Pacojet Competitor? The Ninja Creami

[Kerry Beal]

3 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

How did this do?  Sounds like a very refreshing combination!

 

The other day, David Lebovitz shared a recipe for a white chocolate sorbet adapted from Gale Gand's book Chocolate & Vanilla and I decided to give it a try. Here it is with dark chocolate shaved over the top. It's nice.  Lighter than an ice cream but still rich from the cocoa butter in the chocolate. 

I've also enjoyed it with scoop of strawberry sorbet and separately with a scoop of tangerine sorbet and I'd say it works really well with fruit flavors.   On its own, it's fairly subtle.  

 

It's not truly a sorbet as it contains milk so maybe more of an ice milk?  The recipe is here in his newsletter or here in a blog post from 2006. He gives a yield of 2 cups in the newsletter.  I got closer to 3.5 cups.

I used Weiss Anëo 34% white chocolate as its what I had on hand.  For the alcohol, I added a tablespoon of homemade, unsweetened creme de cacao (vodka steeped with cacao nibs for several weeks.)  Kinda wish I'd split it up and made half with Green Chartreuse. 

Edited to add that I also added about 1 tsp of Avacream along with the sugar.  

 

This made me wonder what a ruby chocolate ice cream would be like.  Callebaut has a recipe for one that adds raspberry purée.  Maybe I'll try a small batch. 

 

 

Saw that in the newsletter - added it to my list of things I wanted to try. What's Avacream?

[blue_dolphin]

11 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Saw that in the newsletter - added it to my list of things I wanted to try. What's Avacream?

It's an ice cream stabilizer blend.  Contains guar gum, carrageenan. Figured It couldn’t hurt to throw in a little. 

[blue_dolphin]

7 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

This made me wonder what a ruby chocolate ice cream would be like.  Callebaut has a recipe for one that adds raspberry purée.  Maybe I'll try a small batch. 

Here's that ruby chocolate ice cream, chilled down and ready to mix in the raspberry purée.  

A half batch filled one Creami container perfectly. 

Tastes very nice but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how it comes out. 

[blue_dolphin]

That ruby chocolate ice cream is excellent.  Very rich and creamy. Quite a bit of chocolate - about 180g per 500 ml of base. The raspberry (60 g purée per 500 ml of base) seems to enhance the flavor of the chocolate but doesn't stand out as a separate flavor.  The color of the finished ice cream is pretty much the same as the ruby chocolate callets that you can see on the front of the plate. 

Here's a scoop alongside a scoop of the white chocolate version from David Lebovitz.  They're quite nice together. 

As mentioned above, the recipe is here and a half recipe nicely fills one Creami container.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

My first batch of Rose's chocolate in the Ninja.  This is a candidate for my favorite ice cream to date.

 

[aidensnd2]

Just picked one of these up today. Very interested to see how it compares to a Pacojet. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

9 hours ago, aidensnd2 said:

Just picked one of these up today. Very interested to see how it compares to a Pacojet. 

 

If you have a Pacojet I would love to hear your comparison.

 

[aidensnd2]

I don't have one at home, but I used one for years and I've been waiting for something like this to come along for a long time.

 

First thing I noticed was that Ninja got smart and made their containers slightly smaller than a pint deli cup which was a bummer. That was the economic alternative for Paco containers. 

 

Hoping to start playing around this weekend. I have a Lello 4080 that is great but cumbersome and if the Creami could replace it that would be pretty impressive. Very interested in what the overrun is going to be like. 

[Shelby]

Again, not fancy like everyone else, but I did a banana strawberry sorbet yesterday.  Pretty healthy and it's good!

 

[andrewk512]

On 2/24/2022 at 7:21 PM, aidensnd2 said:

I don't have one at home, but I used one for years and I've been waiting for something like this to come along for a long time.

 

First thing I noticed was that Ninja got smart and made their containers slightly smaller than a pint deli cup which was a bummer. That was the economic alternative for Paco containers. 

 

Hoping to start playing around this weekend. I have a Lello 4080 that is great but cumbersome and if the Creami could replace it that would be pretty impressive. Very interested in what the overrun is going to be like. 

Have you had a chance to try it out and compare it to the PacoJet?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Has anyone tried spinning orgeat in the Ninja?

