Home Made Ice Cream (2013– )

[Bojana]

Why can't you first reduce the cream to the extent you want on high heat then mix with other ingredients and cook sous vide without stirring?

[Ruben Porto]

Hi Bojana,

The primary reason that I heat my ice cream mix to 71.4°C for 60 minutes is to reduce the water content, thereby increasing the percentage of protein in the mix. Protein in ice cream is a very very good thing. The second reason for heating the mix is to promote reversible protein denaturation, which improves texture. Heating the milk, or cream, above about 71.4°C will lead to irreversible protein denaturation, which is detrimental to the foaming and emulsifying characteristics of protein. This is why I wouldn't recommend reducing milk or cream on high heat.

I guess you could add skim milk powder to your mix to increase the protein content. This would make reducing the water content in a mix a little less important. You could then heat the mix sous vide to about 71.4°C to promote reversible protein denaturation. I haven't tried heating an ice cream mix sous vide before so I don't know whether it works.

Would be great to hear from anyone who has prepared an ice cream mix sous vide.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I could get you one of those - but it's been used in a medical lab!

In my youth I used to make ice cream in a lab. Having a freezer room was nice. I drank the lab alcohol too.

Tonight's question is about licorice. I pressure infused chopped licorice in hot milk in an iSi, with the intention of making licorice ice cream. The milk tastes horribly sweet from glycyrrhizin, and as to be expected smells rather like licorice. Dare I use it to make ice cream? We shall find out.

[Bojana]

Ruben,

Thanks for the explanation. My ice cream machine is broken, as soon as it is repaired i will try your method. I may put my cream in the 70C oven to let it evaporate, all that stirring just won't work for me, then i'll put the mix sous vide. Do you have an idea how much should i let the cream reduce?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Bojana, since Ruben is hopefully asleep at this hour, I will answer for him that his site says "about 32%".

Just now I finished cooking the following mix:

heavy cream -- 500 ml

licorice infused whole milk -- 500 ml

large egg yolks -- 6

sugar -- 80 gm

Kosher salt -- 1/8 tsp.

I was more attentive this time and the highest temperature was 160.8 deg F (71.6 deg C). The final volume was 850 ml. The mix tasted better than I'd feared, but somewhat weird due to the delayed effect of glycyrrhizin's sweetness.

[Nathalie]

I was going to suggest adding protein powder but then I saw that Ruben suggested milk powder instead, much better!

Wouldn't it be possible to instead of milk use another dairy product with more protein in it? There's a type of yoghurt over here in England with 9 grammes of protein / 100 g which is a lot more than normal milk. I guess it'd affect the flavour though.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I just finished two large bowls of the licorice ice cream. I am surprised at how good it is. It does not have the funny taste I reported for the mix, though there is a residual sweetness after one stops eating. The texture is not quite as silky as the vanilla I also made by Ruben's method, probably because there is less fat this time and much less sugar (to account for the glycyrrhizin). Fortunately the total sweetness is just right for my taste.

I wonder if I could play with the parameters of extraction and get less glycyrrhizin and more paeonol and ambrettolide?

[jrshaul]

I made canteloupe sorbet. The first draft was done with Alton Brown's recipe substituting all the sugar for invert sugar (I was interested in finding what would happen - it retarded freezing, but not completely.)

For the second batch (not pictured.), I juiced the melon and added 0.5g of guar gum to about a quart of liquid. It was much smoother. I also omitted the lemon juice and used ascorbic acid instead. It's very good, though 12oz sugar to 27oz liquid is a bit sweet.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I have now read Jeni's Splended Ice Creams at Home, that Bojana mentioned. Jeni uses cream cheese, corn syrup, and corn starch in her mix. No eggs. I didn't follow Jeni's recipe -- for one thing I don't have corn syrup without HFCS that she specifies. But I made a batch of peach ice cream using cream cheese in the mix, with the following recipe:

Frozen Peaches -- 280 gm

water -- 50 ml

heavy cream -- 500 ml

sugar -- 140 gm

cream cheese -- 113 gm (4 oz)

vanilla paste -- about a teaspoon

almond extract -- 1/4 teaspoon

I cooked the frozen peaches in water to give about 225 ml fruit mixture. I processed this with heavy cream, sugar, and cream cheese, added almond extract and chilled over night. Next day I stirred in vanilla paste just before spinning. The mix was the texture of soft serve even before adding to the ICE-100. I was pleased and surprised that the ICE-100 would even handle a mix so firm, but once I gave the dasher a push by hand, it worked just fine. I spun for 15 minutes and hardened in the freezer for about 12 hours.

