Ice cream & Sorbet recipes and tips

[Busboy]

Busboy,

I'm interested in getting your cinnamon ice cream receipt - willing to share?

T cool.gif

Two cups milk

Two cups cream

10 eggs

3/4 cup plus a little more of sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla (or to taste or 1/2 slit vanilla bean)

Pinch salt

3-5 cinnamon sticks

tablespoon or so ground cinnamon

(apologies in advance, as a some of this is eyeballed rather than measured)

Throw the milk, cream and cinnamon sticks into a pot and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let sit (or, if impatient, set over low heat) until the mixture is a touch more cinnamon-y than you'd like. I always throw lots of cinnamon in because I hate to wait and it can take more than half an hour otherwise. Likewise, I find that investing in the expensive cinnamon pays off, as the cheap stuff has very little flavor.

While waiting for the cream to get infused, beat the egg yolks and everything else together until the sugar is dissolved and the yolks are "ribbony".

Remove the cinnamon and bring the cream back to a boil. Pour into the egg yolks whilst (always wanted to use that word) stirring madly. (If you're using a tin bowl, it helps to have an assistant to hold it steady). Return the mixture to a pot over low heat and stir continuously until the mixture coats the back of the spoon. If you haven't done this before, err on the side of low heat and caution-- if it gets too hot it will curdle and you'll probably punch something you shouldn't. Once it coats the back of a spoon pour it immediately through a fine strainer and into a bowl, preferably set in ice. At this point (I don't know if you've done this before, so forgive me if I'm belaboring the obvious) you have a creme anglaise which, if you don't have an ice cream freezer, is great for pouring over fresh fruit in a bowl, preferably in the company of crunchy cookies.

Cool the mixture in the fridge for several hours and then throw it in the ice cream maker. Just as you're about to pull the ice cream off, add ground cinnamon to taste (if you add it too early, it gets gummy). It usually helps to have about an hour in the freezer after the maker has done its best. If you have one of the ice cream makers that uses the pre-frozen buckets, this recipe is actually a little big for the 1-quart size, and you may need to cut it by a third or so.

Good luck, and if you have any further questions, PM me.

[Stuckey]

A question on storage-life.....

If the milk that I use to make a cooked custard for ice cream is several days away from its use-by date, will it affect the storage-life of the ice cream i.e. make it shorter? In other words, instead of cracking open a new carton of milk everytime I want to make ice cream, can I still make effective use of 4-day-old milk by making ice cream with it, or will it lessen the life of the ice cream compared to if I'd used fresher milk to make it?

Am I making sense?!

[Tela T]

Busboy,

Fabulouso - can't wait to try it - make ice cream all the time- but always into trying something new - I'll let you know how it turns out...

T

Edited August 10, 2007 by Tela T (log)

[Kouign Aman]

A question on storage-life.....

If the milk that I use to make a cooked custard for ice cream is several days away from its use-by date, will it affect the storage-life of the ice cream i.e. make it shorter? In other words, instead of cracking open a new carton of milk everytime I want to make ice cream, can I still make effective use of 4-day-old milk by making ice cream with it, or will it lessen the life of the ice cream compared to if I'd used fresher milk to make it?

Am I making sense?! 

←

In terms of spoilage, it should have no effect, unless you plan to store your icecream for months (even then, I'd be surprised if there's an effect, but freezing doesnt entirely prevent deterioration, just slows it a lot). (Mine rarely lasts a week, before its all consumed).

Edited August 10, 2007 by Kouign Aman (log)

[LittleIsland]

I've tried egg-based vanilla ice cream recipes and have concluded they're a bit too rich for us. So, in search of a richer Philadelphia style recipe I used the one that came along with my ice cream maker, which specifies double cream and whole milk. Except because my container of double cream was 50ml more than required, I used the lot, reducing the amount of whole milk accordingly.

On top of this, since I'd read somewhere that many bring their base to 170degF before chilling and churning, I decided to do the same.

So, I've now got a thick layer of fat on my base that won't emulsify into a nice creamy liquid. I tried attacking it with a stick blender but it became thick cream and milk, separated. I churned it nevertheless but it didn't really freeze, it just became very cold cream and milk - never integrating.

Is there anything I can do to save it or has my bumbling rendered it irredeemable?

And, can one make ice cream with clotted cream?

