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Ice Cream Question???
Hi all,
I recently got a GE gel canister ice cream maker and I've had a few hits & misses. I don't use any eggs in my ice cream recipes only cream, milk & sugar. So far I've made chocolate ice cream twice and I don't like how it turned out mostly because I don't know what type of chocolate to use. I did find some Lindt Fine Dark Chocolate that is 85% cocao & it's 100 gr bar. Can I use this in my next attempt? Or can you recommend something better. Also what are some of your favorite ice cream recipes that you've created? I'm looking to try something new. Thanks a bunch & Take care, SPOONS My photo food log http://www.fotolog.net/giggles |
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Ice Cream Question???
SPOONS > wrote:
>Hi all, Just remember, you asked for it. >I recently got a GE gel canister ice cream maker and I've had a few hits & >misses. I don't use any eggs in my ice cream recipes only cream, milk & >sugar. So far I've made chocolate ice cream twice and I don't like how it >turned out mostly because I don't know what type of chocolate to use. I did I believe (from a faint memory of a television show or three, not any actual experience churning the stuff myself) that you need to start with a ganache rather than chocolate. But then, chocolate ice cream is a ganache, so I don't quite know why I'm making the distinction... You'll probably have to try several brands of couverture before you find one that tastes right, because the same kind of chocolate tastes different when coming from different chocolatiers...but maybe that's what you're asking... >find some Lindt Fine Dark Chocolate that is 85% cocao & it's 100 gr bar. >Can I use this in my next attempt? Or can you recommend something better. No. Mail it here, packed with one of those frozen gel-packs to prevent it from, uh, outgassing, yeah, that's it. I'll dispose of it where it will never hurt anyone again. >Also what are some of your favorite ice cream recipes that you've created? >I'm looking to try something new. I invented this thing where you squeeze chocolate syrup out of a bottle onto vanilla ice cream. --Blair "'A la mode', I called it." |
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Ice Cream Question???
Blair P. Houghton > wrote in
: > SPOONS > wrote: >>Hi all, > > Just remember, you asked for it. > >>I recently got a GE gel canister ice cream maker and I've had a few >>hits & misses. I don't use any eggs in my ice cream recipes only >>cream, milk & sugar. So far I've made chocolate ice cream twice and I >>don't like how it turned out mostly because I don't know what type of >>chocolate to use. I did > > I believe (from a faint memory of a television show > or three, not any actual experience churning the stuff > myself) that you need to start with a ganache rather than > chocolate. But then, chocolate ice cream is a ganache, so I > don't quite know why I'm making the distinction... > > You'll probably have to try several brands of couverture > before you find one that tastes right, because the same kind > of chocolate tastes different when coming from different > chocolatiers...but maybe that's what you're asking... > >>find some Lindt Fine Dark Chocolate that is 85% cocao & it's 100 gr >>bar. Can I use this in my next attempt? Or can you recommend >>something better. > > No. Mail it here, packed with one of those frozen > gel-packs to prevent it from, uh, outgassing, yeah, > that's it. I'll dispose of it where it will never hurt > anyone again. > >>Also what are some of your favorite ice cream recipes that you've >>created? I'm looking to try something new. > > I invented this thing where you squeeze chocolate syrup out > of a bottle onto vanilla ice cream. > > --Blair > "'A la mode', I called it." Ah, one of life's great mysteries solved! I wondered you invented that. -- Wayne in Phoenix Big on natural foods?? 82.38% of people die of "natural" causes. |
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Ice Cream Question???
"SPOONS" > wrote in message
ogers.com... > Also what are some of your favorite ice cream > recipes that you've created? I'm looking to try > something new. Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book is filled to bursting with great recipes, as is the Ultimate Ice Cream Book (I have and use both of them). They're available from amazon, packaged together, for 21.15USD. -j |
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Ice Cream Question???
"SPOONS" > wrote in message . rogers.com>...
> Hi all, > > I recently got a GE gel canister ice cream maker and I've had a few hits & > misses. I don't use any eggs in my ice cream recipes only cream, milk & > sugar. So far I've made chocolate ice cream twice and I don't like how it > turned out mostly because I don't know what type of chocolate to use. I did > find some Lindt Fine Dark Chocolate that is 85% cocao & it's 100 gr bar. > Can I use this in my next attempt? Or can you recommend something better. > > Also what are some of your favorite ice cream recipes that you've created? > I'm looking to try something new. > > Thanks a bunch & Take care, > SPOONS > My photo food log http://www.fotolog.net/giggles I've used chocolate chips to pleasing effect. I might not be picky, though. The key, I found, was to heat the dairy and combine the ingredients in a blender. Before that, I got a grainy mess. After that, I was amazed at how much better and smoother my chocolate ice cream was than other types. The cocoa butter is a great stabilizer for philly ice cream. Coconut ice cream is another great treat. I've only tried recipes that involve adding a can of coconut cream (the canned, sweetened product used to make pina collada [sorry, no tilde]) to your dairy. Check out the Good Eat's fan page for a transcript of Alton Brown's show on Ice Cream. Interesting, informative stuff. http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/GEFP/index.htm One other thing to take note of; there's a neat trick where you melt chocolate and add, I think, some oil. You drizzle this molten chocolate in towards the end of the freezing cycle to get micro-chips of chocolate. This is how most commercial chocolate chip ice cream is made. One place for the details is Nick Malgieri's chocolate book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846 Greg Zywicki |
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Ice Cream Question???
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Ice Cream Question???
at Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:56:58 GMT in
>, (Greg Zywicki) wrote : (Alex Rast) wrote in message >.. . my next attempt? >> >> I recommend simply *eating* it instead because Lindt's 85% is the best >> 85% chocolate on the market and one of the very best chocolates for >> eating straight you can find. As for using it in ice cream, it may not >> be as ideal as you would like because of a high cocoa butter content. >> This creates difficulties with texture - the chocolate doesn't >> emulsify completely and/or the result is excessively dense and greasy. >> > >What is your opinion on eggless Ice Creams? I can see the blender >technique I mentioned being a problem with a custard base (although >I'm not exactly sure why it would be.) Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be eggless. Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't need the eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise other ingredients). Other ice creams *must* have eggs, especially nut flavours where otherwise it's going to be too oily for any real flavour intensity. Flavours like vanilla are in the middle. I personally prefer the custard- base vanilla (often called French Vanilla), but I also like the cream-base vanilla (Philadelphia style, IIRC). The one mandatory in either case is that you must use vanilla beans, and hence any good vanilla ice cream *must* have black specks in it. Generally speaking, using eggs works best if your primary flavouring ingredient has a lot of fat, and not using eggs works best if you've got a low-fat flavouring whose flavour tends to clash with that of eggs. Strong, spicy flavours such as coffee and cinnamon seem to me to be slightly better with eggs, but the difference isn't enormous. >Glad to see that my use of chocolate chips is indicated by more than >just frugallity. Indeed - this is one application where chocolate chips really do work better than most bar chocolate. However, don't fool yourself into believing it's any cheaper. I find that it's typically about the same price. >Although I used the Ghi. Semisweet. Not as good, but you can get a >great big bag at cost plus. You can (or could) also get a great big bag of the Double Chocolate chips at Cost Plus, however. In Cost Plusses in Seattle, however, the Double Chocolate Chips sold out fast (needless to say...). They may be back in stock now. You need to keep checking because they sell out almost as fast as Cost Plus can bring them in. >I need to try milk and white chocolates too. I expect the white to >give a nice texture without changing the flavor. White chocolate is almost always disappointing in ice cream because the end result is usually a somewhat fudgier type of texture (not really all that appealing) with a flavour that's like a mild vanilla. Very bland. Never use white chocolate chips with ice cream, btw, because they're not pure white chocolate - instead, they're invariably mixed with vegetable shortening (unless, of course, the idea of adding a dollop of Crisco to your ice cream is appealing to you). If you want to experiment with white chocolate, use El Rey Icoa and forget about all other brands. El Rey's Icoa is indisputably the best of the white chocolates, in a class by itself, the only one I'd consider using for any white chocolate application. >The milk is >indicated for "french silk" types. That's not what it actually produces : what milk chocolate makes is a very mild ice cream. You can use milk chocolate, at least if it's a good type, although the ice cream thus produced will be more "easy to eat" than intense and indulgent. Milk chocolate ice cream, however, is great if you want to combine it with another flavour component and you don't want the chocolate to overwhelm completely. If you want, for instance, a chocolate ice cream with almonds in it, milk chocolate is a better choice. Same thing for chocolate with a caramel swirl. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
(Alex Rast) wrote in message >...
> at Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:56:58 GMT in > >, > (Greg Zywicki) wrote : > >What is your opinion on eggless Ice Creams? I can see the blender > >technique I mentioned being a problem with a custard base (although > >I'm not exactly sure why it would be.) > > Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be > eggless. Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better > eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't need the > eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise other > ingredients). Not to mention, you don't have to heat the base, so you're not at risk of destroying the essential oils and volatile compounds of fresh fruit. > >I need to try milk and white chocolates too. I expect the white to > >give a nice texture without changing the flavor. > > White chocolate is almost always disappointing in ice cream because the end > result is usually a somewhat fudgier type of texture (not really all that > appealing) with a flavour that's like a mild vanilla. Very bland. I like the texture of philly style with chocolate chips. Perhaps it's that fudgy texture, but I like it. If I do try white chocolate, it won't be used as the prime flavor, just as texture enhancer. I've honestly been dissapointed with the few custard based ice creams I've made. > Milk chocolate ice cream, however, is great if you > want to combine it with another flavour component and you don't want the > chocolate to overwhelm completely. If you want, for instance, a chocolate > ice cream with almonds in it, milk chocolate is a better choice. Same thing > for chocolate with a caramel swirl. That's the sort of thing I haven't tried yet. Good thoughts. Greg Zywicki |
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Ice Cream Question???
Alex Rast wrote:
> Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be > eggless. Why????? > Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better > eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't need the > eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise other > ingredients). Personally, I think the only way to make ice cream is the cooked custard method - that is, with eggs! Why do you say eggs are needed to cut down the fat? That makes no sense since without eggs there is much less fat. Lots of fat is what make good texture in ice cream and eggs make for richness of flavor. I mostly make fruit ice creams - my two favorites are peach and strawberry, but I also have made many other fruit flavors. If anything, fruit ice creams need eggs more than others because the fruit adds a lot of water and that needs to be offset by a richer base. IMNSHO Otherwise you would have a more watery ice cream that would tend to have a less smooth texture, more ice crystals in it. > Other ice creams *must* have eggs, especially nut flavours > where otherwise it's going to be too oily for any real flavour > intensity. Again, this seems to be the opposite of common sense. Besides, aren't the nuts generally in large pieces and not pureed into the ice cream? How much effect could their oils have if that is the case? > Flavours like vanilla are in the middle. I personally prefer the custard- > base vanilla (often called French Vanilla), but I also like the cream-base > vanilla (Philadelphia style, IIRC). The one mandatory in either case is > that you must use vanilla beans, and hence any good vanilla ice cream > *must* have black specks in it. That's ridiculous. Sure it would be better with real vanilla beans but you can make perfectly good vanilla ice cream with real vanilla extract. > Generally speaking, using eggs works best if your primary flavouring > ingredient has a lot of fat, and not using eggs works best if you've got a > low-fat flavouring whose flavour tends to clash with that of eggs. Well, that's just your opinion that the flavors clash. I haven't noticed any flavor clashing in any ice cream I have made and I always use eggs. Kate -- Kate Connally “If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.” Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back, Until you bite their heads off.” What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? |
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Ice Cream Question???
Greg Zywicki wrote:
> > (Alex Rast) wrote in message >... > > at Tue, 15 Jun 2004 13:56:58 GMT in > > >, > > (Greg Zywicki) wrote : > > >What is your opinion on eggless Ice Creams? I can see the blender > > >technique I mentioned being a problem with a custard base (although > > >I'm not exactly sure why it would be.) > > > > Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be > > eggless. Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better > > eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't need the > > eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise other > > ingredients). > > Not to mention, you don't have to heat the base, so you're not at risk > of destroying the essential oils and volatile compounds of fresh > fruit. Uh, you don't heat the fruit! You cook the custard and then chill it and then add the fruit! Kate -- Kate Connally “If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.” Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back, Until you bite their heads off.” What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? |
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Ice Cream Question???
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Ice Cream Question???
at Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:27:23 GMT in >,
(Kate Connally) wrote : >Alex Rast wrote: > >> Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be >> eggless. > >Why????? Rosewater and custard have very clashing flavours. Furthermore, rose ice cream comes from the Middle East, and the type of ice cream being made there is a condensed-milk base variety which never uses eggs. So there's both tradition and taste involved. >> Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better >> eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't >> need the eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise >> other ingredients). > >Personally, I think the only way to make ice cream >is the cooked custard method - that is, with eggs! >Why do you say eggs are needed to cut down the fat? >That makes no sense since without eggs there is much >less fat. Lots of fat is what make good texture in >ice cream and eggs make for richness of flavor. I disagree: IMHO there's a balance of fat, hovering about 10-12%, that makes for an ideal texture. Too much fat and the ice cream becomes leaden, brick-solid, and greasy - the texture of Haagen-Dasz, which IMHO has one of the worst textures of any ice cream. It seems to be a product of marketroid-oriented thinking - that more is better, or at least that more extreme is better, so that if some fat is good, more must be better, and if less air is good, very little if any must be better. Hence you get the Haagen-Dasz block - ice cream you have to chisel out. It only stands to reason. If you remove all the air and increase the fat to its logical limit - 100% - what you'll have is frozen butter. Not exactly the most appealing thing. Thus clearly there is some optimum ratio. Most people concede, once they've tried a good Italian ice cream, that the texture there is far better, and Italian ice creams tend towards about 10% fat and somewhere in the range of 25-35% air, where H-D is about 20% fat and 14% air. A commercial ice cream is usually about 15% fat and 50% air. > I >mostly make fruit ice creams - my two favorites are >peach and strawberry, but I also have made many other >fruit flavors. If anything, fruit ice creams need >eggs more than others because the fruit adds a lot of >water and that needs to be offset by a richer base. If you use a highly fatty substance like chocolate (about 40% fat, in general), or nuts (anywhere from 60-90% fat, that's going to tilt the fat content sky-high, so you want to add eggs to reduce the fat down into a more appropriate proportion. But with fruit (near 0% fat), you want to *increase* the fat content, if you want a decent percentage of fruit (I like around 50% fruit), and so eggs fight this tendency: instead, you need to use more cream proportionately to milk. This also makes the base richer as you hint at. .... > >> Other ice creams *must* have eggs, especially nut flavours >> where otherwise it's going to be too oily for any real flavour > >> intensity. > >Again, this seems to be the opposite of common sense. >Besides, aren't the nuts generally in large pieces and >not pureed into the ice cream? If you were only making ice creams that were a generic "base" (usually vanilla) into which nuts were added in large pieces, then you could get away with using no eggs. But that's not a nut-flavoured ice cream, that's a vanilla ice cream with nuts in it. Thus I might refer to it as "vanilla almond" or "vanilla pistachio". It's typical in the classic nut ice creams (hazelnut, pistachio, peanut, etc.) to puree them into the ice cream. You make a nut butter with the nut you're using, then add it to the custard. That way the flavour is through and through, not just a nut "condiment" to an otherwise vanilla ice cream. >> Flavours like vanilla are in the middle. I personally prefer the >> custard- base vanilla (often called French Vanilla), but I also like >> the cream-base vanilla (Philadelphia style, IIRC). The one mandatory >> in either case is that you must use vanilla beans, and hence any good >> vanilla ice cream *must* have black specks in it. > >That's ridiculous. Sure it would be better with real >vanilla beans but you can make perfectly good vanilla ice >cream with real vanilla extract. You might be able to make vanilla ice cream with some vanilla flavour using extract, but the taste with real vanilla beans is so much more intense and so much better that there's no excuse not to use a vanilla bean. Thus the only reason not to use vanilla beans at home is if you forgot to buy one on an occasion when you had planned on making vanilla ice cream. Perhaps also we have different ideas of "good". My idea of "good" is that it's that level where the relative difference in quality between the "good" and the best you could ever do isn't a major, noticeable step. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
Boron Elgar > wrote in message >. ..
> On 16 Jun 2004 11:45:05 -0700, (Greg Zywicki) > wrote: > > > >I've honestly been dissapointed with the few custard based ice creams > >I've made. > > > May I ask what you didn't care for? Was it texture, mouth feel, > intensity of flavor, etc? > It's been a while, but if I remember correctly it was that it was just too custardy. The texture and flavor where richer and eggier than I liked. They didn't seem "cold" enough, which i suppose indicates mouthfeel or texture. I use a Cuisinart machine. Looking at it written down, I could probably just back off on either the amount of egg or butterfat in the base to adjust the texture to my liking. But philildelphia style is so much easier, and so satisfying to me, that it hasn't seemed worth the effort. I might consider it, though, because Alex's suggestion of egg going better with oil-based flavors like nuts, does make sense. The egg yolk probably does do a good job of emulsifying the essential oils, and those oils do hold up well to heat (nuts do well with some toasting, for example.) Also, the texture is probably more compatible with frozen nuts. Greg Zywicki |
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Ice Cream Question???
Alex Rast wrote:
> > at Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:27:23 GMT in >, > (Kate Connally) wrote : > > >Alex Rast wrote: > > > >> Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be > >> eggless. > > > >Why????? > > Rosewater and custard have very clashing flavours. Furthermore, rose ice > cream comes from the Middle East, and the type of ice cream being made > there is a condensed-milk base variety which never uses eggs. So there's > both tradition and taste involved. If I were making a "traditional" Middle Eastern dish then I would do it the way that they do. However, there is no reason not to make a rose flavored custard-based ice cream on your own. I can't see why the flavors would clash. However, I don't think I would like rose ice cream of any sort. I use rose water in various Middle Eastern and North African dishes that I make but I don't think I would care for it as the only major flavor in something. So I guess I'll never know since I'm not going to go to the trouble of making rose flavored, custard- based ice cream just to find out. But in my mind I can imagine the flavors together and it seems to me they would go together find, assuming you like the rose flavor in the first place. > >> Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better > >> eggless, as long as you have enough fruit concentration (you don't > >> need the eggs to cut down the fat, and you don't need to stabilise > >> other ingredients). > > > >Personally, I think the only way to make ice cream > >is the cooked custard method - that is, with eggs! > >Why do you say eggs are needed to cut down the fat? > >That makes no sense since without eggs there is much > >less fat. Lots of fat is what make good texture in > >ice cream and eggs make for richness of flavor. > > I disagree: IMHO there's a balance of fat, hovering about 10-12%, that > makes for an ideal texture. Too much fat and the ice cream becomes leaden, > brick-solid, and greasy - the texture of Haagen-Dasz, which IMHO has one of > the worst textures of any ice cream. IMNSHO Haagen Dasz has the perfect texture of any ice cream and all without resorting to weird additives - just milk, cream, egg, and whatever (strawberry has always been my favorite - it tastes exactly like my grandmother's homemade ice cream except the texture is better. > It seems to be a product of > marketroid-oriented thinking - that more is better, or at least that more > extreme is better, so that if some fat is good, more must be better, and if > less air is good, very little if any must be better. I totally disagree. The fat is what gives the mouth feel. More fat gives a smoother, creamier, more sensuous mouth feel. It didn't take any marketing people to come up with that. I've known that is *way* before Haagen Dasz existed, having been a connoisseur of ice cream my whole life. I never much cared for "store-bought" ice creams until Haagen Dasz came around, mainly for their lack of a decent mouth feel in spite of all the texturizing additives like carageenan and guar gum and others of that ilk. > Hence you get the > Haagen-Dasz block - ice cream you have to chisel out. It only stands to > reason. Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. But given that most home refrigerator freezers are not set for proper ice cream temp all you have to do is zap it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds and it becomes perfectly scoopable and the correct "hardness" for eating and enjoying the maximum flavor. > If you remove all the air and increase the fat to its logical limit > - 100% - what you'll have is frozen butter. Not exactly the most appealing > thing. No one ever suggested doing anything even remotely like that. And besides there are other components to ice cream besides air and fat. Now you're just being ridiculous. > Thus clearly there is some optimum ratio. Most people concede, once > they've tried a good Italian ice cream, that the texture there is far > better, and Italian ice creams tend towards about 10% fat and somewhere in > the range of 25-35% air, where H-D is about 20% fat and 14% air. A > commercial ice cream is usually about 15% fat and 50% air. I've had some excellent gelatos. Don't know or care what the fat to air ratio is. But I still say Haagen Dasz has the perfect texture. Again - don't know or care about the fat/air ratio. But whatever it is they do works for me. In my experience more fat is better, within, of course, reason. > > I > >mostly make fruit ice creams - my two favorites are > >peach and strawberry, but I also have made many other > >fruit flavors. If anything, fruit ice creams need > >eggs more than others because the fruit adds a lot of > >water and that needs to be offset by a richer base. > > If you use a highly fatty substance like chocolate (about 40% fat, in > general), or nuts (anywhere from 60-90% fat, that's going to tilt the fat > content sky-high, so you want to add eggs to reduce the fat down into a > more appropriate proportion. But with fruit (near 0% fat), you want to > *increase* the fat content, if you want a decent percentage of fruit (I > like around 50% fruit), and so eggs fight this tendency: instead, you need > to use more cream proportionately to milk. This also makes the base richer > as you hint at. > > ... > > > >> Other ice creams *must* have eggs, especially nut flavours > >> where otherwise it's going to be too oily for any real flavour > > >> intensity. > > > >Again, this seems to be the opposite of common sense. > >Besides, aren't the nuts generally in large pieces and > >not pureed into the ice cream? > > If you were only making ice creams that were a generic "base" (usually > vanilla) into which nuts were added in large pieces, then you could get > away with using no eggs. But that's not a nut-flavoured ice cream, that's a > vanilla ice cream with nuts in it. Thus I might refer to it as "vanilla > almond" or "vanilla pistachio". It's typical in the classic nut ice creams > (hazelnut, pistachio, peanut, etc.) to puree them into the ice cream. You > make a nut butter with the nut you're using, then add it to the custard. > That way the flavour is through and through, not just a nut "condiment" to > an otherwise vanilla ice cream. Again, I reiterate that your logic seems backward to me. If you're making a nut butter and adding it to the base, then using eggs makes it contain even more fat and you've just finished preaching against too much fat??? It would seem to me that if you're trying to keep total fat at certain level then you would use an eggless base for nuts and chocolate since they bring a lot of fat to the mix. > >> Flavours like vanilla are in the middle. I personally prefer the > >> custard- base vanilla (often called French Vanilla), but I also like > >> the cream-base vanilla (Philadelphia style, IIRC). The one mandatory > >> in either case is that you must use vanilla beans, and hence any good > >> vanilla ice cream *must* have black specks in it. > > > >That's ridiculous. Sure it would be better with real > >vanilla beans but you can make perfectly good vanilla ice > >cream with real vanilla extract. > > You might be able to make vanilla ice cream with some vanilla flavour using > extract, but the taste with real vanilla beans is so much more intense and > so much better that there's no excuse not to use a vanilla bean. Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! > Thus the > only reason not to use vanilla beans at home is if you forgot to buy one on > an occasion when you had planned on making vanilla ice cream. Perhaps also > we have different ideas of "good". My idea of "good" is that it's that > level where the relative difference in quality between the "good" and the > best you could ever do isn't a major, noticeable step. :-P Sorry, I guess my totally unsophisticated taste buds just don't measure up. After I'm one of those low class slobs who don't like caviar and truffles. So I guess it's to be expected that I would be perfectly happy using vanilla extract in my overly fat-laden, eggy ice cream. Sheesh! Kate -- Kate Connally “If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.” Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back, Until you bite their heads off.” What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? |
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Ice Cream Question???
Alex wrote:
> Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be > eggless. I just looked over the recipe that Alex posted for rose ice cream, and I've got a couple questions. For reference, here's the recipe: Rose Ice Cream 4 cups whole milk 1 cup heavy cream 3 tbsp rosewater 3 tbsp sugar 9 cardamom pods Remove the cardamom seeds from the pods and put into a spice grinder. Put the milk in a heavy stockpot. Set over medium heat and condense, stirring constantly, until it is noticeably thicker than when you started. Grind the cardamom in and continue stirring and condensing until it attains the thickness of heavy cream. Stir in the rosewater, briefly cook (about 1 minute), then stir in the sugar and remove from heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour into your ice cream maker, then pour in the cream and either start churning (if by hand - produces the best results) or turn on the machine (if motorized. Not quite as fine control over the texture but acceptable). Generally, churn until the mixture stiffens to the point of being unchurnable (you should of course follow directions of any ice cream maker you happen to have). Set in the freezer and allow to sit for 2 hours minimum. It's best if it's a freezer kept only slightly below freezing, not a real deep-freeze, long-term storage freezer. Serve. Makes approximately 1 1/2 pints. Here's my first question: Given a big enough bowl, would a microwave oven be a good tool to reduce the milk? It seems that in the microwave, you could reduce the milk without constantly stirring and without worry of scorching. (I'm thinking you'd want to start it on high power until the milk starts boiling, then lower the power to medium or low so that the milk doesn't boil too vigorously, and you'd still have to stir it every once in a while.) Also, is there any reason not to cover the condensed milk mixture and chill it before putting it into the ice cream freezer? Bob |
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Ice Cream Question???
