Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[andrewk512]

1 hour ago, yimyammer said:

 

made another batch of Jeni's brown butter ice cream with butter baked slivered almonds & almond toffee on top. I went and bought a pint of it at the store to compare and while the recipe out of her book is damn good, there is a big difference in taste, almost like marzipan in the store bought and I cant figure out what it is, the label says it has tapioca syrup whereas the recipe in the book calls for white sugar and some corn syrup......
 

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my version is darker too, perhaps I was supposed to strain the caramelized milk solids or I cooked them too long
 

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any ideas what the difference could be?

Here's the recipe ingredients versus the label:

 

 

Asides the cream cheese, which looks to be substituted with tapioca (you could try tapioca starch), I am guessing in the commercial product she is browning milk solids and not actually browning butter. Hard to say beyond that without actually trying them.

 

 

 

I got a copy of La Grotta ices this week by Kitty Travers as an early christmas gift and read through most of it. I think people who are looking for a very simple, natural ice cream production would like it as her philosophy is to only use fresh ingredients no stabilizers etc. The flavor combinations look pretty good although I have yet to make anything. Interestingly the recipes include bits on how to cook fruit in the microwave, I can't quite tell if this is because it is a good idea or because she felt the reader would not want to cook fruit in a saucepan?

I was going make a recipe with some frozen elderberries, which I had never worked with before, but they completely oxidized and were unusable.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

As we speak I am finishing up a pint of Modernist peanut butter gelato.  The version with tapioca is OK, but the version without tapioca is far better.

 

[blue_dolphin]

On 12/4/2021 at 4:30 PM, ElsieD said:

This is eggnog, with added nutmeg and cinnamon.  I added halved mini Rolos as a mix-in.  The eggnog I used was a house brand from a local grocery chain.  The content and nutrition values were not listed so I don't know what the fat content was.  John liked it, I'm on the fence.  I thought it was a bit icy and since I have some eggnog left, I'll make up another batch but add some whipping cream and see if that helps.  It may be that a respin might have solved the icy problem but I didn't want to do that as the Rolos had already been mixed in.  

 

I had the same iciness when I tried freezing & spinning some Trader Joe's egg nog to which I added 1T brandy + 1T dark rum. A second spin didn't significantly improve it. It wasn't horrible, just not the creamy texture you want in ice cream.  I didn't try adding cream. 

I mentioned that I planned to make a batch of Jeffery Morganthaler's egg nog and would try that but it's got too much alcohol to freeze.  I could make a small batch (he's got a 2-serving recipe that would make ~ a pint), reduce the alcohol, cook the eggs & cream to make a custard base and maybe add some stabilizer but if I'm going to that much trouble, I might as well just follow an eggnog ice cream recipe! 

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by blue_dolphin
to add photo (log)

[andrewk512]

Quince custard from La Grotta (I subbed some spared blackened quince that I had on hand) 

 

Great texture right after spinning on lite. Came together very quickly - mixed egg yolk, heavy cream, milk, sugar, and honey in a pan, heated to 180f then blended with the quince. Final flavor is a touch on the tart side though

 

 

I also did a soursop sorbet earlier this week, using my usual sorbet recipe. Texture was nice but I learned that I just don't like soursop (had never tried it before) 

[mgaretz]

Kids are coming for the holidays and both (along with me) are lactose-intolerant, so I spun a few more flavors of dairy free ice cream.  Didn't want to experiment with reduced sugar on them so I went with my old standby of the powdered soft serve mix.  Made a cherry and vanilla.  Spun both on the standard ice cream cycle, and both are very scoopable after being in the freezer for 16 hours after spinning.

 

 

 

 

[JeanneCake]

On 12/14/2021 at 11:44 PM, andrewk512 said:

 

AInterestingly the recipes include bits on how to cook fruit in the microwave, I can't quite tell if this is because it is a good idea or because she felt the reader would not want to cook fruit in a saucepan?

 

 

 

Rose Levy Beranbaum uses the microwave to reduce the juices from thawed raspberries and strawberries when she makes her fruit purees.  She says doing it in the  microwave means the juices don't caramelize the way they would on the stovetop  (the juices in her puree recipes are reduced from a cup to a quarter cup so it would spend some time on the heat); perhaps that's the motivation for this author?

