Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[blue_dolphin]

On 5/22/2022 at 6:52 PM, Kerry Beal said:

I had noticed in the 2008 Starchefs presentation that Kriss Harvey suggested you could freeze in pint deli containers and just pop them in the Pacojet beakers. Since everything in Pacojets literature says you can't do that - I decided to drop Kriss a line and confirm. And indeed he said it was fine - just make sure that the empty beaker is straight from the freezer (essentially you use hot water to coax the base out of the deli container and putting the wet around the edges chunk sticks it down nicely to the ice cold beaker. So much for the no empty air spaces you must avoid since there is empty air all around!

 

Over in one of the Facebook Creami groups, someone wanted to make up a bunch of flavors but didn't have access to extra beakers.  He reported using plastic bag-lined Creami beakers to freeze the mix and just storing it in the bags, freeing up the beakers.  He did roughly what @Kerry Beal describes, running a bit of warm water over the bag, pulling off and sliding it into a cold beaker for spinning.  He showed a photo of his freezer with stacks of different mixes, frozen and ready to go. 

He was using a relatively lightweight bag that came on a roll and conformed nicely to the beaker.  I'd think a heavy weight bag might form folds that would make it difficult to get the bag off. 

I don't really have the freezer space for that, although it is more space-efficient than storing in the beakers, but I can see it being handy for some purposes so I figured I'd mention it over here. 

[Smithy]

@Kerry Beal and @Anna N often quote the adage that to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

 

Well. 

 

Thanks to this topic I have semifreddo on the brain, and somewhere recently (not in these forums) I've seen a no-churn red (rhubarb? berry?) fruit ice cream or sherbet that looks really good. Naturally I want to use the CREAMi to make it. is that counterproductive?*

 

BTW I really like the plastic bag idea @blue_dolphin mentions above. Since I now have 5 pint jars I probably won't need to resort to it, but it's a good one to tuck away for future reference. I'll have to make more freezer space, though!

 

*It probably IS counterproductive. I ask you: does this make sense in a CREAMi? Or this? But they sure look good! And I want to play with the CREAMi!

Edited June 22, 2022 by Smithy
Updated the post (log)

[Smithy]

Ah, I found the sherbet recipe, not on these forums: No-churn Hibiscus Sherbet, from Kitchn.com. I bet I could use the CREAMi on it. Whaddaya think?

[Kerry Beal]

2 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Ah, I found the sherbet recipe, not on these forums: No-churn Hibiscus Sherbet, from Kitchn.com. I bet I could use the CREAMi on it. Whaddaya think?

Yup - but I might adjust the SCM because it makes it no churn by making it softer - and you want a bit harder. 

[jimb0]

hmmmmmm looks like the creami is on sale in canada for $170 for the next week or so

[palo]

Just now, jimb0 said:

hmmmmmm looks like the creami is on sale in canada for $170 for the next week or so

Where?

 

p

[jimb0]

amazon, crappy, and best buy, i've seen so far

[palo]

Amazon says: "Usually ships within 1 to 2 months"

Bestbuy says: "This will be delivered as early as tomorrow."

Canadian Tire actually has 3 in stock (Orillia) - sale ends June 30

 

I guess you know where to shop 😁

 

p

[ElsieD]

9 hours ago, palo said:

Where?

 

p

 

Canadian Tire.

[mgaretz]

Made a peach sorbet with a can of peaches in heavy syrup, blended and 1 tsp of Paul Raphael's stabilizer blend and 1 tbs of vegetable glycerin.  Came out very smooth and quite tasty.

 

 

 

 

[cdh]

Have you taken a brix reading on the sorbet base?  What is the target for a sorbet with a nice texture?  North of 30? 

[mgaretz]

2 hours ago, cdh said:

Have you taken a brix reading on the sorbet base?  What is the target for a sorbet with a nice texture?  North of 30? 

 

No.

[Kerry Beal]

 

 

 

 

Version 2 of the Underbelly Strawberry Sorbet.

 

Replaced the small amount of water with lemon juice and added a small quantity of sucrose to the other sugars. 

 

Doesn't taste like ass this time!

[andrewk512]

3 hours ago, cdh said:

Have you taken a brix reading on the sorbet base?  What is the target for a sorbet with a nice texture?  North of 30? 

Brix is not the best measurement for this sort of thing, but I'd aim for 25

[cdh]

I tried a rhubarb elderflower strawberry sorbet.  It initially rang in at north of 30, and I watered it down to about 29.  Perfect texture without any stabilizer additions.  Going to be repeated. Perhaps with a squeeze of lemon juice next time.  Hope my elderflower tree still has some flowers on it. 

