Home Made Ice Cream (2015– )

[Jim D.]

Ruben,

An additional question:  I have noticed that the ice cream I have made with your recipe tends to melt rather quickly once served.  Is there anything I could be doing wrong to cause this?

 

Jim

[lesliec]

Since I started making my own gin a couple of years ago - here it is - I've really liked the smell of all the botanicals as they infuse in the base spirit before distillation, and wondered what ice cream flavoured with gin botanicals would be like.  So, finding myself on holiday and the season being summer, I've now found out.

 

Gin can be flavoured with ten or more different botanicals, but that seemed a bit excessive for ice cream so I stuck to a few of the basics - juniper berries, coriander seeds, cinnamon, cardamom and citrus zests.  The amounts were purely guesswork, but based more or less on the proportions I'd use for gin I went with a tablespoon of juniper, a teaspoon of coriander, three cardamom pods (all lightly crushed), a 5cm cinnamon stick and one strip each of orange and lemon zests in my standard base of 500ml cream, 250ml milk, 150g sugar and six egg yolks. I infused for about an hour in the milk, sugar and half the cream, then tempered the yolks and poured the mixture into the remaining cream through a strainer.  After it had cooled I put it in the fridge overnight and churned it this morning.

 

Early indications, straight from the Cuisinart, are promising.  The distinctive juniper smell and taste is there but not too strongly (if you hate the smell of juniper you're probably not going to be doing this anyway!), with quite a lot of influence from the citrus.  The real test will be tonight after it's firmed up properly in the freezer.  I shall report n due course.

[Ruben Porto]

On 12/26/2015 at 1:23 PM, Jim D. said:

I have noticed that the ice cream I have made with your recipe tends to melt rather quickly once serve

 

Fast meltdown is usually a sign of lack of emulsifiers in the mix. Have you reduced the amount of egg yolk in your mix?

[Jim D.]

2 minutes ago, Ruben Porto said:

 

Fast meltdown is usually a sign of lack of emulsifiers in the mix. Have you reduced the amount of egg yolk in your mix?

No, all measurements are according to your recipes.

[lesliec]

22 hours ago, lesliec said:

The real test will be tonight after it's firmed up properly in the freezer.  I shall report in due course.

 

It is now 'due course' (the next morning) and I'm happy to report the gin-botanicals ice cream was a great success.

 

It was perhaps a little sweeter than it needed to be, so next time I'll take the sugar down to 100g rather than 150, and (according to one taster) the cinnamon dominated.  That may not be a fault - cinnamon ice cream is great - but I'll dial that back a little as well.

 

But for me the predominant taste was juniper, just as it should be.  I'm marking this as a sucessful experiment, worth reproducing.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

9 hours ago, lesliec said:

 

It is now 'due course' (the next morning) and I'm happy to report the gin-botanicals ice cream was a great success.

 

It was perhaps a little sweeter than it needed to be, so next time I'll take the sugar down to 100g rather than 150, and (according to one taster) the cinnamon dominated.  That may not be a fault - cinnamon ice cream is great - but I'll dial that back a little as well.

 

But for me the predominant taste was juniper, just as it should be.  I'm marking this as a sucessful experiment, worth reproducing.

 

While I'm not sure how I feel about juniper in ice cream, if you reduce the sugar from 150g to 100g it will have a big effect on hardness.  Consider replacing a portion of the sucrose with trehalose, unless you want the ice cream harder.

Edited December 28, 2015 by JoNorvelleWalker
grammar (log)

[lesliec]

1 minute ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Consider replacing a portion of the sucrose with trehalose, unless you want the ice cream harder.

 

Thanks Jo.  Or just leave it on the plate a little longer before trying to eat it ... as long as I can get it out of the container with something short of a chisel.

[Paul Bacino]

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2015 at 3:04 PM, Ruben Porto said:

Hi there Jim!

 

There is indeed a recipe for salted caramel ice cream on the blog http://icecreamscience.com/homemade-salted-caramel-ice-cream-recipe/

I haven't had time to install a 'next page' button on my recipes page so you can't see all of the recipes yet. I'll be updating the blog over the next couple of months.

 

I'd recommend using the recipe and quantities from my vanilla bean ice cream recipe but follow the instructions on the salted caramel recipe for the caramel part.

 

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

All the best,

 

Ruben 

I made this stuff.. this weekend?  currently in the resting state.