[RuthWells]

I have just recently gotten interested in home made ice cream (and gelato, and sorbet....) and have noticed that when I use a recipe that's porportionately heavy on the cream, I often end up with discrete slivers and chunks of fat in the ice cream post-churning, once it has rested in the freezer overnight. Is there any way to combat this tendancy?

[petrus]

Bri--I use "not hold them too long" only in the context of stuff done without stabilizers--so mixtures without the Cremodan or the Gelglace.  Something someone might do at home.  A basic batch of creme anglaise ice cream, say.  Spin an hour or two before dinner, put it in the freezer, and you should be ok by the time dessert rolls around.  Any longer and you could get crystals or lose texture.

If you nail the right Baume/Brix and have the right percentage of glucose or inverted sugar in your mix--then perhaps you can spin once during the day and "hold" throughout the evening.  Even at home.  This is because these other "sugars" help retard crystallization

Very interesting and very helpful, but I have a question.

When I take my ice cream (made in a robot coupe machine) out of the fridge it often takes quite a while to defrost to a usable consistency and there is always the danger of it becoming too liquid. The ice cream has been made in the machine some days beforehand.

I don't particularly want to make it on the day and then to "hold" it in the fridge. In any event, the ice cream probably needs to be firmed up in a freezer, rather than simply left in the fridge.

Where can I find out more about stabilisers? It seems to be that these might help to reduce the problem.

Petrus

[paulraphael]

I'm just starting to make ice cream at home, and have been working from David Lebovitz's excellent book. But I'm finding the book to be thin on theory, which I'd like to learn more about so I can waste less time while experimenting and inventing recipes. I made ice cream professionally for a couple of years, but we had our base custom mixed for us by the dairy. So there's a lot that I didn't learn.

Are there any good sources out there for ice cream / sorbet / gelato theory? Things like ratios of sugar to fat to liquid, emulsifiers, stabilizing ingredients, temperatures, etc. etc.?

[Josho]

I make ice cream a good deal (have had good success lately with Mark Bittman's "Corn Starch Ice Cream" from a recent NY Times column). My wife's favorite ice cream is an unusual recipe: Almond Poppy Seed Ice Cream from Bruce Weinstein's great "Ultimate Ice Cream Book."

--Josh

[djyee100]

Are there any good sources out there for ice cream / sorbet / gelato theory? Things like ratios of sugar to fat to liquid, emulsifiers, stabilizing ingredients, temperatures, etc. etc.?

Shirley Corriher's Cookwise and Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking both contain a few pages on the science behind ice cream making.

Are you making ice cream for yourself as a home cook or do you plan to turn out ice cream in volume for sale? In my experience, the simple ice cream recipes with a custard base, no additives, taste best and have the best texture when cooked and frozen properly. Unfortunately those ice creams do not hold well in the freezer for more than a few days, but usually they're eaten up before then.

I once took a class with the food technician-owner of a local gelateria. He shared his recipes and "secrets" for ice cream that would keep longer without crystallizing in the freezer, such as the addition of cornstarch to the base. He also used skim milk powder. When I tried those recipes at home, they did not work well. His recipes relied on high-powered commercial ice cream makers to homogenize the cornstarch and skim milk powder. The ice creams came out lumpy, and frankly, they didn't taste that good.

I've cooked David Lebovitz's ice cream recipes for years with excellent results (Room for Dessert, The Perfect Scoop). Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food has 2 basic ice cream recipes (vanilla and strawberry), and many variations on each of those recipes. Both Lebovitz and Waters make the classic custard base for their ice creams.

Emily Lucchetti in A Passion For Ice Cream and Lou Seibert Pappas in Sorbets and Ice Creams also make the custard base, but I notice that they mix the egg yolks with sugar before incorporating that mixture into heated Half & Half. Their ice creams may be less prone to curdling, since the yolks are stabilized by the sugar (I'm guessing) but I think their ice creams tend to taste sweeter--the sugar taste is more forward--than with the classic custard method. (Or maybe I'm imagining things.)

Pamela Sheldon Johns' Gelato! cookbook has finally been reprinted this spring, after used copies went for sale online for $40. The new paperback edition costs $14.95. I've cooked my favorite gelatos out of this book.