 

I'd have tried it by now myself if orgeat were easier to make.  Though probably orgeat is not that much more work than some other ice cream bases I prepare.  The big problem with orgeat is that it makes disassembly of my Kuvings juicer almost impossible.

 

 

[andrewk512]

On 3/21/2022 at 10:20 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Has anyone tried spinning orgeat in the Ninja?

 

I'd have tried it by now myself if orgeat were easier to make.  Though probably orgeat is not that much more work than some other ice cream bases I prepare.  The big problem with orgeat is that it makes disassembly of my Kuvings juicer almost impossible.

 

 

what's your recipe? I could give it a shot

 

I use the serious eats one and from what I recall it is not solid at freezer temps

[JoNorvelleWalker]

55 minutes ago, andrewk512 said:

what's your recipe? I could give it a shot

 

I use the serious eats one and from what I recall it is not solid at freezer temps

 

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/52996-orgeat/?do=findComment&comment=2330497

 

Granted the sugar ratio is higher than for ice cream.

 

[lindag]

Kitchenware junkie that I am, I am actually very late to this party.

Rather like @gfwebI don' have much of a sweet tooth (salt and savory foods are my thing). 

However, warm weather is coming along with fresh fruit   and it seemed a good idea to be able to make homemade ice cream.

A Ninja Creami is headed my way.

My all-time favorite ice cream is Starbucks coffee ice cream which I can't find here so I'm looking for a knockoff recipe.  Anyone got any ideas?

[blue_dolphin]

1 minute ago, lindag said:

A Ninja Creami is headed my way.

My all-time favorite ice cream is Starbucks coffee ice cream which I can't find here so I'm looking for a knockoff recipe.  Anyone got any ideas?

 

Welcome to the Creami Club, @lindag!  I don't have a recipe for you but coffee ice cream is one of my favorites so I'm on the hunt for a recipe, too and will be interested in any suggestions, too.

[Smithy]

Doesn't the CreamI recipe book have a coffee ice cream recipe? I need to find my copy and see, because I though I spotted one.

 

I also need to find the booklet so I can look for the dairy-free ice cream recipe that demanded oat milk, since I bought a carton of the stuff and have had it cluttering my cupboard, unopened, ever since the party for which I bought it last fall didn't happen. lindag may be late to the party, but I've hardly touched my machine and I bought mine before she bought hers!

[blue_dolphin]

23 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Doesn't the CreamI recipe book have a coffee ice cream recipe? I need to find my copy and see, because I though I spotted one.

 

I also need to find the booklet so I can look for the dairy-free ice cream recipe that demanded oat milk, since I bought a carton of the stuff and have had it cluttering my cupboard, unopened, ever since the party for which I bought it last fall didn't happen. lindag may be late to the party, but I've hardly touched my machine and I bought mine before she bought hers!

 

This recipe for a dairy-free coffee ice cream is in the booklet that came with mine. 

Also, you can access the recipe booklet here, though I'm not particularly enamored of their recipes.  

 

 

[mgaretz]

Make your favorite vanilla ice cream recipe and add some instant coffee to taste. For the Creami I’d start at 1 tsp and adjust from there. For more kick you could add or sub instant espresso powder. 

[mgaretz]

Inspired by this thread, I made some coffee ice cream in Creami yesterday.  Used my basic non-dairy base with 1 tsp each of vanilla extract, instant coffee and instant espresso.  Yummy.

 

 

My base: 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by mgaretz (log)

[ElsieD]

I made some "peach frozen dessert" for lack of a better term.  Just peach kefir, sugar, peaches and some whipping cream.  I processed it on ice cream  and it was very crumbly.  I tried a re-spin.  Still crumbly, so did ice cream again.  That was scoopable but had ice in it.  I'm going to melt it down, run it through a blender and re-freeze and see what happens.  I made this one other time and it was great so I don't know what the problem is this time.  Any ideas?

 

Second question:  have any of you used kefir in "frozen desserts"?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

Second question:  have any of you used kefir in "frozen desserts"?

 

Yes, I have used kefir in Nik Sharma's blueberry and omani lime ice cream.