It tastes OK. It is a frozen dessert, though I'm not sure I would call it ice cream. The taste and texture is that of a cream cheese cake with little bits of peach. Not a bad cheese cake either, but not quite what I was hoping for. Certainly not what I would call peach ice cream. For one thing it doesn't melt. Somehow I doubt Jeni uses cream cheese in her commercial ice cream. On the positive side, it is not icy at all.

Disclaimer: I was not following a Jeni recipe and this strange result should not reflect on Jeni or on Jeni's book.

[lesliec]

Jo, I'm interested in your liquorice ice cream. I had a fantastic one in a restaurant several years ago but my own experiments haven't come close.

Can you expand on making the infused milk? How much liquorice, how long, heat?

Thanks,

Leslie

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I used about 30 gm chopped licorice root. The brand is Frontier. The milk was about 60-70 deg C. (I did measure the temperature, but with an old analog thermometer.) I put the licorice and the warm milk in the iSi, pressurized, and let sit for about 30 minutes. I then strained the milk before adding to the creme anglaise.

I pressure infused in the iSi because I had the iSi. If I do this again I plan to leave the licorice in the creme anglaise while it cooks for an hour. Different flavor components of licorice are more or less soluable under different conditions. Alcohol infusion might get more flavor. My ice cream had a nice licorice taste without being overwhelming.

What were your experiments?

[lesliec]

OK, thanks - not sure if I can get liquorice root here, but there's some people I can ask.

My 'standard' ice cream method is to bring the milk, sugar and half the cream to a simmer with whatever I'm using for flavouring - fresh ginger has been a great success recently - then leave it to infuse for an hour or so. I bring it back up to a simmer, temper the egg yolks and pour into the other half of the cream. Then an overnight sit in the fridge before churning. It works very well, but for my liquorice experiment I used a commercial sweet/soft liquorice. It nearly worked, but the texture was odd - too much glycerin, or something.

[Bojana]

Jo,

Jeni's original recipe does not taste like cheesecake at all, it uses much less cream cheese than you used so that may explain the weird taste. I have made at least 10 different recipes, maybe more and all turned out great. Dark chocolate one had a deep and rich chocolate flavour without being too sweet (for my taste) and my absolute favourite was brown butter and almond brittle. Sugar plumped fruit recipes are good but can be sweet.

I cannot wait my machine to be working again!

[rlibkind]

I can't puree canteloupe as fine as I'd like in my cheap food processor. Any solutions for this short of a Vita-Mix?

A blender works better, but in either case I would then use some elbow grease and strain through a chinoise.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

A blender works better, but in either case I would then use some elbow grease and strain through a chinoise.

I think a tamis would be easier than a chinoise.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Jo,

Jeni's original recipe does not taste like cheesecake at all, it uses much less cream cheese than you used so that may explain the weird taste. I have made at least 10 different recipes, maybe more and all turned out great. Dark chocolate one had a deep and rich chocolate flavour without being too sweet (for my taste) and my absolute favourite was brown butter and almond brittle. Sugar plumped fruit recipes are good but can be sweet.

I cannot wait my machine to be working again!

I just got up from the computer to go find Jeni's book, forgot what I was doing, and came back with a bowl of ice cream instead. But now I have her book in front of me. I agree I did not give her book a fair try, so after dinner I prepared a batch of Ugandan Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (pages 148-149) as accurately and as close to the recipe as I could.

I hope it does not violate any rules to list the ingredients:

2 cups whole milk

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out, seads and bean reserved

I had to make some substitutions: Kosher salt for fine sea salt, Karo for light corn syrup, and NM Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Bean paste for the Ugandan bean.

The mix is chilling now.

[rlibkind]

A blender works better, but in either case I would then use some elbow grease and strain through a chinoise.