LittleIsland and RuthWells, I suggest looking at Shirley Corriher's Cookwise book for her troubleshooting on ice cream. She points out several places in the cooking and chilling process where it is important to hit certain temperatures so that ice cream has the proper texture.

Edited May 31, 2008 by djyee100 (log)

[maui420]

i have a silly question, will a good home ice cream machine make better ice cream than hagan daz? can home made gelato match the gelato shops in italy?

[Josho]

i have a silly question, will a good home ice cream machine make better ice cream than hagan daz? can home made gelato match the gelato shops in italy?

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It really depends on your definition of "better." You may genuinely prefer the taste of Haagen Dazs® ice creams, for instance. Or there may be something about the flavor or properties of the milk and cream used in Italy for their gelato that you can't duplicate anywhere else.

But my guess for most people is that the answer is a resounding YES, for many reasons. For one, real ice cream, made without additives, does not keep particularly well. Chances are that that pint of Haagen Dazs was made days or weeks ago; imagine if you could eat something with the quality of their ingredients, but which was actually made minutes or hours ago.

Imagine that you can tweak the proportions of butterfat and flavors until they're EXACTLY what you're looking for.

With home ice cream machines, you can do this. What you can't do easily is control the amount of air ("overrun") incorporated into the ice cream. But you can't control that by buying Haagen Dazs, either -- you're stuck with what they give you.

I have a Musso ice cream maker, and adore it. I love trying new recipes or fiddling with the recipes I already know and love. Can't do that with store-bought. I love it when it's soft, straight from the machine. I love being able to control the ingredients, using my favorite local organic heavy cream instead of the ultra-pasteurized stuff, using fresh local eggs, using chocolates with the percentage of cacao solids that I prefer.

It's all good.

--Josh

[djyee100]

i have a silly question, will a good home ice cream machine make better ice cream than hagan daz? can home made gelato match the gelato shops in italy?

←

It's not a silly question, it's actually a good question. I'll have to say ditto to everything Josho said so well. Keep in mind that commercial ice creams have to hit a price point, & the cost of the ice cream reflects overhead & labor, not only ingredients. Even the best premium ice creams, which can sell for $5 per pint (ouch), will cut corners on the quality of the ingredients. If you're making the ice cream yourself, you can use only cream & milk (in the proportions you want), whole fresh eggs, real organic vanilla beans, Scharfenberger or Valhrona chocolate, the works. For that $5 you can make some great ice cream at home, & more of it.

The down side, of course, is that you have to make it. That takes time and effort. There's also a learning curve for making ice cream. When I first made my own ice cream, I curdled it because of overheating, and I can remember a few batches that ended up down the sink. But now I'm practiced enough that I can make ice cream without thinking about it, & the process is easy. A silicone spatula, which helps scrape the bottom of the pan so well, also did wonders to prevent curdling.

Josho is right, it's all good, but homemade ice cream is way better than any commercial supermarket variety I've tasted.

[gap]

i have a silly question, will a good home ice cream machine make better ice cream than hagan daz? can home made gelato match the gelato shops in italy?

←

The only thing I can add to the two above is I really do enjoy making my own flavours that you can't buy in the shops . . . . almond and cherry this weekend in which I can leave out the bitter almond extract is an example

[paulraphael]

Great, thanks for all the tips. I've consulted McGee, but not Corriher.

I'm making ice cream for non-commercial use, and am just chasing the holy grail of my own ideal ice cream. I've made it commercially before, but the stuff we made represented the owner's holy grail, not mine. And I wasn't at all involved in the theory behind the mix.

So right now I'm thinking that traditional French (custard based) ice creams aren't my thing. Too eggy. But I like the smoothness and the mouthfeel. So I'm looking for some kind of compromise: maybe a couple of egg yolks per quart, something like 12% to 14% butterfat, and something else besides egg to improve smoothness and texture.

I'm curious about corn starch, but am warry of it because I don't want to introduce any cereal flavors that could peek through more delicately flavored ice creams. I'm also a little wary of milk powder, since reconstituted milk tastes so bad. My first experiment (which I'll freeze tonight) uses arrowroot starch.

I'll let you know how it goes.

By the way, I got in touch with David Lebovitz about the sugar mixing. He says he mixes it with the milk because some people curdle their eggs by throwing sugar on them and not mixing them thoroughly right away. But other than that he can't taste a difference in side by side comparisons.