[CanadianHomeChef]

Finally got some time to play around with this.

Currently have the maple gelato recipe from the booklet in the fridge (first one I've made with egg yolks)
Also a peach ice cream one (used dairy instead of almond cream)

The 24 hour wait is painful haha

[CanadianHomeChef]

In the midst of writing a review just need a few more pics. Here’s some peach ice cream I made the other day. 
 

anyone pull their pints out after just 13 hours? Getting impatient haha. I’ve done 18 hours and been okay. I think my freezer is colder than most.

 

I guess I could have thrown it outside.  -30 today, my own blast freezer. 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by CanadianHomeChef (log)

[ElsieD]

1 hour ago, CanadianHomeChef said:

In the midst of writing a review just need a few more pics. Here’s some peach ice cream I made the other day. 
 

anyone pull their pints out after just 13 hours? Getting impatient haha. I’ve done 18 hours and been okay. I think my freezer is colder than most.

 

I guess I could have thrown it outside.  -30 today, my own blast freezer. 

 

 

 

I just spun (and ate) some peach ice cream I had made a little while ago.  I used a David Lebovitz recipe.  You?

[CanadianHomeChef]

44 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

 

I just spun (and ate) some peach ice cream I had made a little while ago.  I used a David Lebovitz recipe.  You?

Just the recipe provided in the booklet; I'l have to try Lebovitz' in the near future.

[andrewk512]

6 hours ago, CanadianHomeChef said:

In the midst of writing a review just need a few more pics. Here’s some peach ice cream I made the other day. 
 

anyone pull their pints out after just 13 hours? Getting impatient haha. I’ve done 18 hours and been okay. I think my freezer is colder than most.

 

I guess I could have thrown it outside.  -30 today, my own blast freezer. 

 

 

 

You should be able to get away with 10-13hrs with a non-heated recipe in a deep freezer (or outside ;)). I haven't measured exactly how long mine takes. I do the full time if I put it in the fridge freezer though

[JoNorvelleWalker]

34 minutes ago, andrewk512 said:

You should be able to get away with 10-13hrs with a non-heated recipe in a deep freezer (or outside ;)). I haven't measured exactly how long mine takes. I do the full time if I put it in the fridge freezer though

 

I suspect Ninja's specifications are conservative.  My Vesta blast freezer will freeze a liter of 20C water to minus 30 in 90 minutes.

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/153479-blast-chillers/?do=findComment&comment=2242627

 

[andrewk512]

Made the Underbelly Strawberry Sorbet. Had been looking forward to this one for a long time, took me months to collect all the ingredients for it. Frozen through just fine in my fridge freezer for 16 hrs. Processed on lite. Nice creamy texture servable right from the machine. I must say I have a bit of a sweet tooth and do prefer sweeter sorbets, but I could see this being really nice as an intermediary course or part of a dessert composition where you don't want to overwhelm all the other components.

 

 

I also did the Dana Cree vanilla ice cream custard base. Made it sous vide in my new APO. Processed on lite, came out a bit soft. Took some calamansi curd that I had on hand, lowered the freezing point by adding a bit of glucose syrup, and mixed that in. Into the freezer to harden up more now. My first try mixing something in. I vastly overestimated how much is needed for a pint of ice cream.

 

[randomwalk]

I am the lucky recipient of a Creami for Xmas.  Never got really good at making frozen desserts in the past, in large part because I found it so inconvenient to use the frozen bowl cuisinart we had (esp with our small and overstuffed freezer), and I was never particularly happy with the results, which didn't encourage me to get any better.  I've been really pleased with how approachable the Creami is, makes it a lot easier to try out different approaches!

 

Most recently, we tried a cherry sorbet, using the recipe from Perfect Scoop.  The results were good, with high cherry flavor and very smooth texture.  My husband truly loved it, but I felt I actually missed the more icy texture that you get with something like lemon sorbet, or a really good cherry italian ice.  This felt a little too close to a smoothie that's been frozen....  So, I want to try again.  I'm thinking that more juice and less actual fruit matter might get me closer to what I am looking for, but I am not totally sure how to play with proportions to get that.  The PS recipe starts with a pound of cherries (well 2 pounds but I halved it to make a pint). 