I think a tamis would be easier than a chinoise.

I'm sure you're right, but I don't have one...

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I'm sure you're right, but I don't have one...

I confess I have not used mine since two ice cream makers ago. However it is wonderful for raspberries!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've now had two bowls of the Jeni's recipe vanilla and can report. It may sound like damning with faint praise but it was better than I thought it would be. It scooped readily. Consistency seemed appropriate for ice cream. I could not tell that it was made with cream cheese. Melting was as I would expect. I believe I could detect cornstarch in the taste (but then I enjoy eating pastry cream). The finish was clean. Sweetness was more than I care for, but probably about right for normal people.

The major defect was a slight iciness. Perhaps a limitation in my equipment, though not a problem I have had with other recipes. A pinch of xanthan gum would probably cure the iciness, and that way the cornstarch could be omitted.

And of course, as you have guessed by now, I prefer a richer tasting ice cream.

[ChrisZ]

Yes, I know it is not quite 2013 here in New Jersey but after a long period without an ice cream maker I am back to making ice cream and would enjoy a discussion of recipes and technique.

I've just skimmed through this thread and was surprised that no-one has mentioned 'Frozen Desserts' by Migoya. It's a popular book - perhaps not as obvious as 'The Perfect Scoop' - but it's quite industrial/scientific in it's coverage of recipes and ice cream categories and the use of ratios, and judging from your in-depth discussion I think you would enjoy it.

I had a cheap domestic ice-cream machine many years ago which wasn't much more advanced than the ice/salt buckets used centuries ago. I spent a lot of time and eggs trying to find a way to make lovely soft ice cream at home that didn't freeze into a hard block or have an icy texture. I kinda concluded after a few years of casual experiments that the recipe wasn't nearly as important as the machine. I think ice cream is one area where it's OK to blame your tools!

So my opinion is that if you have a cheap ice-cream machine, I don't think there's much point worrying about the exact temperature the base is cooked at, I think you're facing an uphill battle to begin with. The most important thing to do is get an ice cream machine that isn't complete rubbish.

More recent demonstrations by those with access to liquid nitrogen (or dry ice) tend to agree- the faster you can freeze the stuff the better it will be. Have you tried to source any liquid nitrogen or dry ice?

I've mentioned this before in other ice-cream threads, but part of the reason I bought 'Frozen Desserts' was the hope that it would contain a holy-grail like recipe for ice cream that would have the perfect texture even if made in a cheap domestic ice-cream machine. Unfortunately Migoya basically concluded that the best way to make ice-cream is in a Pacojet, which is fine if you have a few thousand dollars to spare but not much help if your ice-cream machine is at the crappy-christmas-stocking-filler end of the range.

BTW- Pacojet is the answer to LancasterMike's question about success without sugar. It sounds like you can freeze pretty much anything and a Pacojet will turn it into perfect ice cream, but they cost a lot...

[Ericpo]

- I can't puree canteloupe as fine as I'd like in my cheap food processor. Any solutions for this short of a Vita-Mix?

jrshaul, have you ever tried an immersion stick blender? I'm a huge fan of home made sorbet, and I swear by mine. It makes the whole process so much easier, and easier on cleanup too. You can blend, mix, and chill, all in one bowl(I use glass). It also makes it easier to chase down those stray bits that are a little chunkier than one would like.

My favorite immersion blender is the Cuisinart Smart Stick CSB-76 - Hand blender - 200 W. It is a workhorse, and very attractively priced at around $30.

Hope this helps!

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I've just skimmed through this thread and was surprised that no-one has mentioned 'Frozen Desserts' by Migoya. It's a popular book - perhaps not as obvious as 'The Perfect Scoop' - but it's quite industrial/scientific in it's coverage of recipes and ice cream categories and the use of ratios, and judging from your in-depth discussion I think you would enjoy it.

I had a cheap domestic ice-cream machine many years ago which wasn't much more advanced than the ice/salt buckets used centuries ago. I spent a lot of time and eggs trying to find a way to make lovely soft ice cream at home that didn't freeze into a hard block or have an icy texture. I kinda concluded after a few years of casual experiments that the recipe wasn't nearly as important as the machine. I think ice cream is one area where it's OK to blame your tools!