On 17 Jun 2004 05:57:24 -0700, (Greg Zywicki)
wrote: >Boron Elgar > wrote in message >. .. >> On 16 Jun 2004 11:45:05 -0700, (Greg Zywicki) >> wrote: >> >> >> >I've honestly been dissapointed with the few custard based ice creams >> >I've made. >> > >> May I ask what you didn't care for? Was it texture, mouth feel, >> intensity of flavor, etc? >> > >It's been a while, but if I remember correctly it was that it was just >too custardy. The texture and flavor where richer and eggier than I >liked. They >didn't seem "cold" enough, which i suppose indicates mouthfeel or >texture. I have posted some ice cream recipes & a link here before. Let me see... Aha!: http://www.essetti.com/applncs/frznrecipes.htm Take a look at the recipes on the above web pages & see if the ratios/amounts of eggs and cream are similar to what you have been making that you did not like. If they are, then, by guar gum, you don't like the old fashioned stuff at all., but if you see differences, either in ingredients or prep, I say give it another try if your arteries can take it. Here's one I really like and it is adapted from one at the link above.: Brown Sugar Ice Cream 1 cup milk 1 scant packed cup brown sugar 4 egg yolks 3 cups heavy cream 1 to 1-1/2 cups broken up Poppycock-"Just the Nuts" candy Heat the cream. milk and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot. place the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk briefly. Still whisking, slowly pour in about 1 cup of the hot liquid. When the mixture is blended, slowly pour it into the liquid in the saucepan, whisking constantly. Cook over heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. Be sure not let the mixture boil at any time or will curdle. strain into a clean bowl and cool thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the bowl of the machine and freeze, adding the broken "Just the Nuts" about 10 minutes into the freeze. Makes 5 cups. > >I use a Cuisinart machine. Is confess that I am not a fan of freezer-cooled ice cream makers. I have had at least 3 during the years and I do not think the texture they produce is ideal. I also realize that not everyone is as insane as I am and keeps one of those huge Italian makers around. > >Looking at it written down, I could probably just back off on either >the amount of egg or butterfat in the base to adjust the texture to my >liking. But philildelphia style is so much easier, and so satisfying >to me, that it hasn't seemed worth the effort. I might consider it, >though, because Alex's suggestion of egg going better with oil-based >flavors like nuts, does make sense. The egg yolk probably does do a >good job of emulsifying the essential oils, and those oils do hold up >well to heat (nuts do well with some toasting, for example.) Also, >the texture is probably more compatible with frozen nuts. I have not played around too much with the custard base I use now - the one from the pages above, though I DO vary the added goodies. Nuts & chunky things I add quite late in the process of churning, so they do not really affect the custard base flavors as much as they complement them. Good luck. It may be that you just prefer a less rich frozen dessert. The link I offered has frozen yogurt, sorbet and sherbet recipes too. I have not found a bum recipe in the bunch that I have made. Why not try a frozen yogurt base? I would use home made yogurt or a really good-tasting plain one that has few of the texture enhancing items that so many yogurts come with these days. I think it'll make a tangy ice cream that can be nice with certain fruits. Boron |
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Ice Cream Question???
at Thu, 17 Jun 2004 15:38:12 GMT in >,
(Kate Connally) wrote : >Alex Rast wrote: >> >> at Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:27:23 GMT in >, >> (Kate Connally) wrote : >> >> >Alex Rast wrote: >> > .... >> >> Personally, I also think most fruit ice creams are a little better >> >> eggless, ... >> > >> >Personally, I think the only way to make ice cream >> >is the cooked custard method - that is, with eggs! .... Lots of fat is what make good texture in >> >ice cream and eggs make for richness of flavor. >> >> I disagree: IMHO there's a balance of fat, hovering about 10-12%, that >> makes for an ideal texture. Too much fat and the ice cream becomes >> leaden, brick-solid, and greasy - the texture of Haagen-Dasz, which >> IMHO has one of the worst textures of any ice cream. > >IMNSHO Haagen Dasz has the perfect texture of any ice cream >and all without resorting to weird additives - just milk, >cream, egg, and whatever (strawberry has always been my >favorite - it tastes exactly like my grandmother's homemade >ice cream except the texture is better. This is the source of our divergence. Different tastes and opinions on texture. If you prefer that particular texture, then my comments wouldn't by and large apply. >> It seems to be a product of >> marketroid-oriented thinking ... that if some fat is good, more must be >> better, and if less air is good, very little if any must be better. > >I totally disagree. The fat is what gives the mouth feel. >.... I've known that is *way* before Haagen Dasz existed, >having been a connoisseur of ice cream my whole life. Yes, this is a clear difference in personal preference. If you like an ice cream with a higher fat, there's no reason not to make that type in preference. > I >never much cared for "store-bought" ice creams until Haagen >Dasz came around, mainly for their lack of a decent mouth >feel in spite of all the texturizing additives like carageenan >and guar gum and others of that ilk. I agree that store-bought ice creams before the era of the "Super- premiums" weren't especially good. And on balance, the super-premium brands did represent an improvement over what had previously been available. But for my taste, they still weren't great - because they went towards the too dense, too hard, too greasy, for my taste. There was one ice cream brand that had what IMHO was the perfect balance - Cascadian Farm. However, they seem to have discontinued national distribution (you can still get their ice cream on the farm stand itself) >> Hence you get the >> Haagen-Dasz block - ice cream you have to chisel out. It only stands >> to reason. > >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. >But given that most home refrigerator freezers are not >set for proper ice cream temp all you have to do is zap >it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds and it becomes >perfectly scoopable and the correct "hardness" for eating >and enjoying the maximum flavor. But any time you use any heating device to "soften" ice cream (including setting it out on the counter), you're going to get uneven heating, and generally some melting. Personally, I prefer no melted ice cream whatsoever. (Yes, this means using a chilled bowl, and in the case of eating it out of the container, wrapping paper towel around the container so that the heat of your hands won't melt the ice cream). I've not encountered any of the super-premiums, kept in any form of sub-freezing sotrage, not to be virtually block-solid. My freezer isn't particularly cold - certainly not at the real deep freeze level some people keep theirs at. >> If you remove all the air and increase the fat to its logical limit >> - 100% - what you'll have is frozen butter. Not exactly the most >> appealing thing. > >No one ever suggested doing anything even remotely >like that. And besides there are other components to >ice cream besides air and fat. Now you're just being >ridiculous. I was just pointing out that making a broad assertion like "more fat is better" must clearly have limits, because since at some point more fat must not be better, since the most fat you could ever have would be 100%. The hypothetical situation is deliberately ridiculous, to show the limits most clearly. >> Thus clearly there is some optimum ratio. Most people concede, once >> they've tried a good Italian ice cream, that the texture there is far >> better, and Italian ice creams tend towards about 10% fat and >> somewhere in the range of 25-35% air, where H-D is about 20% fat and >> 14% air. A commercial ice cream is usually about 15% fat and 50% air. > >I've had some excellent gelatos. Don't know or care >what the fat to air ratio is. But I still say Haagen >Dasz has the perfect texture. Indeed, if you prefer the texture of Haagen Dasz over a good gelato, there's no reason not to make your ice cream this way. You've got to make what you like, not what others tell you you should enjoy. > Again - don't know or >care about the fat/air ratio. But whatever it is they >do works for me. In my experience more fat is better, >within, of course, reason. This is what I meant with the frozen butter example. Where does that point of "reason" lie? Why not determine what for you is the optimum percentage, rather than say "more fat is better" - which doesn't give you very clear guidelines for perfecting your recipes according to your preferences? .... >> >> If you use a highly fatty substance like chocolate (about 40% fat, in >> general), or nuts (anywhere from 60-90% fat, that's going to tilt the >> fat content sky-high, so you want to add eggs to reduce the fat down >> into a more appropriate proportion.... .... > >Again, I reiterate that your logic seems backward to me. >If you're making a nut butter and adding it to the base, >then using eggs makes it contain even more fat and you've >just finished preaching against too much fat??? No, because it's a question of *relative* amounts. An egg doesn't contain pure fat, it also contains plenty of protein and water. So when you add an egg to an ice cream, you're going to increase the total amount of substance. If the