 

Now to my question.  Would you start instead with something like 1.5 pounds cherries, but then use more of the juice and less of the fruit matter?  Keep the sugar levels the same?  If no one here has answers, I'll play around but I thought some informed guidance might save me some wasted ingredients

 

Thank you for any guidance!

[andrewk512]

1 hour ago, randomwalk said:

 Now to my question.  Would you start instead with something like 1.5 pounds cherries, but then use more of the juice and less of the fruit matter?  Keep the sugar levels the same?  If no one here has answers, I'll play around but I thought some informed guidance might save me some wasted ingredients

 

Thank you for any guidance!

Hard to tell without seeing the recipe, but generally you will want to increase ingredients with minimal freezing point depression (free water) and decrease ingredients that depress freezing point (sugars, fats, many solids) 

 

I think your idea of using less cherries and replacing it with cherry juice is a good start. You could lower the sugar although then you start impacting flavor more

[randomwalk]

8 hours ago, andrewk512 said:

I think your idea of using less cherries and replacing it with cherry juice is a good start. You could lower the sugar although then you start impacting flavor more

 

Appreciate the feedback!  I had leftover cherries, so I tried again using 1.5 pounds cherries, and kept everything else the same.  Then, I put all the juice in the pint, and enough cherries to go to the max fill line.  Hoping that's a more balanced result -- I'll know more tomorrow!

 

In an update, I had a scoop of the original cherry sorbet, along with a scoop of a mandarin orange creamsicle frozen yogurt I also made in the creami.  The cherry sorbet was actually better tonight than yesterday, and went smashingly with the creamsicle fro-yo.  The sum seemed better than its parts. 

 

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

Two spins. Tangerine sorbet from a recipe in David Lebovitz's newsletter and berry ice cream from a recipe in Baking with Dorie. Both recipes contain a bit of alcohol and both were soft directly after spinning. 

I used TJ's frozen Very Cherry Berry mix (cherries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries) and strained before freezing but still had some tiny seedy bits. 

And even though I vowed not to make a high fat ice cream in an uncooked base to avoid micro butter bits, this seems fine from that respect.   Maybe I'll try her vanilla. 

 

The sorbet contains tangerine zest but as with other recipes I've made, the Creami pretty much obliterates it.  Zest fragments remain detectable only in the thin layer on the bottom that the blade doesn't contact. If you give it a stir with a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom and then a re-spin, the zest will be entirely gone. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by blue_dolphin (log)

[Shelby]

 I swear I will be unboxing and playing along very soon.  The Creami box stares at me forlornly from the top of the dryer every time I walk by.  Life has been crazy so I think ice cream is needed more than ever.  I still plan on using my last jar of peaches that I canned to start out with......

[randomwalk]

Update on revised cherry sorbet, as well as results of a custard vanilla.  Both very soft after spinning -- funny how some takes are so crumbly and desperately need re-spinning, and some are overly soft.  Not sure if this is where they are in my freezer cycle or based on the nature of the frozen contents?  Probably both!

 

Cherry sorbet:  Tasted suspiciously like the cherry sorbet from the previous day, despite more juice and less fruit matter.  I'm guessing this was so soft both times because of the high (even in the second batch) levels of fruit matter?  Does that make sense?  Husband still loved it, one daughter loved it, other daughter did not. 

Update this morning:  differences much more apparent between the two batches.  Second batch icier and yet more refreshing.  Not sure family's take since I am sneaking bites in the morning!  🙃  I like the refreshing nature but wish it were less icy.  This feels like progress, but any further progress is probably going to have to wait until I progress from beginner to at least low intermediate!

 

Vanilla ice cream using custard method in Perfect Scoop.  The base tasted amazing after chilling, before freezing.  Very soft after spinning in the creami.  Too creamy for me, husband incredulous that I didn't think it was among the best ice creams I'd ever tasted.  It was extremely smooth -- astonishingly so.  That's an upside!  I think I like a more refreshing ice cream so am going to try again with more milk / less cream.  Both daughters loved it. 

Update this morning: more appealing with the harder freeze -- scoops like butter.  Still a little too creamy, so am still looking forward to adjusting the fat levels.  Went well with the refreshing icier cherry sorbet.