[edsel]

I decided to do a quick comparison between the Nemox Frix Air and the Ninja Creami. I've had the Nemox for years, but rarely use it. The canisters for the Nemox are quite small and fit into a heavy stainless steel holder that you freeze along with the actual canisters, which are plastic and interchangeable, like the Creami ones but small. The Nemox is enclosed, making it much quieter than the Creami.

 

I tried out Paul Raphaelson's chocolate ice cream recipe, but used a less fancy chocolate and good old Droste cocoa rather than the single origin ones he specifies. The Nemox buzzed through the canister effortlessly, but the Creami threw a bit of a fit and I had to run it three times to get a decent result. Eventually I ended up with approximately the same result, but with a lot less drama from the Nemox. Still, the larger quantity from the Creami is an advantage.

 

The canisters before freezing:

 

Nemox:

 

Creami:

 

The blades (for comparison):

 

 

[Kerry Beal]

5 minutes ago, edsel said:

I decided to do a quick comparison between the Nemox Frix Air and the Ninja Creami. I've had the Nemox for years, but rarely use it. The canisters for the Nemox are quite small and fit into a heavy stainless steel holder that you freeze along with the actual canisters, which are plastic and interchangeable, like the Creami ones but small. The Nemox is enclosed, making it much quieter than the Creami.

 

I tried out Paul Raphaelson's chocolate ice cream recipe, but used a less fancy chocolate and good old Droste cocoa rather than the single origin ones he specifies. The Nemox buzzed through the canister effortlessly, but the Creami threw a bit of a fit and I had to run it three times to get a decent result. Eventually I ended up with approximately the same result, but with a lot less drama from the Nemox. Still, the larger quantity from the Creami is an advantage.

 

The canisters before freezing:

 

Nemox:

 

Creami:

 

The blades (for comparison):

 

 

Interesting - for some reason I thought the Nemox was a direct competitor of the Pacojet and made a larger quantity.

 

[edsel]

48 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Interesting - for some reason I thought the Nemox was a direct competitor of the Pacojet and made a larger quantity.

 

Yeah, the Nemox is pretty small. The biggest advantage over the Pacojet is that you can freeze the product in the plastic containers which are reasonably cheap, and get the thermal mass of the steel holder when you spin. As I recall, the Paco canisters are a bit pricey. The Nemox is relatively quiet as well, and there's a Clean cycle where you can quickly run a canister of water to rinse off the works between spins (nice if you're switching flavors). I suppose the logistics for a professional kitchen would not be that different from the Paco since the Nemox is fast (and quiet!).

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

3 hours ago, edsel said:

I decided to do a quick comparison between the Nemox Frix Air and the Ninja Creami. I've had the Nemox for years, but rarely use it. The canisters for the Nemox are quite small and fit into a heavy stainless steel holder that you freeze along with the actual canisters, which are plastic and interchangeable, like the Creami ones but small. The Nemox is enclosed, making it much quieter than the Creami.

 

I tried out Paul Raphaelson's chocolate ice cream recipe, but used a less fancy chocolate and good old Droste cocoa rather than the single origin ones he specifies. The Nemox buzzed through the canister effortlessly, but the Creami threw a bit of a fit and I had to run it three times to get a decent result. Eventually I ended up with approximately the same result, but with a lot less drama from the Nemox. Still, the larger quantity from the Creami is an advantage.

 

The canisters before freezing:

 

Nemox:

 

Creami:

 

The blades (for comparison):

 

 

 

When I spin Rose's chocolate in the CREAMi I have to run it through two or three cycles for proper texture.  It may just be the nature of cocoa fat in ice cream.  @Chris Hennes is experienced with Rose's chocolate recipe.  Perhaps Chris could comment?

 

 

 

[jedovaty]

On 6/20/2022 at 2:37 PM, andrewk512 said:

The bonus of cooking/roasting them is you avoid the oxidation flavors that rapidly take over the raw preparations once you blend everything up. I am particularly sensitive to them and have ruined many batches of wonderful stone fruits by doing raw sorbets

and

 

On 6/21/2022 at 8:08 PM, blue_dolphin said:

If you haven't already done so, I'd encourage you to try roasting the nectarines, especially if they are early season varieties that aren't free-stone 'cause it's so easy to remove the pits after roasting. I leave the skins on, they add color and pretty much disintegrate in the blender after roasting. I got the roasting thing from the People's Pops cookbook where they recommend it for most stone fruits.  That book is about popsicles but a lot of its wisdom can be applied to sorbets was well. Roasting both concentrates the flavor and improves the texture from a bit icy to luxuriously creamy.  Or roast half and use unroasted fruit for another batch to compare. It's fine to go down to ~ 1/4 capacity of the Creami containers which makes side by side comparisons easy.