 

I used an Induction Plate,  but kind of a pain!!  The settings were 140 and 180F  I did do a pretty good job @ the 160F/1hr containment.  Next time I think I will try my roaster or crock pot with my Auber  PID temp. probe  I did see the Kitchen aid thing.  But I was wondering if a chemist knew of a controlled hot plate with a beaker stirring device that might work.

 

Thanks  Paul

 

[Kerry Beal]

Any of these work for you?

Edited December 28, 2015 by lesliec
Fixed link (log)

[Paul Bacino]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

Any of these work for you?

 

Kerry,  ever used any of this stuff,  for cooking?

 

Paul

 

[Kerry Beal]

I happen to have one (surplus to the needs of the lab) with stir bars that I have purchased from amazon and some nice old beakers that were never used - and I have been known to use them. Haven't hooked them up to a PID however to keep a steady temperature.

 

K

[JoNorvelleWalker]

3 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

But I was wondering if a chemist knew of a controlled hot plate with a beaker stirring device that might work.

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/144208-home-made-ice-cream-2013–/?do=findComment&comment=1904794

[Paul Bacino]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/144208-home-made-ice-cream-2013–/?do=findComment&comment=1904794

 

Did you buy it  and try it  ?

 

1100 watts  doesn't seem to bad

 

Paul

[JoNorvelleWalker]

31 minutes ago, Paul Bacino said:

 

Did you buy it  and try it  ?

 

1100 watts  doesn't seem to bad

 

Paul

 

No, I went with the KitchenAid Precise Heat Mixing Bowl.

[Ruben Porto]

On 12/27/2015 at 5:06 PM, Jim D. said:

No, all measurements are according to your recipes

 

Hmm, interesting. Low overrun, or the amount of air incorporated into the ice cream, also contributes to fast meltdown. Which machine are you using and how long does it take you to churn a batch? You could try leaving your ice cream churning in your machine for another 5 minutes or so to increase overrun. You could also try increasing the egg yolks in the recipe to about 81g.

 

Let me know how you get on.

[Ruben Porto]

6 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

I made this stuff.. this weekend?  currently in the resting state.

 

I used an Induction Plate,  but kind of a pain!!  The settings were 140 and 180F  I did do a pretty good job @ the 160F/1hr containment.  Next time I think I will try my roaster or crock pot with my Auber  PID temp. probe  I did see the Kitchen aid thing.  But I was wondering if a chemist knew of a controlled hot plate with a beaker stirring device that might work.

 

Thanks  Paul

 

 

Hi Paul!

 

I use the IKA CMAG HS7 magnet stirring hot plate, which is very good, albeit expensive - http://www.amazon.com/IKA-3581201-Magnetic-Stirrer-Ceramics/dp/B00N52H6K2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451345649&sr=8-1&keywords=ika+hot+plate. There are some cheap used ones on e-bay that might be worth looking into.

 

The stirring bar does occasionally skip when making small batches so I do have to hang whilst the HS7 does its thing.

 

Happy to answer any questions. 

 

All the best,

 

Ruben

[JoNorvelleWalker]

There is a bit of a story to this:  a friend at work was retiring at the end of the year -- not sure exactly why as she is younger than I am.  Her boss announced well ahead that she was ordering a cake for the party.  What to do?  I decided to surprise and delight everyone with a batch of Modernist peanut butter gelato, which in the past has proved a hit.

 

But then I learned one of our colleagues cannot eat peanuts.  So I searched and searched and found a reasonable source of pistachio butter:

 

http://www.rejuvenative.com/pistachio-butter/

 

As well as oil.  With overnight shipping.  Yet defeat was snatched from the mouths of victory late the night before...when I learned that the promised cake had been supplanted by a cheese platter.  Pistachio gelato and jalapeno cheddar?  That is too avant-garde for me.

 

I had already prepared the mix.  This afternoon I spun it, and at the moment am enjoying a bowl of Modernist pistachio gelato by myself. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ruben Porto]

Hello fellow ice cream enthusiasts!

 

After 3 loooooong weeks of testing, I've finally posted a new recipe for coffee ice cream: http://icecreamscience.com/coffee-ice-cream-recipe/

 

I hope it helps!

