Ice Cream, Gelato, Sherbet--Cook-Off 11

[misstenacity]

Tried out my new Panasonic cheapo maker today, spinning up some Fig Honey ice cream. Hmph.

Not sure if it was the machine, the mix, or what but it was both icy and even a little bitterness was evident (bad figs?). I will withhold judgement until I tried one of my other "tried and true" flavors - Banana Walnut. :-)

Results will be posted when available....

Miss Tenacity

http://tenacity.net

[greenwich st]

Last night I just had an absolutely delicious strawberry-balsamic granita at Craftbar (NYC) and now I have to reproduce it. Never having made granita I'm wondering if it really is just a matter of pureeing the berries, adding sugar to taste and a spoonfull of balsamic? Sugar or simple syrup? Can anyone spell this out for me?

[Saffy]

::: sigh ::: I really want an icecream maker! They are all very expensive here in NZ.

I did make a nice hokeypokey and maple semi-fredo the other night.. next best thing to icecream when you don't have an icecream maker.

[Smithy]

I did make a nice hokeypokey and maple semi-fredo the other night.. next best thing to icecream when you don't have an icecream maker.

←

"hokeypokey and maple semi-fredo..." ?

I know hokey pokey as a dance? Can you translate what you just said for this American, please?

[Saffy]

Hokeypokey = small bits of honeycomb, not the real variety but the candy variety made with golden syrup, sugar and bakingsoda.

in my case I cheated and used a chocolate covered honeycomb bar called a chrunchie. In the UK the equivalent would be a velvet crumble bar. Not sure what you have in the US.

Edited September 20, 2005 by Saffy (log)

[eje]

Made a pumpkin ice milk that turned out pretty well.

My last custard based ice cream was a little too rich, this one may have been a little too lean. Maybe 1 cup half and half and two cups milk next time. Great clean flavor though!

I wanted to keep it simple; but, I think next time I will also add toasted pecans.

-Erik

-----

Pumpkin Ice Milk

Custard Base:

3 Cups Whole Milk

4 Egg Yolks

¾ Cup Sugar (I used half dark brown sugar and half white sugar)

1 Cup Pumpkin Puree

1 tsp. Cinnamon

½ tsp. Nutmeg

½ tsp. Ground Ginger

1/8 Cup Bourbon Whiskey

For Custard:

Whisk sugar into egg yolks. Scald milk. Temper egg and sugar mixture with a couple tablespoons of hot milk. Add egg and sugar mixture to Milk and bring up to 180 degrees F.

Whisk together Remaining ingredients. Combine Pumpkin mixture with Custard base, strain and chill.

Freeze according to your Ice Cream Maker's instructions.

Makes about 1 Quart.

Edited October 10, 2005 by eje (log)

[Chris Amirault]

Looks great, eje! You ought to add that to RecipeGullet!

[amccomb]

I made my first ice cream ever yesterday in a cuisinart ice cream maker I got for $14 on E-bay.

Despite the fact I was making an apple pie and wanted to make something to go with it, I started with peanut butter ice cream. Man, my husband was so excited by it. He ate some after dinner, then as a midnight snack, and then this morning for breakfast! Now it's gone and he's forbidden me from making it again until we have people helping us eat it.

Here is what I did:

1 cup of cream

1 cup of whole milk

1/2 cup of sugar

pinch of salt

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

I combined everything but the vanilla and whisked over medium heat until the peanut butter was melted and thoroughly incorporated. I removed it from the heat, added in the vanilla, and chilled that in the fridge. When it was cold, I poured it in my ice cream maker. When it was almost done, I added in some chunks and shaved pieces of valrhona dark chocolate - probably a bar and a half. I won't do that again, though because I felt like some of the subtle flavors of the chocolate were lost. Then in to the freezer for a couple of hours.

I quickly washed the freezer bowl and added it to the freezer as well. Later, I whipped up a custard base with honey and armagnac to go with the pie (apple with honey and dates and cardamom), which tasted lovely but never solidified. I'm guessing I used too much liquor (about 1/3 cup), but it could be that the freezer bowl did not get thoroughly chilled the second time around. I shook it and there was no sloshing, which is when the directions say it's ready, but it was only in for a couple of hours after the peanut butter ice cream was done.

Here is the recipe for that, which I will try again with more egg yolks and less armagnac.

1/2 cup buckwheat honey

1 cup 2% milk

1 cup half & half

1/2 cup heavy cream

3 yolks

pinch salt

3 T. sugar

1/3 cup armagnac

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Simmered milks and honey for a couple of minutes. Whisked the yolks, salt & sugar together. Tempered with warm milk. Returned to cream mixture and whisked over medium heat until thickened.