And I've found that with lower numbers of yolks, it's not very practical to whisk the yolks and sugar. Too little liquid for all the sugar.

Shirley Corriher's Cookwise and Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking both contain a few pages on the science behind ice cream making.

Are you making ice cream for yourself as a home cook or do you plan to turn out ice cream in volume for sale? In my experience, the simple ice cream recipes with a custard base, no additives, taste best and have the best texture when cooked and frozen properly. Unfortunately those ice creams do not hold well in the freezer for more than a few days, but usually they're eaten up before then.

I once took a class with the food technician-owner of a local gelateria. He shared his recipes and "secrets" for ice cream that would keep longer without crystallizing in the freezer, such as the addition of cornstarch to the base. He also used skim milk powder. When I tried those recipes at home, they did not work well. His recipes relied on high-powered commercial ice cream makers to homogenize the cornstarch and skim milk powder. The ice creams came out lumpy, and frankly, they didn't taste that good.

I've cooked David Lebovitz's ice cream recipes for years with excellent results (Room for Dessert, The Perfect Scoop). Alice Waters in The Art of Simple Food has 2 basic ice cream recipes (vanilla and strawberry), and many variations on each of those recipes. Both Lebovitz and Waters make the classic custard base for their ice creams.

Emily Lucchetti in A Passion For Ice Cream and Lou Seibert Pappas in Sorbets and Ice Creams also make the custard base, but I notice that they mix the egg yolks with sugar before incorporating that mixture into heated Half & Half. Their ice creams may be less prone to curdling, since the yolks are stabilized by the sugar (I'm guessing) but I think their ice creams tend to taste sweeter--the sugar taste is more forward--than with the classic custard method. (Or maybe I'm imagining things.)

Pamela Sheldon Johns' Gelato! cookbook has finally been reprinted this spring, after used copies went for sale online for $40. The new paperback edition costs $14.95. I've cooked my favorite gelatos out of this book.

LittleIsland and RuthWells, I suggest looking at Shirley Corriher's Cookwise book for her troubleshooting on ice cream. She points out several places in the cooking and chilling process where it is important to hit certain temperatures so that ice cream has the proper texture.

←

[djyee100]

By the way, I got in touch with David Lebovitz about the sugar mixing. He says he mixes it with the milk because some people curdle their eggs by throwing sugar on them and not mixing them thoroughly right away. But other than that he can't taste a difference in side by side comparisons.

And I've found that with lower numbers of yolks, it's not very practical to whisk the yolks and sugar. Too little liquid for all the sugar.

Thanks for the research. I wondered about the technique of mixing the yolks with sugar. I prefer dissolving the sugar in the milk, then adding the egg yolks. But because I like Lucchetti's and Pappas' recipes, I cook from their books and follow their techniques. Easy to switch the technique around to sugar-in-milk mode, of course, and I think I will do that from now on.

Yes, pls let us know of your experiments with new recipes.

[paulraphael]

My first trial with the arrowroot went pretty well.

I made a 14% butterfat base (equal parts milk and heavy cream).

2 egg yolks per quart (cooked into the milk) and 2 teaspoons (6g) arrowroot.

Nice and smooth, though I'm not completely sold on the feel of the ice cream after it melts in my mouth. Just the slightest sense of chalkiness or pastiness that you sometimes get with stabilized ice creams. I don't know for sure if this is from the starch, but that's my guess. It also remains to be seen how well the texture holds up. I'd like to be able to keep the ice cream around for a few days.

Has anyone used gelatin in ice cream? That seems like a common choice. I like the idea because it's flavorless and it also loses viscosity when it warms up.

I've never worked with it before, so when I read instructions to "bloom" it I have no idea what to do.

Edited June 3, 2008 by paulraphael (log)

[Kouign Aman]

I made lemongrass icecream recently, using an 'Oster Kitchen Center' icecream maker. It went very quickly. The plus side is it uses ice and table salt. so I dont have to keep the chiller in the freezer, also I dont risk running out of 'chill capacity'.

Heated chopped lemongrass in heavy cream, just to the boiling point. Let cool and removed the skin that formed, and the lemongrass chunks.

Recipe was 1.5 c cream, 0.5 c milk, 0.5 c sugar, mixed, chilled, then churned.