 

[randomwalk]

2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

I made some "peach frozen dessert" for lack of a better term.  Just peach kefir, sugar, peaches and some whipping cream.  I processed it on ice cream  and it was very crumbly.  I tried a re-spin.  Still crumbly, so did ice cream again.  That was scoopable but had ice in it.  I'm going to melt it down, run it through a blender and re-freeze and see what happens.  I made this one other time and it was great so I don't know what the problem is this time.  Any ideas?

 

I have found that sometimes this happens to me, and if my ice cream is still crumbly after a respin, I either let it sit a little or scoop it.  At least when this happens to me, it seems to mean the mixture is colder than usual and either sitting a couple of minutes or the act of scooping warms it enough to fix the texture.  But, it doesn't sound exactly like what you experienced because you had ice. (One more thought...sometimes if my scoop scrapes the side of the pint container, it gets ice in it because the sides don't seem to get processed well.)  

 

However, one time I tried to make olive oil ice cream, and it turned out crumbly, so I re-processed.  Then I scooped, and the whole thing seemed to have turned to butter!  Not sure if I just exceeded the amount of fat this method can support?!  I vaguely wanted to try again but haven't had the energy to do it when I suspect I'll face the same results.  

Edited April 18, 2022 by randomwalk (log)

[andrewk512]

On 4/18/2022 at 4:17 PM, randomwalk said:

 

I have found that sometimes this happens to me, and if my ice cream is still crumbly after a respin, I either let it sit a little or scoop it.  At least when this happens to me, it seems to mean the mixture is colder than usual and either sitting a couple of minutes or the act of scooping warms it enough to fix the texture.  But, it doesn't sound exactly like what you experienced because you had ice. (One more thought...sometimes if my scoop scrapes the side of the pint container, it gets ice in it because the sides don't seem to get processed well.)  

 

However, one time I tried to make olive oil ice cream, and it turned out crumbly, so I re-processed.  Then I scooped, and the whole thing seemed to have turned to butter!  Not sure if I just exceeded the amount of fat this method can support?!  I vaguely wanted to try again but haven't had the energy to do it when I suspect I'll face the same results.  

I agree the powdery texture is a function of having the mixture too cold. The respin is heating it up in a sense. The device does not really effectively scrape fully to the sides so when you respin and the outsides have warmed up a bit you are stirring in underprocessed icy ice cream base which accounts for the off texture.

 

Uncooked bases with high cream content seem to turn waxy/buttery when overprocessed. Was there a lot of cream in your recipe?

 

 

------------

 

I haven't had time for too much cooking lately but did end making a really excellent raspberry sorbet, along with the usual white chocolate snow recipe from Under Pressure. Both paired really nicely together! I have stopped using stabilizer in recipes I plan to serve same day (somewhat because I am having issues with my stabilizer and can't be bothered to buy more yet)

 

Raspberry sorbet

• 500g raspberry puree (measured after blending and straining out the seeds)
• 130g sucrose
• 10g glucose powder

Blend then freeze. Process on lite

 

White chocolate snow adapted from Under Pressure

• 35g white chocolate
• 22g cacao butter
• 134g water
• 44g heavy cream
• 13g sucrose

Bring cream and water to boil, stir in the sugar. Add white chocolate and cacao butter to melt. It's best to thoroughly chill this and then blend it up before freezing it because if you just chuck the hot mixture in the freezer it'll separate a lot (it'll still make snow when separated, it's just not as snowy). I fill the pint half full because the snow generates a lot of air and I process it on sorbet to not heat it up too much. I highly recommend chilling the plates when serving this one cause otherwise it quickly becomes white chocolate soup

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2022 by andrewk512 (log)

[dtremit]

You have all goaded me into another small appliance purchase!

 

For those of you who are waiting for a deal, Woot! has refurbished Creamis on sale today — $99 for the 5-program and $116 for the 7-program.

 

I was about to pull the trigger on that — it's definitely a good price — but it's not clear who refurbished it, and the warranty is just 90 days through Woot.

 

After a bit of comparison shopping, I realized Kohl's had it on sale for $199, which after their current 25% coupon makes it $149 new. Plus you get $30 in Kohls cash (after the purchase is complete) which is just enough to get a 4-pack of the spare pint containers. I decided $149 for a new machine and four extra pints seemed like a better deal than $116 for a refurb (plus I can get it in a fun color).

[cdh]

OK. I've been coopted too.  Woot order placed.  A fun new toy to play with!!!