Ice cream & Sorbet recipes and tips

[Tri2Cook]

Pamela Sheldon Johns has a recipe for Florentine Rice Gelato in her Gelato! cookbook. She reverse-engineered it from her favorite gelato di riso at a gelateria in Florence. The recipe has intrigued me, but I've never tried it.

Thanks! Sounds like a good starting point. I really like the rice milk sherbet from Francisco Migoya's Frozen Desserts, I was debating just infusing it with toasted cinnamon and tossing in some cooked rice but it sounds like that wouldn't be as rich as it should be after looking at the recipe you linked to.

[DaveJes1979]

Egullet folks,

I'm struggling to make gelato in my new gelato-maker (it is the countertop Delonghi model). The gelato keeps thickening up so that a thin layer of the gelato on the bottom of the bowl gums up the paddle and the paddle stops rotating. I thought the motor might be too weak, but it can be sticky enough that I can't even rotate the paddle by torquing on it with my hands. Of course I can scrape this thick layer of gelato out with a fork (it is dense but still tastes delicious), but it just forms again once the machine gets running again for a few minutes.

The recipes I am following are all from the Making Artistan Gelato book. The culprit might be one of two things: first, everything we've tried so far has included chocolate. I wonder if the chocolate is trying to re-solidify. The chocolate gelato recipe uses 2 cups whole milk, 1 cup heavy cream, 4 eggs, 6 ounces of dark chocolate, 1 cup of sugar, along with a bit of cocoa powder, salt, and vanilla extract (to make a quart). We also tried a mint chocolate recipe that cuts the dark chocolate by half.

The other culprit might be the fact that we are using our Sous Vide Supreme to make the base rather than the more traditional methods. So we are just putting all of the ingredients into a blender and blending it until smooth, then we pour it into a ziplock bag, and it goes in the sous vide machine for 20 minutes at 182 degrees F. Once it gets out of the machine, we chill the bag in an ice water bath and then pour it into the gelato maker.

The funny thing is that the bases we have made all taste great. We salvaged the bases by chucking them in the freezer overnight, and while the end product is rather hard and dense, it tastes better than anything we can buy at the store. There is no sign of any ingredients splitting. So I don't know what we are doing wrong.

Any ideas?

[Paul McMichael]

Don't know about your machine - I use a cuisinart. I use a similar formula and heat the water bath to 178°F and put the base in a quart mason jar. The mix reaches temp in about 30 - 40 minutes. I hold the cream till the end and whip it to soft peaks then fold it into the cooled base. Seems to work like a charm. Nuts and chocolate chunks are added after the mix starts to thicken in the machine.

Paul

[DaveJes1979]

Hmmm, I could try cooking it longer as you have, but I think my mix is heated through in less time since I'm using a ziplock instead of a mason jar. Also, I'm not adding any chocolate chunks or nuts (the chocolate is blended in and heated with the custard base).

The main difference seems to be that you wait to add in the heavy cream until the base has already cooled after cooking. I could try this, although I was also thinking that I could just delete the heavy cream so that it doesn't get so thick. I also might try deleting some of the eggs. But it doesn't seem like I should have to, so I'm still wondering what's going on.

[paulraphael]

Chocolate ice creams are especially tricky because of the cocoa butter. Different chocolates have different amounts and it can take some experimenting to get a formula balanced. I'd try a simple flavor (no chocolate or fruit or anthing that introduces lots of variables) first to make sure the machine and your basic methods are working.

[weinoo]

Chocolate ice creams are especially tricky because of the cocoa butter. Different chocolates have different amounts and it can take some experimenting to get a formula balanced. I'd try a simple flavor (no chocolate or fruit or anthing that introduces lots of variables) first to make sure the machine and your basic methods are working.

I was gonna say what paul said - have you tried vanilla?

Also, are you giving the base an overnight rest in the fridge? That is a step which, imo, really adds a lot to the finished product.

All of these home gelato machines (I have a Lello) seem to have the problem of that thin layer of ice cream which forms and adheres to the sides and bottom of the container. I wonder if it's possible that the calibration of your machine is slightly off, giving you a much thicker layer than the machine can handle.

[wc4572]

I've made a lime sorbet, vanilla ice cream (eggless), and vanilla frozen yogurt. All were great from the machine, but were rocks when I took them out. My frozen yogurt sat in the fridge for 30 minutes and in my bowl for 30 minutes and I still had to scrape at the chunk. After reading this thread (and a few others), I'm thinking I need some sort of stabilizer, but I don't know what to do. I've seen eggyolks, cornstarch, gelatin, dry milk powder, xanthan gum, etc. My question then, is there anything I can do to get a more scoopable texture after 24 hours in the freezer? If anyone needs more info on the recipes I used, please let me know. Thanks.

[PetersCreek]

Neophyte ice cream maker here, using the Kitchenaid attachment. I recently picked up a copy of Jeni Britton Bauer's book, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home, after reading an article about her in the latest issue of Saveur magazine. I made my first batch from the book this past weekend: "The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World". Cocoa powder. Ghirardelli 70%. Coffee. Good. Very good. I-want-some-right-now good. Dammit.

At The Wife®'s demand request, I think we'll be trying the salted caramel recipe next.

Edited August 9, 2011 by PetersCreek (log)

[rtrunk]

I too have been working (eating) my way through Jeni's book. She is my new hero. Definitely make the caramel (I increase the sugar in that recipe to 3/4 cup.) The sweet corn and blackberry is mind blowing.

I've made 10 or so different flavors from the book. All winners. Almost makes me want to switch careers

[Darienne]

I too have been working (eating) my way through Jeni's book. She is my new hero. Definitely make the caramel (I increase the sugar in that recipe to 3/4 cup.) The sweet corn and blackberry is mind blowing.

I've made 10 or so different flavors from the book. All winners. Almost makes me want to switch careers

Perhaps my ice cream and frozen treats library needs this title.

[rtrunk]

I've started experimenting with Tapioca and Guar gum instead of the usual corn starch. I'm using Jeni Bauer's basic recipe as a starting point. the first batch, with 1 T of tapioca and a 1/8t of guar is a little too thick. Guar is pretty potent. Also hard to disperse evenly.