The result was different in texture from any other icecream I've made. It stayed creamy in the freezer for a full week, where all other flavors started to get icy in a day or so.

Also, this was the COLDEST icecream I've ever had. I dont know why. We made two other flavors at the time. Neither of them was as cold, and both got icy after a couple days in the freezer.

I'm wondering if it was heating the cream or some component of the lemongrass that had the smoothing effect. I think it has to be the lemongrass that made it seems so cold, like menthol seems cold.

I'll be making it again. It was wunnerful.

[gfron1]

I'm teaching a basic ice cream class this weekend, and so I've re-read all of the topics on ice cream, sorbet and gelato. Great stuff! Some of the recipes blew me away. Here's my short list:

Tangerine Rum Sorbet with Shaved Dark Chocolate

Zaafraani Kulfi (Indian Ice-Cream) (cardammon, saffron, pistachio)

Lavender-Mascarpone Ice Cream

Grapefruit-Rosemary Sorbet

Olive Chip Ice Cream (olive oil, dried olives, golden syrup, mascarapone)

Mint Julep ice cream

Blue Cheese Ice Cream w/candied bacon

Tangerine Rum Sorbet with Shaved Dark Chocolate

(if you're asking 'How the hell is his a basic class?' I'll start with a variety of bases and vanillas)

I can only make 5 since that's all the freezer bowls I have. HERE'S MY QUESTION...

Can't I just dump my mix/base in a bowl and freeze it in the freezer? Can I do that and have a texture other than "rock"?

[Josho]

Can't I just dump my mix/base in a bowl and freeze it in the freezer?  Can I do that and have a texture other than "rock"?

←

Picture it this way.

If you put water into a bowl and froze it, you'd have a solid block of ice, right? Your ice cream base is predominantly water. If you freeze it without agitating it, you end up with what is essentially one huge ice crystal.

If you put water into a bowl and froze it JUST until there was a thin layer of ice around the walls of container, and you scraped that layer off the walls and broke it up into tiny shards (individual crystals) and stirred it in...and then kept doing that over and over, every time there was a thin layer of ice around the walls...eventually you'd end up with a bowl of smooth slush: millions of tiny crystals.

Similarly, the smaller and more even the crystals are that form as your ice cream freezes, the smoother and creamier the ice cream will be.

It's the difference between making one large crystal and a million microscopic crystals.

--Josh

[gfron1]

Ok. Makes sense although not the answer I was look for

What about some type of whipped base? What if I incorporated into a whipped cream? Or added gelatin to a whipped cream (I've read enough around here to know that that is probably not the answer).

I'm asking not just so I can make more recipes, but also I've had people ask if they need to buy an ice cream maker to take the class. Of course I want them to, but I'd like to have options for them if they don't buy a maker.

[Kerry Beal]

Ok.  Makes sense although not the answer I was look for

What about some type of whipped base?  What if I incorporated into a whipped cream?  Or added gelatin to a whipped cream (I've read enough around here to know that that is probably not the answer). 

I'm asking not just so I can make more recipes, but also I've had people ask if they need to buy an ice cream maker to take the class.  Of course I want them to, but I'd like to have options for them if they don't buy a maker.

←

I've seen recipes like that - where you freeze a whipped mixture in a terrine mold, then unmold and cut in slices. I think it's called semifreddo.

You can pick up used Donvier ice cream makers at thrift stores for about $10 or less and make excellent ice cream in them. The container goes in the freezer, you give it a little stir every few minutes during the freezing process.

[gfron1]

You forget that I live in the middle of nowhere - I'll check our one second hand store, but odds are against me. I will look into semifreddo. Thanks

[emmalish]

You can pick up used Donvier ice cream makers at thrift stores for about $10 or less and make excellent ice cream in them.  The container goes in the freezer, you give it a little stir every few minutes during the freezing process.

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A friend of mine used to have one of those – she said it was a huge pain and she ended up never making ice cream because it was too much hassle. I'd say it's worth spending $50 for one of the little cuisinarts.

Otherwise, wouldn't it be pretty much as effective to just freeze it in a bowl and stir it occasionally during the freezing? Or does the donvier have a special design?

[gfron1]

Now, while I may not be able to find a Donvier in my town, I used to have one and loved it. Three cranks over a 15 minute period if I remember correctly. Super easy.