Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[mgaretz]

The next night, scooped with a normal teaspoon, served over bananas.

 

 

[CanadianHomeChef]

Y'all tempting me to buy this. Just spent a wad of cash on a new laptop... gotta slow down.

[mgaretz]

Chocolate, made with the base above but I substituted a different stabilizer blend.  For the flavoring it was 1/4 cup of cacao powder, 1 tsp espresso powder, 1 tbs Torani chocolate syrup and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

 

Came out good, if a little chewy.  I think I like the other stabilizer blend better.  This only needed one spin on the regular ice cream cycle.

 

 

 

[mgaretz]

Well last night the chocolate was very hard, so I spun it again twice on the ice cream cycle.  We'll see how it is tonight.

[andrewk512]

I did some preliminary reading that there is something inherent about chocolate that causes it to harden ice creams more. I have yet to look into this beyond offhand mentions I've seen about it in some books and online.

 

My one chocolate trial did harden up a bit more than expected at 24hrs although nothing that couldn't be resolved with a bit of time at room temp.

 

Sadly being away for work so much and going on vacation soon I haven't had much time to experiment with the Ninja

Edited November 7, 2021 by andrewk512 (log)

[Kerry Beal]

I have a new favorite base - use it for rum and raisin and butter pecan. Based on the Butter Pecan recipe from a Taste of Home.

 

525 grams half-and-half cream
200 grams brown sugar 
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
175 g whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.8 grams stabilizer (Paul Raphaelsons version from Underbelly - Locust Bean Gum : Guar Gum : Lambda Carrageenan - 4: 2 : 1)

 

 

Directions:

In a heavy saucepan, heat half-and-half to 175°; stir in the brown sugar until dissolved. Whisk a small amount of hot cream mixture into the eggs; return all to the pan, whisking constantly. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches at least 160° and coats the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the heat. Cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in whipping cream and vanilla. Cool over ice - put into two Creami beakers. Freeze 24 hours, spin on Lite. 

 

(I actually bung everything but the vanilla into the thermomix - cook at 90º C until it reaches 84º C and coats spoon - then add vanilla)
 

[ElsieD]

2 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

I have a new favorite base - use it for rum and raisin and butter pecan. Based on the Butter Pecan recipe from a Taste of Home.

 

525 grams half-and-half cream
200 grams brown sugar 
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
175 g whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
0.8 grams stabilizer (Paul Raphaelsons version from Underbelly - Locust Bean Gum : Guar Gum : Lambda Carrageenan - 4: 2 : 1)

 

 

Directions:

In a heavy saucepan, heat half-and-half to 175°; stir in the brown sugar until dissolved. Whisk a small amount of hot cream mixture into the eggs; return all to the pan, whisking constantly. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches at least 160° and coats the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the heat. Cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in whipping cream and vanilla. Cool over ice - put into two Creami beakers. Freeze 24 hours, spin on Lite. 

 

(I actually bung everything but the vanilla into the thermomix - cook at 90º C until it reaches 84º C and coats spoon - then add vanilla)
 

 

Question:  what speed on the Thermomix do you use?  A quick high speed buzz to mix the ingredients and then?

[Kerry Beal]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

 

Question:  what speed on the Thermomix do you use?  A quick high speed buzz to mix the ingredients and then?

As you said - a quick buzz then about speed 4.

[ElsieD]

16 hours ago, Kerry Beal said:

As you said - a quick buzz then about speed 4.

 

Thanks, Kerry.  I'll have to dig out my underused Thermomix and give this a try.  Is this how you make all your custard based ice cream bases?

[mgaretz]

The chocolate was hard again last night.  I am going to try respinning on the Lite Ice Cream cycle.

[Kerry Beal]

5 hours ago, ElsieD said:

 

Thanks, Kerry.  I'll have to dig out my underused Thermomix and give this a try.  Is this how you make all your custard based ice cream bases?

Pretty much.

[mgaretz]

8 hours ago, mgaretz said:

The chocolate was hard again last night.  I am going to try respinning on the Lite Ice Cream cycle.

 

I did a spin on the Lite Ice Cream Cycle followed by a real res-spin cycle.  It was good right away, but after being back in the freezer for 4 hours it was hard again.  I'm giving up on the stabilizer blend.  Back to @paulraphael's blend.

[Kerry Beal]

Looks like Best Buy in Canada has the Creami available online for $199.

[ElsieD]

@mgaretz  I have been following your experiments (if that's the right word) with interest and i'd like to have your suggestions on what program to spin the following on:

 

Frozen (fresh) peaches, a bit of sugar, peach kefir and a a bit of whipping cream.

 

Chocolate milk, black cocoa powder, regular cocoa powder, a  bit of whipping cream.