percentage of fat in whatever you added the eggs to was more than the percentage of fat in the eggs, the net effect will be a reduction in the overall fat percentage of the combined mix. Meanwhile, if you started with a lower percentage of fat in what you added the eggs to, then the overall percentage of fat would go up. However, in no case could the eggs increase the total fat percentage above their own natural percentage of fat. An egg, btw, has about 9% fat so this would be the fat percentage limit that you could achieve with eggs. > It would >seem to me that if you're trying to keep total fat at >certain level then you would use an eggless base for nuts >and chocolate since they bring a lot of fat to the mix. In order to use an eggless base, and actually reduce the fat content, it would have to be almost entirely milk. However, that doesn't work because chocolate and nut butters won't emulsify in milk. They *will* emulsify in custard, however, and this is why you really do have to use eggs. In other words, the benefits of eggs for fatty flavourings is that they are more effective at emulsifying the fat for their own fat ratio. >> >... you can make perfectly good vanilla ice >> >cream with real vanilla extract. >> >>... the taste with real vanilla beans is so much more >> intense and so much better that there's no excuse not to use a vanilla >> bean. > >Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. >Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! $ 1.59 in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And the beans are super-fresh and plump. Even if they were up at $5-6, I would consider this a relatively trivial expense (after all, how much, really, is $5.00?) unless I were literally making industrial-scale quantities of vanilla ice cream every day. In that situation, the effect of relative price might be significant and start to cost in the thousands of dollars or more. But I don't really look at $5.00 as too much to pay, once I've decided to go the extra mile to make my own ice cream. Put another way - if I'm not willing to pay, say, $5.00 for a vanilla bean, I might just as well buy a better premium ice cream and not bother making it at home at all. >:-P Sorry, I guess my totally unsophisticated taste buds >just don't measure up. After I'm one of those low class >slobs who don't like caviar and truffles. So I guess it's >to be expected that I would be perfectly happy using vanilla >extract in my overly fat-laden, eggy ice cream. I wasn't implying that extract is lowbrow, or that the reason not to use it is basically one of having a blue-collar mentality. What I meant is that it makes little *economic* sense. At the point where the cost of a vanilla bean looms that large, it's probably more cost-effective to buy a good ice cream from the store. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
at Thu, 17 Jun 2004 16:12:04 GMT in
>, (Bob) wrote : >Alex wrote: > >> Some ice creams (such as the rose ice cream I alluded to) *must* be >> eggless. > >I just looked over the recipe that Alex posted for rose ice cream, and >I've got a couple questions. For reference, here's the recipe: > .... > >Here's my first question: Given a big enough bowl, would a microwave >oven be a good tool to reduce the milk? It seems that in the microwave, >you could reduce the milk without constantly stirring and without worry >of scorching. (I'm thinking you'd want to start it on high power until >the milk starts boiling, then lower the power to medium or low so that >the milk doesn't boil too vigorously, and you'd still have to stir it >every once in a while.) I don't know - I've never tried. But I have my doubts. The stirring keeps the proteins from coagulating completely, which would result in a curdled, lumpy mess. It's like custard - you usually need to keep stirring. However, my experiences with a microwave are very limited. I also wonder how long this would take. Evaporation is a pretty fixed-rate process, so you wouldn't really save any time, I suspect, and you wouldn't relieve yourself of the need to monitor it continuously. So whether it could work or not, I don't know there'd be much to gain in doing so. >Also, is there any reason not to cover the condensed milk mixture and >chill it before putting it into the ice cream freezer? Condensed milk becomes very thick fast when chilled. While what you suggest might work OK, I think it risks causing too much air incorporation (the blade will incorporate air much more effectively into the puddinglike consistency of chilled condensed milk than into the much more fluid hot milk.) I'd also wonder how well the cream would mix in once the milk were chilled. You might get a bit of a "swirled" effect. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
Boron Elgar > wrote in message >. ..
> Good luck. It may be that you just prefer a less rich frozen dessert. > The link I offered has frozen yogurt, sorbet and sherbet recipes too. > I have not found a bum recipe in the bunch that I have made. Thanks for the link. It has some nice looking stuff. Don't underestimate the phillidelphia style; it was the original, favored by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. It is wonderful when homemade and served at the proper temperature. Greg Zywicki |
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Ice Cream Question???
Alex Rast wrote:
Kate Connally wrote: > >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the > >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. > >But given that most home refrigerator freezers are not > >set for proper ice cream temp all you have to do is zap > >it in the microwave for 15-20 seconds and it becomes > >perfectly scoopable and the correct "hardness" for eating > >and enjoying the maximum flavor. > > But any time you use any heating device to "soften" ice cream (including > setting it out on the counter), you're going to get uneven heating, and > generally some melting. That does not really happen. If you do it right there is no melting, just softening - enough to be easily scoopable. And another way to soften is to leave it in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour or so - not out on the counter. > Personally, I prefer no melted ice cream > whatsoever. (Yes, this means using a chilled bowl, and in the case of > eating it out of the container, wrapping paper towel around the container > so that the heat of your hands won't melt the ice cream). I use a towel or something around the container when I eat out if it, but it's to keep my hands warm, not to keep the ice cream cold. Me, I actually give my bowl of ice cream some more time in the microwave after scooping it to cause some melting (it's okay here because I'm going to eat it, but it wouldn't be okay if it were the whole carton of ice cream from which I was going to take a portion and then put the rest back in the freezer). I like to have my ice cream about the consistency of frozen custard (soft-serve) which I feel to be ideal for texture and flavor. I then sort of mash the melted part into the still fairly solid part until I get that texture. Currently I'm keeping a pint of Haagen Dasz on the door of my freezer and since my fridge is really old and inefficient the stuff on the door doesn't get too cold. Thus the HD is perfectly scoopable, but still very firm, and needs no microwaving. However I did this with some cheap air-laden, fat-poor supermarket ice cream the other day and it became so soft it was almost runny. In fact towards the end of the carton all the ice cream "sank" to the end that was down! Yuck. I would have kept it in the other part of the freezer but it was there was no room for it. > > Again - don't know or > >care about the fat/air ratio. But whatever it is they > >do works for me. In my experience more fat is better, > >within, of course, reason. > > This is what I meant with the frozen butter example. Where does that point > of "reason" lie? Why not determine what for you is the optimum percentage, > rather than say "more fat is better" - which doesn't give you very clear > guidelines for perfecting your recipes according to your preferences? Who goes around measuring the percentage of fat in the ice creams they eat or make? (Besides you, of course, obviously.) Who would want to go to all that trouble? I know which ice creams to buy that have the texture I like. I have discovered this by trial and error over the years. So, for the most part, when I can afford them, those are the ice creams I buy. As for the ice creams I make, I know what recipe makes the best base and that is what I use. Therefore I don't need to know what the percentage of fat or air is in any of these. > >Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. > >Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! > > $ 1.59 in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And the beans are super-fresh > and plump. Where the hell do you live????? Vanilla at my local co-op bulk foods place is outrageously expensive and they are way cheaper than supermarkets. They keep the vanilla beans under lock and key rather than putting them out in the bulk spices section because people would steal them. They're worth their weight in gold. Are you seriously telling me that you can get one whole vanilla bean for $1.59? > Even if they were up at $5-6, I would consider this a relatively > trivial expense (after all, how much, really, is $5.00?) Well, to me it's a lot. Must be nice to be rich. Kate -- Kate Connally “If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.” Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back, Until you bite their heads off.” What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? |
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Ice Cream Question???
at Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:51:14 GMT in >,
(Kate Connally) wrote : >Alex Rast wrote: > >Kate Connally wrote: >> >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the >> >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. >> >> But any time you use any heating device to "soften" ice cream >> (including setting it out on the counter), you're going to get uneven >> heating, and generally some melting. > >That does not really happen. If you do it right >there is no melting, just softening - enough to be >easily scoopable. The edges of the container - closest to the place where the temperature is larger than that of the initial temperature of the ice cream, are inevitably going to heat faster than the center, and if that external temperature is above freezing, they will melt. So you'll have a still-solid center, a soft "jacket" around that, and a melted rim around that. If you use a microwave, you're going to exaggerate this problem, because a microwave contains hot spots which will cause differential heating through the container in rather unpredictable locations. >> Personally, I prefer no melted ice cream >> whatsoever. ... >Me, I actually give my bowl of ice cream some more time >in the microwave after scooping it to cause some melting >(it's okay here because I'm going to eat it, but it wouldn't >be okay if it were the whole carton of ice cream from which >I was going to take a portion and then put the rest back >in the freezer). I like to have my ice cream about the >consistency of frozen custard (soft-serve) which I feel >to be ideal for texture and flavor. I then sort of mash >the melted part into the still fairly solid part until >I get that texture. My sister says that a lot of people like to do this. To me, however, this seems like a circuitous method of achieving a texture that you could get using different formulations. I thought from your previous posts, that you preferred the very dense, hard consistency of super-premium, but it seems that this is not so - that you prefer a texture that more closely approximates that of Italian ice cream (gelato). Given that this is the case, why not make/buy that? If it's exactly the texture of soft serve that you like, why not, in turn, make/buy soft serve? Finally, if you want an even softer consistency, this is a "semifreddo". Same thing applies. Is there a particular appeal to the process of letting ice cream melt and then stirring it around? I'd like to know what makes people choose this method over simply using the product that has the desired texture at the outset. >> > Again - don't know or >> >care about the fat/air ratio. It's probably not necessary for the average person to know the specifics of fat/air ratio. But I think it would be helpful for the average person to understand that the way in which the fat/air ratio interacts in order to create a range of different textures isn't reducible to a simple linear formula. .... >As for the ice creams I make, I know what recipe makes >the best base and that is what I use. As I said, I don't believe it's one-size-fits-all when it comes to ice cream flavours. Thus I don't believe it's possible to develop a standardised "base" to which you simply add flavourings - you have to tune each recipe specifically to the flavour being made in order to get the best results. Have you experimented with different basic formulations for each different flavour? Or have you experimented with either different formulations in only one flavour or different flavours in only one formula? If so, it might be worth giving a shot at experimenting with what effect each of different formulations have on the outcome of different flavours. >> >Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. >> >Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! >> >> $ 1.59 in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And the beans are >> super-fresh and plump. > >Where the hell do you live????? Vanilla at my local >co-op bulk foods place is outrageously expensive and >they are way cheaper than supermarkets. They keep the >vanilla beans under lock and key rather than putting them >out in the bulk spices section because people would steal >them. Seattle. Pretty much all the co-ops out here keep vanilla with all the rest of the bulk spices. >> Even if they were up at $5-6, I would consider this a relatively >> trivial expense (after all, how much, really, is $5.00?) > >Well, to me it's a lot. Must be nice to be rich. If $5.00 is really so much, why buy ice cream at all? If you are so hard up for cash that $5.00 is a major expense in an absolute sense instead of just a relative sense, then it would seem to me that getting ice cream at all is a luxury you can't really afford to indulge in. If it's only expensive in a relative sense (i.e. that on a per-use basis the price of extract is less than that of a bean), my point is that unless you're making ice cream so routinely and frequently that you'd use up a considerable number of vanilla beans on a monthly basis, the extra cost of buying vanilla beans would hardly be a significant fraction of your monthly income. Therefore it wouldn't be worth much trouble trying to economise on vanilla. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
Kate Connally > wrote in message >...
> Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. > Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! > > Kate Check this out: http://www.thespicehouse.com/product...escription.php the equivalent of 12 beans for $14 US. They also sell individual beans for $2-$3 per. Not as cheap as Alex's (and he should really consider going into the vanilla business) but not bad. Plus, you can get some great cinamon from them too. If you're ever in Chicagol, make a trip to the store. As for the rest: Alex has his own orthodoxy. His rose ice cream looks more like a gelatto recipe than an ice cream. The funny thing is, some gelatto experts say that gelatto is only good fresh, so don't make it and then store it. I'm with you on the temperature thing, as is the president of Edy's/Dryers. Ice cream is meant to be stored at as cold a temp as possible (to eliminate freeze/thaw cycles) but served as close to freezing as possible, to improve texture and flavor availlabillity. Eating ice cream too cold freezes the tongue and deadens the senses. And as you pointed out and Alex missed, fat content determines mouthfeel, not just texture. And I'll stick with philladelphia style. No eggs to overwhelm the dairy. Greg Zywicki |
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Ice Cream Question???