 

All the best, Ruben 

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by Ruben Porto (log)

[EsaK]

A very basic question that I've been wondering after dozens of attempts at ice cream with various ingredients and techniques. Are there some basic elements that need to be in place for one to make ice cream that is scoopable right out of the freezer? For example I just made one batch from Gluten-Free Flour Power book, basically a nut brittle and an ice cream base of whole milk and guar gum. It looked nice when out of the ice cream machine, but then when it had sit in the freezer overnight it's like a block of ice that needs to be in roomtemp for 15min or so to get any kind of scoops. 

The same thing has happened with basically all batches with different recipes. 

[pastryani]

Hi Ruben and fellow ice cream enthusiasts!  I haven't delved into making ice cream at home yet but after reading this thread I'm sure I'll be experimenting soon.

 

Ruben I have a question about your salted caramel recipe:  is there a reason to not temper your eggs first and mix everything together from the start?

 

Second, is there a way to replace the egg yolks altogether, perhaps with liquid lecithin?  Has anyone tried that before and if so, what were the results?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

@EsaK it sounds like your recipe is relatively low fat.  As I've mentioned before, adding a bit of alcohol to the mix will make the ice cream softer.  Whether it will make it better or not is another question.

 

 

My most recent ice cream experiment was to see if I could scale down the volume of my mix for when I was making ice cream only for myself.  I used 600 g of cream, 72 g of sugar, 4 yolks and a pinch of salt.  Prepared as usual in the PHMB for one hour.  I could tell by looking at the mix that the reduction by evaporation was too much but I decided to continue on with the spin and hardening to see what happened.

 

I just finished the first bowl as I was writing this.  The texture was superb.  Incredibly smooth, very chewy and nice melt.  Hardness was just right.  However the taste was just too concentrated and sweet to be called perfect.  Apparently I need the larger volume of mix (based on a kilogram of cream) to make the evaporation balance out.

[mgaretz]

An alternative to alcohol is food grade glycerin.  When I use 16 ozs (liquid measure) I use 1 tbs of glycerin.

[paulraphael]

On February 7, 2016 at 1:33 PM, pastryani said:

is there a reason to not temper your eggs first and mix everything together from the start?

 

Second, is there a way to replace the egg yolks altogether, perhaps with liquid lecithin?  Has anyone tried that before and if so, what were the results?

 

Believe it or not, there is never a reason to temper egg yolks. It's a vestigial tail of old kitchen thinking. It doesn't offer anything.

 

There are many substitutes for eggs as emulsifiers. I haven't heard of people using pure lecithin, although it should work. The preferred non-egg emulsifier is usually a mix of mono-and diglycerides, probably because it's effective in minute quantities. Lecithin probably requires a bigger dose. 

 

Some people just use partially denatured milk proteins. This is what they do at Haagen Dazs and at Jeni's Splendid.  It usually means having a higher than normal percentage of milk solids (you can just add nonfat dry milk, but the industrial people use reverse osmosis to drive water off of raw milk). Then while cooking / pasteurizing, they keep the temperature at 75°C or a bit lower and cook for a much longer than usual time. I've experimented with this and haven't observed any textural changes, although it's possible that I'm not using as much milk solid content as they are.

 

Most of the ice cream I make uses 2 yolks per quart, which works well for getting the emulsifying benefits of egg without any intrusive egg flavor.

[lesliec]

3 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

Believe it or not, there is never a reason to temper egg yolks. It's a vestigial tail of old kitchen thinking. It doesn't offer anything.

 

I'm stunned, sir!

 

How do you avoid the 'scrambled egg' effect?  Or is there a bit of technique I'm missing (which is very likely, given my level of sophistication as an ice cream maker)?

[pastryani]

3 hours ago, paulraphael said:

 

Believe it or not, there is never a reason to temper egg yolks. It's a vestigial tail of old kitchen thinking. It doesn't offer anything.

 

Ka-boom (the sound of my pastry world collapsing!).  REALLY??  I too, am stunned and can't imagine not ending up with sweet scrambled eggs... I'll have to try this out!

 

3 hours ago, paulraphael said:

There are many substitutes for eggs as emulsifiers. I haven't heard of people using pure lecithin, although it should work. The preferred non-egg emulsifier is usually a mix of mono-and diglycerides, probably because it's effective in minute quantities. Lecithin probably requires a bigger dose. 

 

By mono-and diglycerides, do you mean some kind of additive, or is there an ingredient that contains this?

 

Thank you Paul for all the info!