 

Picture is from last night right after scooping.  You can see how soft it was, significant melting within a minute or two!

 

[randomwalk]

Oh!  Forgot to mention. I saved the cherry matter that didn't make it into the sorbet (for proportional reasons) -- very delicious on top of the vanilla ice cream!

 

Also, I'm trying this cherry pit syrup using my discarded pits, although my amount of cherry pits (2oz) seems pretty laughable -- so, a teeny amount of syrup will result.  But, for a product that was going to go straight into the compost, maybe it's still a good thing?  I'll let you know if it was worth it.

[blue_dolphin]

52 minutes ago, Shelby said:

 I swear I will be unboxing and playing along very soon.  The Creami box stares at me forlornly from the top of the dryer every time I walk by.  Life has been crazy so I think ice cream is needed more than ever.  I still plan on using my last jar of peaches that I canned to start out with......

 

That David Lebovitz peach ice cream  @ElsieD shared here earlier was very nice.  Or are you thinking of a sorbet? 

My Creami has found a home out in the garage.  I had been carrying it in to use but the thing is kinda top-heavy so I just set it up where I can use it out there.  Right next to the small cooler I usually use for sous vide and an auxiliary CSO.  My laundry is out there, along with a bunch of re-purposed kitchen cabinets including a sink so it's easy to wash the blade and lid and be ready for the next batch.

 

3 minutes ago, randomwalk said:

Vanilla ice cream using custard method in Perfect Scoop.  The base tasted amazing after chilling, before freezing.  Very soft after spinning in the creami.  Too creamy for me, husband incredulous that I didn't think it was among the best ice creams I'd ever tasted.  It was extremely smooth -- astonishingly so.  That's an upside!  I think I like a more refreshing ice cream so am going to try again with more milk / less cream.  Both daughters loved it. 

 

Thanks for that tip.  I mixed up a batch of Dorie's vanilla ice cream, a Philly-style, so maybe comparing to the Perfect Scoop custard version would be fun. 

I actually think TJ's vanilla ice cream is pretty good and wasn't going to try making one but, like with your cherry sorbet, it's often the perfect companion to another ice cream or sorbet.  I guess that means I should pick up some TJ's so I can do a three-way comparison 🤣

[randomwalk]

10 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Thanks for that tip.  I mixed up a batch of Dorie's vanilla ice cream, a Philly-style, so maybe comparing to the Perfect Scoop custard version would be fun. 

I actually think TJ's vanilla ice cream is pretty good and wasn't going to try making one but, like with your cherry sorbet, it's often the perfect companion to another ice cream or sorbet.  I guess that means I should pick up some TJ's so I can do a three-way comparison 🤣

 

Yes, no way around it, you've got to go for the 3-way comparison!    I'll look forward to your results & thoughts, if you do it.  I really love haagen dazs vanilla too, but it is getting pretty pricey and I am hoping to get the hang of custard bases to feel confident branching out into more interesting flavors (family very interested in cinnamon, and butterscotch). 

 

I am also really interested in something ginger, based on your  (@blue_dolphin's) ginger fro-yo, particularly with the crystallized ginger bits!  I was so inspired I bought a whole bag of crystallized ginger, but haven't yet had the free pints to get it going.  Will need to decide btn ice cream and fro-yo.

Edited January 15, 2022 by randomwalk (log)

[Shelby]

Proof that I wasn't lying lol

 

 

Creami is very happy to be out of the box.

[rotuts]

@Shelby 

 

im not so sure you should start w something so precious

 

later

 

after you get the hang of this

 

fine

 

those peaches have been waiting 

 

and can wait  a bi moe.

[andrewk512]

4 hours ago, randomwalk said:

Oh!  Forgot to mention. I saved the cherry matter that didn't make it into the sorbet (for proportional reasons) -- very delicious on top of the vanilla ice cream!

 

Also, I'm trying this cherry pit syrup using my discarded pits, although my amount of cherry pits (2oz) seems pretty laughable -- so, a teeny amount of syrup will result.  But, for a product that was going to go straight into the compost, maybe it's still a good thing?  I'll let you know if it was worth it.

I steep the pits in balsamic vinegar