Strained, added vanilla bean paste and armagnac into the mix. Chilled and added to ice cream machine.

I threw it in the freezer even thought it never thickened in the machine and it did eventually freeze, but had ice crystals. Tasted really nice, though!

Edited October 17, 2005 by amccomb (log)

[JustKay]

My (free) KA ice-cream maker attachment arrived yesterday. I am so excited! I think I am gonna start with the peanut butter ice-cream.

Thank you all for sharing your recipes. More please ......

[JustKay]

amccomb ... I tried your peanut butter ice-cream and we all love it. I didn't add the shaved chocolate though but had it with chocolate topping (I'm a chocolate lover).

And using the same recipe, I made peach ice-cream. I drained and pureed canned peaches and subbed that for the PB and it was delish! But of course, more peach puree than just 3/4cup ... I used the big can which is about 500gm peaches (drained).

I think this is a good base for simple ice-cream. I prefer this to custard base plus this is a very easy & quick recipe that my sons are making ice-creams themselves now.

Thanks for sharing the recipe.

Edited December 7, 2005 by JustKay (log)

[Susan in FL]

I recently saw a recipe for nutmeg ice cream -- it might have been in a current issue of one of my magazines. I thought it sounded like a good winter ice cream. Anyone ever tried such a thing?

[M. Lucia]

I've made cinnamon and cardamom ice creams, both very good, so why not nutmeg.

You could add a few extra egg yolks and some brandy/rum and have eggnog ice cream.

[Susan in FL]

Mmmm... I like the sounds of that.

[Chris Amirault]

There's also a grape nut ice cream that you can find around New England (and probably elsewhere) that contains a hefty dose of nutmeg.

[miladyinsanity]

Would Alton Brown's Serious Vanilla Ice Cream make a good base?

I don't mind cooking it, but I don't want to have eggs inside it, that's all.

I'd probably do chocolate. A mango sorbet might be in the works after I come back from an eating trip to Penang next weekend.

[misstenacity]

Wowza. I have been tweaking some low-fat frozen chocolately desserts for weeks, and I have come up with:

Tres Leches Dark Chocolate Ganache Gelato

Follow the link for the gory details, as posted on my blog tonight. Enjoy!

Andrea

http://tenacity.net

[miladyinsanity]

Wahhh...

Mine won't freeze, Andrea! I admit I didn't follow the recipe entirely, since I didn't use Splenda, and I didn't use the full-fat stuff and I strained it because I strain everything that goes into the ice cream maker. Oh and I didn't leave it overnight either.

What else did I do? Oh I added a few pieces of plain, dark chocolate so that I could open a new bar of choccie. Sorry, I belong to the "Is Morally Required To Make Changes To All Recipes" group.

Now, it tastes good. It's just not ice cream. The salt was a stroke of genius, by the way. I think I'll add some Korova cookie dough next time.

After I burn milk for the first time too. I wasn't even playing Russian Roulette with my milk!

[Pookie]

Saffron-Vanilla-Pear Ice Cream

Made this for dessert last night. The Saffron flavour and colour really came through in the finished product. The pears just gave it a nice texture.

Whoo! My first cookoff post!

Edited February 5, 2006 by Pookie (log)

[Ktepi]

Saffron is still my favorite flavor for homemade ice cream the way I make it -- I basically just freeze flavored sweetened whipped cream -- but I'm very happy with the bacon ice cream I made last night: chunks of smoked jowl bacon, larger strips of fat removed, barely simmered in heavy cream and maple syrup for an hour before being strained, cooled, whipped, and frozen.

It tastes like toffee. Or butterscotch. The saltiness and smokiness ad a richness that reminds me of those, and enough pork fat melts and emulsifies into the cream that it's even richer (and freeze a bit more solidly) than whipped cream already is. Although the finish is one you can recognize as sweet pork fat if you're paying attention -- it's as though after the ice cream melts there's still that bit of pork on the tongue -- I don't think anyone would know this was bacon if I didn't tell them.

[misstenacity]

Wahhh...

Mine won't freeze, Andrea! I admit I didn't follow the recipe entirely, since I didn't use Splenda, and I didn't use the full-fat stuff and I strained it because I strain everything that goes into the ice cream maker. Oh and I didn't leave it overnight either.