Other popsicle learnings I've applied to sorbets are:

Thoroughly chill your mix before doing a final taste test and adjusting sweet/tart balance if necessary.  Tasting at room temp or warm can get you in the ballpark but it's going to be eaten cold and should be tasted that way.  If you don't have time to chill the whole batch, put a spoonful on a plate in the freezer.  At this point, it's easiest to use simple syrup and fresh lemon juice for those adjustments. 

Using simple syrups infused with herbs or spices is an excellent way to add those flavors to sorbets and peaches and nectarines are wonderful partners.   Ginger, mint, tarragon, basil, vanilla, bourbon....the list goes on!

I ended up eating the nectarines before getting to making any sorbet.  That said, family has a rather sad plum tree in their backyard, which had ripe fruit.  I stole a few, roasted them, and ended up trying this on creami sorbet setting:

 - 235g roasted plums

 - 25g each sugar, agave syrup, and dextrose

 - 100g water

 - 1g MP's perfect sorbet

 - 0.5g kappa carrageenan

This only filled the container to 2/3rds.  Not sure how I arrived at the sugars and water, just sort of, well, gave it a go.  It all worked?

It has a gelato-like texture, and is still soft the next day.  Flavor is.. well.. reminds me of slivkovy lekvar (plum butter), and is very singular, pretty tart, too.  Not my favorite thing in the world, but still good and was fun to try   I think a little citrus would have really helped, or, as you wrote, an infused simple syrup (I think I'd probably like ginger or mint with the plums), to give it a bit of complexity.

 

The farmer's market last weekend had a nice selection of stone fruits, and thus later this week as they ripen I'm going to try again.  Pluots should be fun and easy, but it'll be hard processing the nectarines and peaches because they are just so tasty!  I may try comparing roasted and unroasted as well.

 

[jedovaty]

Followed the same idea with pluots, but replaced the agave syrup with maple syrup, added 3g lime juice, and did half the exotic ingredients.  The cold base was almost delicious, except for the garam-masala flavor because I made saag paneer the night before in the vitamix. Fortunately, that wasn't detected in the frozen spun treat which tasted more like cold fig jam.  Good, but odd.  Right now I have two white and yellow sorbets freezing for tomorrow: one is roasted, other raw, just to see what the difference is with roasted as suggested by other here earlier.  Same proportions as above.  Seems to be working?

[blue_dolphin]

Made a 3/4 batch of this Ottolenghi recipe Pineapple and herb sorbet with candied fennel seeds from The Guardian

The herbs are basil, mint and parsley.  It's served with olive oil and lime wedges to squeeze over the top for a fun little dessert. 

When tasted on its own, I thought the mint was a bit too forward but once the olive oil, candied fennel seeds and lime juice are added, it all comes into balance. 

 

I bought a fresh pineapple to make this but once I read that I was supposed to cut it up into little pieces and partially freeze it, I pulled a 1 lb bag of frozen pineapple chunks out of the freezer and let them partially thaw. That was enough for a 3/4 scale recipe which filled one Creami beaker with ~ 5 oz extra for 2 popsicles 😋

 

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by blue_dolphin
To clarify batch size (log)

[blue_dolphin]

Two more.  

Goat cheese ice cream from Hello, My Name is Ice Cream and Roasted Peach & Bourbon Sorbet (no recipe*) with toasted pecans

 

I love the roasted peach & bourbon combo as a popsicle served with a small glass of bourbon for dipping and sipping.  As a sorbet, the texture is lovely but ya can't really dip it in bourbon so I decided to give it a creamy partner with the goat cheese ice cream which turns out to be great stuff.  Nice pairing. Just have to sip the bourbon separately 🙃

 

* Cut 3 peaches (total weight a little over 500g) in half, remove pits, roast 350°F, 25 min.  Purée with ~ 1/2 cup simple syrup, 2T lemon juice and 2T bourbon. This gave me one full Creami beaker plus ~ 5 oz leftover for 2 popsicles.

[&roid]

Heads up for any UK readers - you can pick the creami up for £149 in the prime day sale at the moment

[JoNorvelleWalker]

For US readers the prime day price is $129.99.

 

I had to remove my creami (I'm tired of typing uppercase) chocolate from the blast freezer to make room for six pints of prime day McConnell's.