So my opinion is that if you have a cheap ice-cream machine, I don't think there's much point worrying about the exact temperature the base is cooked at, I think you're facing an uphill battle to begin with. The most important thing to do is get an ice cream machine that isn't complete rubbish.

More recent demonstrations by those with access to liquid nitrogen (or dry ice) tend to agree- the faster you can freeze the stuff the better it will be. Have you tried to source any liquid nitrogen or dry ice?

I've mentioned this before in other ice-cream threads, but part of the reason I bought 'Frozen Desserts' was the hope that it would contain a holy-grail like recipe for ice cream that would have the perfect texture even if made in a cheap domestic ice-cream machine. Unfortunately Migoya basically concluded that the best way to make ice-cream is in a Pacojet, which is fine if you have a few thousand dollars to spare but not much help if your ice-cream machine is at the crappy-christmas-stocking-filler end of the range.

BTW- Pacojet is the answer to LancasterMike's question about success without sugar. It sounds like you can freeze pretty much anything and a Pacojet will turn it into perfect ice cream, but they cost a lot...

Chris, Frozen Desserts was suggested by gap in post #7. I have Frozen Desserts on its way to me via interlibrary loan (annoyingly our library does not have a copy of Frozen Desserts, though we do have Migoya's Elements of Dessert). The current ice cream book I'm reading is Ice Cream 6th edition, Marshall et al. The 7th edition of Marshall is being published this month.

I tend to agree with you about the importance of hardware, not only of the ice cream maker itself but of the freezer used for hardening. For better or worse $233 was more than I should have spent, and I don't know of anything better than the ICE-100 without spending a lot. My previous machine was a Kitchen Aid that was more than $1000, and the ICE-100 is superior on all counts. Liquid nitrogen sounds like a good way to go, but I have not investigated liquid nitrogen beyond checking the prices of dewars! But I wonder, what would be the next step up from what I have without getting into the prices of a Pacojet?

Edit: what machine do you use, if any?

Edited January 20, 2013 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Respin: I wasn't happy with the batch I made from Jeni's recipe. For me iciness in ice cream is a fatal flaw. I melted it down and used my Kitchen Aid immersion blender to incorporate a tiny pinch of xanthan gum (sorry, I do not have a mg scale). I also added more cream. (I like cream.) And I added more vanilla to hopefully cover up the cornstarch taste. Forgive me for not having been more scientific with the measurements.

To my taste the recipe is much improved. It is very good Philadelphia style ice cream. Though having grown up in Philadelphia I don't think people put cornstarch in their ice cream, nor xanthan gum for that matter.

The respun ice cream is still quite scoopable. And very easy to eat. Does it compare with the batch of vanilla I made by the icecreamscience method? No. On the other hand it was not a debilitating amount of work to make.

On an almost completely different subject, I've been reading Giorgio Locatelli's Made in Italy. What should I come upon when I reached page 566 but a recipe for gelato alla liquirizia! Locatelli uses 45g licorice root powder rather than chopped licorice root.

[Bojana]

Reading Jo's experiments promoted me to think about my own experience. I did not experience any iciness in the Jeni formula and I was using a crappy 20 EUR freeze overnight machine. What perhaps does make a difference in my case is the freezer - mine is at -30 C.

What do you guys mean when you say "readily scoop-able ? What I do when we want to eat ice cream is move ice from -30 freezer to -18 freezer for about 12-24 hours, then leave it outside 5-10 mins before serving.

Recently I've bought 2nd hand stella musso pro machine and then managed to break something while cleaning it. Now my father in law will repair it when he finds some time, cannot tell you how excited I am to have it and to start playing with ice cream again. This thread is really tormenting me right now.

[Darienne]

I have a question about cornstarch in ice cream...which is what I use.

What are folks tasting when they say...'I don't like the taste of cornstarch in my ice cream'. Apparently I can't taste it nor can anyone else who has eaten my ice cream and I have asked.

Now when folks say...'I don't like the taste of eggs in my ice cream'. I do understand. I don't like the eggy taste in ice cream either.

But what about the cornstarch taste? I might add that I wasn't raised on cornstarch puddings if that's of any consequence.

Thanks.