What else did I do? Oh I added a few pieces of plain, dark chocolate so that I could open a new bar of choccie. Sorry, I belong to the "Is Morally Required To Make Changes To All Recipes" group.

Now, it tastes good. It's just not ice cream. The salt was a stroke of genius, by the way. I think I'll add some Korova cookie dough next time.

After I burn milk for the first time too. I wasn't even playing Russian Roulette with my milk!

←

So if I extrapolate correctly, these are your ingredients changes:

1/4 cup real sugar for 1/4 cup Splenda

Added chopped chocolate to batter (?)

Used fat-free sweetened condensed milk? (I'm not sure which item you are referring to when you say you didn't use the "full-fat" kind)

It is possible that the sugar amount just tipped the balance in terms of allowing it to freeze properly. Other things that are known to affect freezing: the amount of cocoa, the amount of salt, any added alcohol.

Once when I made this I used "cocoa powder" I bought at a bulk-bin place, and the whole mixture looked rather light in color. Oh well, I just proceeded as usual, and after it was all frozen I noticed 2 things: it was pretty soft & scoopable, and it was overpoweringly sweet. What had happened? Well, the "cocoa powder" turned out to be hot chocolate mix. Doh!

I called the store to tell them they had their bulk cocoa mislabeled so they could fix it on the shelf.... but annoying, still.

But the additional sugar minus the cocoa powder was enough to make the ice cream really really soft in the end, so perhaps that happened to you?

FYI, before I start freezing it, the mixture is like thick pudding - it is not the "creme anglaise" light custard kind of consistency that you might normally have when making a custard-based ice cream.

I hope your next batch turns out - I just ate half a batch (which is a departure from eating the whole thing, actually) for my post-lunch snack and it was like my daily heroin fix.

Andrea

http://foodpart.com

[schneich]

hi everyone,

since 2 days iam a lucky owner of the forementioned donper professional icecream maker. my first attempt with the original ben & jerrys french vanilla recipe was a nightmare. the machine worked great, i followed the recipe, poured the mis in the machine, pressed the start button and waited about 10 minutes or so... out came a weird textured icecream with a very rough furry icy feeling, once it melted it was as if i had little butter pieces in my mouth..... :-(

cheers

t.

[amccomb]

So, this winter I've made so many ice creams! Luckily, we had a freezer at work, so after my husband and I have a scoop, we can bring the rest to work to share.

So far, I've made pumpkin, cinnamon, apple with dulce de leche, gingerbread (not with chunks of gingerbread, just the spices and molasses - my favorite), raspberry/chambord, coffee, and vanilla bourbon (my second favorite).

I've also started making bonbons for special occasions. So far, I've used peppermint ice cream, italian brandied cherry ice cream, peanut butter ice cream, and orange/gran marnier ice cream. I think I'll use the raspberry or coffee next time.

I used 1 1/4 lbs of chocolate with about 1/4 cup of shortening or butter to coat the bonbons. To make them, I have to take everything out of my freezer and send it to my friends house. Then I put two cookie sheets in the freezer lined with parchment paper in the freezer. When they were very cold, I scoop the hardened ice cream out onto the cookie sheets into small balls with a small scoop. I let those harden overnight. Then I melt the chocolate, and when it's luke warm, I dunk in the frozen ice cream balls and put them back on the parchment. Back in the freezer until serving time! They were HUGE hits. I served them in a metal serving bowl that I also chilled in the freezer, but we actually found we liked them best when the ice cream inside melted a bit. If I make two flavors at once, I drizzle one with a bit of melted white chocolate so we can tell them apart.

[pounce]

hi everyone,

since 2 days iam a lucky owner of the forementioned donper professional icecream maker. my first attempt with the original ben & jerrys french vanilla recipe was a nightmare. the machine worked great, i followed the recipe, poured the mis in the machine, pressed the start button and waited about 10 minutes or so... out came a weird textured icecream with a very rough furry icy feeling, once it melted it was as if i had little butter pieces in my mouth..... :-(

cheers

t.

←

Maybe the mixture was whipped too much before it was frozen? That's a pretty impressive machine. Does the amount of mix in the machine make a difference? I wonder if you made a small batch when you should have had more in the machine. It's only a guess, really. I'm coveting your ice cream maker.

Edited February 19, 2006 by pounce (log)

[schneich]

I'm coveting your ice cream maker.

←

bought it at the last day of the "domotechnica" (international kitchen appliance show) for 200 euros ( about 260 or so $) :-) :-)

t.

[Chris Amirault]

Yikes! Where in the world are you keeping it? Please do provide regular updates!!