is likely being denatured by the longer cooking time, which will also affect the flavour (how exactly I'm not certain, as I can't just eat cooked eggs), and the long churning time will contribute to a better texture.

[djyee100]

You could consider what happens in cooking the Indian milk pudding, khir or kheer, which is basically milk, sugar, & flavorings slowly stirred & cooked for hours over low heat until it is reduced to a thick custard. The taste is amazing. It's not just cooked milk. I can't tell you what the science is, but you can't duplicate that rich flavor except with long slow cooking.

[Karri]

Maillard reaction, milk solids start to caramelize like making beurre noisette. You got any temperature details? And fat doesn't caramelize, per se.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

edit: Just remembered a vanilla ice cream I was making with the Thermomix, I put it in to pasteurize at 80 degrees Celsius and sort of... forgot about it as I was doing other prep work, and well long story short I put it through the PacoJet the next day and we all agreed that it had an amazing depth of flavor and it was just excellent.

Edited June 12, 2011 by Karri (log)

[Tri2Cook]

The milk in Migoya's recipe is cooked until the solids form a burnt layer on the bottom of the pan without sugar or anything else added. That all comes in after the cooking of the milk and ends up with a completely different flavor than a dulce de leche or anything else I've tried where the milk product is cooked with the sugar. I've never cooked a complete ice cream custard to the point you described but now I kinda want to just to check out the result.

[bigchef]

The icecream didnt have a burnt flavour per se. It was very deep and rich with nutty tones. It really helped bring out the vanilla. I do wonder about the egg yolk element though. Maybe I should try using the old crock pot on low for 18 hours or so. Maybe use just double cream? Or double cream and milk like before? I'm not sure whether to try it with the sugar and egg in it or add it later on. Problem is with the slow cooker I dont think there is all that much evaporation going on.

[bigchef]

Could someone please post Francisco Migoya's recipe for burnt milk gelato?

[butterscotch]

Has anyone tried this recipe : http://cannelle-vanille.blogspot.com/2008/11/brioche-burnt-milk-ice-cream-and.html

[bigchef]

That recipe requires adding some of the sugar first. I thought you had to add the sugar afterwards? Do you stir that milk while it cooks? Why only measure out some of the milk after it is cooked? What is the purpose?

[butterscotch]

I am not sure of any of those things, but searching further I foundout that it is indeed from Migoya's book.

I would think adding the sugar early helps with the caramelization, no? I would not stir unless I strained it later, I think I would skip it. And I am guessing that you measure out a certain amount of milk and use only that to continue the recipe with- as evaporation rates may differ. Anyway- It sounds awfully good to me. Will have to try this soon. Let me know if you do!

Edited June 12, 2011 by butterscotch (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Adding sugar at the outset helps with caramelization and can (depending on the type of sugar you use) also add some interesting dimensions to the flavour that wouldn't develop if you added it later. And yes, you want to stir the milk a bit, but not too much, because you do want a bit of it to stick to the bottom of the pot and develop the burnt caramel flavour.

I'm not sure about the measuring - it must be as you suggest, because evaporation differs.

Then again, I'm lazy and I just make this type of ice cream with dulce de leche.....