I LOVE an Alice Waters ice cream base recipe that I use all of the time. The ratios… pint of heavy creme, 4 yolks, 2/3 cups of sugar. Obviously rich, and I make nice variations with different fruits. Way better than any store bought ice cream I’ve ever had. Here’s my one question…
There is always a slight ‘chalkiness’ in the texture that you can also see on the bottom of the spoon when you eat it. What do you think is going on there?
There are a lot of things I don’t think I’m doing - but something is not quite right. I dissolve the sugar completely. I warm the eggs before dumping them in. After I reduce, I strain with a fine sieve (barely anything strains out). I don’t boil or burn. I don’t think it is sugar. Egg solids? But I’m really careful to not cook the eggs.
Like I say, it’s a great ice cream recipe - but that quality keeps it from being perfect.
All of the ice cream that we eat is stuff we make ourselves and very few of the recipes call for eggs except some of the hard core vanillas. Have you tried any without the eggs?
Not in years. It just makes for so much richer ice cream. And it doesn’t overwhelm fruits at all. I made strawberry last week. I make peach every year. And couldn’t be easier.
Sorry C., no help here. I love ice-cream. I eat four pints a week. I even have a pretty good ice-cream maker, and love to cook. That said, ice-cream is one of the last things I will make. I find the premium store-bought, even the best prepacked at the grocery store, are better than I’ve ever made and not expensive. Every once in awhile I’ll have a very unusual home flavor, but even those are available to buy. Kind of the same way I feel about fresh bread.
What are your favorite home-made flavors? I often try fresh peach. I actually want to try and make some foie gras ice cream which I had at a food event and really liked it.
John - I love peach (especially because it is so hard to find). I tend to use the local fruits that are in - which is why I’ll make strawberry ice cream again (as well as strawberry leather, and I’ll do some spherifications and make some strawberry caviar). I love home made raspberry. The key (to me) is always using that rich base. Hard to mess that up! I want to try avacado this year. Sometime I’ll just make very vanilla vanilla.
Yep I do like good black cherry.
I almost listed avocado, which I’ll make this year. People are usually grossed out by the idea. I’ve been to the Philippines a number of times and always have the Avo ice-cream there. They also make a sweet corn and a cheddar cheese. They’re different but still good, and predominantly sweet. Of course also coconut, my favorite ice cream.
Most of the Ice Cream recipes we use call for egg yolks. Leaving them out would make the ice cream less rich. One of my favorite recipes from Thomas Keller’s “The French Laundry Cookbook” uses 10 egg yolks. His recipe is unbelievably rich and quite good.
Once you introduce eggs into the equation, you are technically making custard, not ice cream. I would give Alton’s recipe a shot, and see what you think about the texture vs. a custard base.
I love ice cream but no longer buy or make it because I eat it - and if you look at Landreth’s avatar you can see why I don’t need any more in my life (yeah, that’s my mug and bucket head).
that being said - any of you try to make ice cream with pseudo sugar to drop the carb count?
Ice cream using eggs in the base is still ice cream. The “custard” is what you put in the machine - but still ice cream. Joy of Cooking calls with eggs “French style” ice cream and sans eggs “Philadelphia style” ice cream.
FWIW I made strawberry ice cream again this weekend, but mascerated the strawberries with powdered sugar rather than granulated. I noticed less of the chalkiness, but noticed enough of it that I am confident that it is not an undisolved sugar issue.
BTW, I made strawberry ice cream, strawberry leather - cooked low for 4 1/2 but should have kept in longer, as it ended up being closer to jellied fruit, and strawberry caviar.
I know I’ve got it right if I have a firm, edible-all-by-itself custard in the fridge after I’ve cooked and cooled.
Making one more (one last?) batch of strawberry ice cream and starting some homemade maraschino cherries this weekend! Will be ready when family visits in a couple of weeks.
I once screwed up by putting in double the cream, so reduced and reduced and reduced. It came out great. I decided I had basically made ice cream with sugar, yolks, and butter.
One last thing… I pretty much only make fruit ice creams or vanilla. But I buy ‘flavored’ ice creams. Setting aside that I really do think the recipe is better than any store bought, you just can’t top using really fresh fruit in your ice cream.
(Changed thread name to reflect the direction of the thread.)
Made more strawberry this weekend. I’m freezing some cherry tonight. And I’m making “blueberry pancake” ice cream tomorrow.
Just read an article suggesting that this can be made using blueberries, vanilla,… and fenugreek, which imparts a maple flavor better than maple syrup would.
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup half and half
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons BUTTER
vanilla
Whisk sugar into egg yolks in a double boiler, add half and half and heat until mixture thickens. Pull off heat and add butter. Allow to cool to almost room temperature then mix in cream and vanilla.
This is the richest, tastiest ice cream i’ve ever had. The butter adds a creamy richness to it that you cant get from cream alone. It also seems to melt a little slower in your mouth.
For strawberry ice cream I just cook down sliced strawberries with sugar until it thickens, allow to cool, then add it after you add the base ice cream into you ice cream maker.
I find that ice cream makers that have there own chillers (usually more expensive) are far better than ones that have to be frozen before use.
I’ve been getting closer and closer… and this might be the perfect base for the “blueberry pancake” ice cream.
Just to confirm, you don’t reduce it at all, once the heavy cream is added?
(That’s where I figure I’m effectively getting butter, by reducing the heavy cream. But in for a penny, in for a pound, I’ll just add butter. After that I’m trying duck fat!!!)
That’s one of the reasons I want a PacoJet - instant ice cream, basically just tossing in the ingredients. But who needs, what, a $3,000 ice cream maker?