 

I'm hoping the first one turns into something edible, the second I did for a lark and I'm not expecting much from it.

 

If anyone else has any thoughts, please chime in.

[Smithy]

16 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

@mgaretz  I have been following your experiments (if that's the right word) with interest and i'd like to have your suggestions on what program to spin the following on:

 

Frozen (fresh) peaches, a bit of sugar, peach kefir and a a bit of whipping cream.

 

Chocolate milk, black cocoa powder, regular cocoa powder, a  bit of whipping cream.

 

I'm hoping the first one turns into something edible, the second I did for a lark and I'm not expecting much from it.

 

If anyone else has any thoughts, please chime in.

 

I certainly have nothing to add to those flavor combinations, but I think they sound terrific. I'll wait with interest to see what mgaretz suggests. So far I'm in the "why did I buy it if I wasn't goingo to play with it?" camp. A pint of persimmon mixture, treated with extra half-and-half and refrozen, is still sitting in our freezer. All too often, by the time we're done with dinner we aren't interested in dessert...and during the afternoons, we don't indulge. Go figure!

 

That said, we (my husband and I) both want me to be playing with the Ninja CREAMi more, so inspirations and teasing are welcome!

[blue_dolphin]

Go ahead and whizz up that persimmon stuff, @Smithy!  I bought 4 hachiya persimmons for the purpose of making ice cream but the biggest one is stubbornly remaining very firm. I might have to scale things down and make a smaller batch.  

Over in another thread, @paulraphael recommended thyme ice cream and sage ice cream, both of which sound very appealing to me. 

[mgaretz]

32 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

@mgaretz  I have been following your experiments (if that's the right word) with interest and i'd like to have your suggestions on what program to spin the following on:

 

Frozen (fresh) peaches, a bit of sugar, peach kefir and a a bit of whipping cream.

 

Chocolate milk, black cocoa powder, regular cocoa powder, a  bit of whipping cream.

 

I'm hoping the first one turns into something edible, the second I did for a lark and I'm not expecting much from it.

 

If anyone else has any thoughts, please chime in.

 

I would try the Lite Ice Cream cycle as you don't mention that you added any extra sugar.

[ElsieD]

1 minute ago, mgaretz said:

 

I would try the Lite Ice Cream cycle as you don't mention that you added any extra sugar.

 

I added about 3 tablespoons of sugar to the peach mixture and warmed everything enough to dissolve the sugar.  Not a lot of sugar but enough to move it from the "blah" column  to the "hey!  that's not bad" one.

[mgaretz]

22 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

I added about 3 tablespoons of sugar to the peach mixture and warmed everything enough to dissolve the sugar.  Not a lot of sugar but enough to move it from the "blah" column  to the "hey!  that's not bad" one.

Still lite cycle I think.

[ElsieD]

28 minutes ago, mgaretz said:

Still lite cycle I think.

 

Okay, thanks.  That's what I'll use.

[blue_dolphin]

It was 90°F here yesterday and should be the same today so I made Creamy Persimmon Sorbet from Serious Eats, spun on the sorbet setting.

The recipe is just persimmon, sugar, black tea and lemon juice.  The black tea flavor is subtle. Kinda wish I'd used Earl Grey and made it stronger or skipped the tea and just used a generous amount of lime juice. 

That said, the texture is lovely and I'm ready for today's heat!

[Smithy]

Question for those of you with more experience: how do you determine which setting to use for a particular mixture? For instance: in the creamy persimmon sorbet that @blue_dolphin did, there's no dairy. Is that what makes the sorbet setting right for that mixture?

[mgaretz]

11 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Question for those of you with more experience: how do you determine which setting to use for a particular mixture? For instance: in the creamy persimmon sorbet that @blue_dolphin did, there's no dairy. Is that what makes the sorbet setting right for that mixture?

 

Lack of fat content you'd have with dairy, I am assuming.

[blue_dolphin]

17 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Question for those of you with more experience: how do you determine which setting to use for a particular mixture? For instance: in the creamy persimmon sorbet that @blue_dolphin did, there's no dairy. Is that what makes the sorbet setting right for that mixture?

I wish there was something that explains how the machine works for each cycle. I’ve been looking at the manual to pick what I thought was closest to their description but still not sure on some things. Like, should I use the gelato setting for all custard based recipes or only those specifically called gelato?

[ElsieD]

Yesterday I spun the chocolate mix on Lite ice cream.  It was powdery so I did I re-spin and the texture was fine.  We thought it needed both sugar and more chocolate so I let the base thaw.  Today I re-heated the base and melted 1/4 cup chocolate chips into it.  It tastes surprisingly good so I will let it cool and re-freeze it.