Alex Rast wrote:
> > at Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:51:14 GMT in >, > (Kate Connally) wrote : > > >Alex Rast wrote: > > > >Kate Connally wrote: > >> >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the > >> >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. > >> > >> But any time you use any heating device to "soften" ice cream > >> (including setting it out on the counter), you're going to get uneven > >> heating, and generally some melting. > > > >That does not really happen. If you do it right > >there is no melting, just softening - enough to be > >easily scoopable. > > The edges of the container - closest to the place where the temperature is > larger than that of the initial temperature of the ice cream, are > inevitably going to heat faster than the center, and if that external > temperature is above freezing, they will melt. So you'll have a still-solid > center, a soft "jacket" around that, and a melted rim around that. Well, that's not what happens. Besides, I believe microwaves supposedly heat from the inside out. Whether or not that's the case, in my experience, the whole contained softens almost equally much, given a not too large container - pint and quart containers work best - there is a small difference in softness between the outer portions and the center, but unless you overdo it the outer portions won't melt. > If you use a microwave, you're going to exaggerate this problem, because a > microwave contains hot spots which will cause differential heating through > the container in rather unpredictable locations. That's why they put turntables in them. And again, I have not found this to be a problem with my microwave or with other microwaves I have used. > >> Personally, I prefer no melted ice cream > >> whatsoever. ... > > >Me, I actually give my bowl of ice cream some more time > >in the microwave after scooping it to cause some melting > >(it's okay here because I'm going to eat it, but it wouldn't > >be okay if it were the whole carton of ice cream from which > >I was going to take a portion and then put the rest back > >in the freezer). I like to have my ice cream about the > >consistency of frozen custard (soft-serve) which I feel > >to be ideal for texture and flavor. I then sort of mash > >the melted part into the still fairly solid part until > >I get that texture. > > My sister says that a lot of people like to do this. To me, however, this > seems like a circuitous method of achieving a texture that you could get > using different formulations. I thought from your previous posts, that you > preferred the very dense, hard consistency of super-premium, but it seems > that this is not so I never said I preferred hard, just dense! There's a difference. I like very dense and rich and cream. But if you (try to) eat it in its hard state, just out of the freezer, you can't really enjoy those qualities because you use up all your body heat trying to melt it enough to swallow or you just swallow it still hard and totally miss everything. Of course, that's just my experience. To me, in eating totally frozen ice cream (whether dense like I like it or less dense like you like it) causes one to miss most of the flavor elements and all the texture elements. If you hold it in your mouth long enough to soften it enough so that you *could* taste the flavor and feel the texture, your mouth is so numbed by the cold that you still can't taste or feel anything anymore. > - that you prefer a texture that more closely > approximates that of Italian ice cream (gelato). Given that this is the > case, why not make/buy that? If it's exactly the texture of soft serve that > you like, why not, in turn, make/buy soft serve? Well, soft serve is not the same thing - different ingredients and lower quality ingredients generally and very limited flavors. Actually there used to be a cool place here in Pgh. where they made their own premium quality ice cream with many different flavors - a sort of upscale Baskin- Robbins - and they had a machine into which they would put the ice cream as you ordered it and it sort of turned in into soft serve, one portion at a time. Unfortunately they were only open for a year or so. I heard that they were closed because the machine that made the ice cream soft was not sanitary enough or something. That was only a rumor and didn't really make sense to me. I really miss that place. > Finally, if you want an > even softer consistency, this is a "semifreddo". Same thing applies. But it's not the same thing!!! I don't want a semifreddo!!! It's not ice cream!!!! I want real ice cream that is soft. I just don't think you get it at all. > Is there a particular appeal to the process of letting ice cream melt and > then stirring it around? I'd like to know what makes people choose this > method over simply using the product that has the desired texture at the > outset. Because you can't *get* it at the desired texture to begin with! That's what I've been saying all along! If I could afford to, I'd have a special freezer just for ice cream that would hold it at the proper temperature at all times. When one has to resort to storing their ice cream in a refrig. freezer compartment along with other foods that must be kept much colder, one has to be creative! Since the invention of the microwave and my subsequent discovery that it works perfectly for softening too-hard ice cream I'm perfectly content. It's the ideal solution for those whose can't afford special ice cream freezers! I love my homemade ice cream best right from the ice cream churn. Then it has the soft consistency I like. In fact in the old days before good refrigeration, people couldn't store ice cream and keep it frozen solid. When people made homemade ice cream they ate it all up as it came from the churn. That's the way it should be eaten as far as I am concerned. > >As for the ice creams I make, I know what recipe makes > >the best base and that is what I use. > > As I said, I don't believe it's one-size-fits-all when it comes to ice > cream flavours. Thus I don't believe it's possible to develop a > standardised "base" to which you simply add flavourings - you have to tune > each recipe specifically to the flavour being made in order to get the best > results. Have you experimented with different basic formulations for each > different flavour? Or have you experimented with either different > formulations in only one flavour or different flavours in only one formula? Nope, I don't have the time or energy to do that. I make great ice cream using the system I have now. I don't feel a need to try to "make a better ice cream". You may be perfectly correct that one could experiment and come up with the optimal formula for any given flavor of ice cream, but for me I doubt the subtle differences would be worth all the effort. This whole thing reminds me of my bil who is an audiophile. Has a great stereo system. Is really fussy about sound quality. Sometimes uses headphones to block out ambient noises that would interfer. I hate headphones - I get a sort of sensory-deprivation feeling using them - and I don't care if there are minor scratches on an album or if I can hear minor ambient noises while listening to music. He's always trying to get it more perfect. I'm content with slightly imperfect, but still really great music! > >> >Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. > >> >Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! > >> > >> $ 1.59 in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And the beans are > >> super-fresh and plump. > > > >Where the hell do you live????? Vanilla at my local > >co-op bulk foods place is outrageously expensive and > >they are way cheaper than supermarkets. They keep the > >vanilla beans under lock and key rather than putting them > >out in the bulk spices section because people would steal > >them. > > Seattle. Pretty much all the co-ops out here keep vanilla with all the rest > of the bulk spices. > > >> Even if they were up at $5-6, I would consider this a relatively > >> trivial expense (after all, how much, really, is $5.00?) > > > >Well, to me it's a lot. Must be nice to be rich. > > If $5.00 is really so much, why buy ice cream at all? Duh! Because I like ice cream. > If you are so hard up > for cash that $5.00 is a major expense in an absolute sense instead of just > a relative sense, then it would seem to me that getting ice cream at all is > a luxury you can't really afford to indulge in. Oh, give me a break. Because I don't want to waste $5 of my precious money on just one of the ingredients of the ice cream I shouldn't eat ice cream at all? I just love it when people who can afford it tell those of us who can't that we should just forego it! That is so bogus. > If it's only expensive in a relative sense (i.e. that on a per-use basis > the price of extract is less than that of a bean), my point is that unless > you're making ice cream so routinely and frequently that you'd use up a > considerable number of vanilla beans on a monthly basis, the extra cost of > buying vanilla beans would hardly be a significant fraction of your monthly > income. Therefore it wouldn't be worth much trouble trying to economise on > vanilla. Well, the whole thing is moot, anyway, because I never make plain vanilla ice cream. I prefer fruit flavors in homemade ice cream. I hardly ever eat plain vanilla ice cream either. If I buy vanilla I put it in a rootbeer float or I make a sundae, or put it on a piece of warm pie or something - that's about as plain as I eat it. I have tasted really good vanilla bean ice cream and it's delicious. I just don't ever crave a bowl or cone of vanilla ice cream. So why was I arguing about it? Well, I know what I would do if I did make plain vanilla ice cream. It could still happen someday. Stranger things have happened. So, are we done now? Kate -- Kate Connally “If I were as old as I feel, I’d be dead already.” Goldfish: “The wholesome snack that smiles back, Until you bite their heads off.” What if the hokey pokey really *is* what it's all about? |
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Ice Cream Question???
at Tue, 22 Jun 2004 20:16:21 GMT in >,
(Kate Connally) wrote : >Alex Rast wrote: >> >> at Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:51:14 GMT in >, >> (Kate Connally) wrote : >> >> >Alex Rast wrote: >> > >> >Kate Connally wrote: >> >> >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the >> >> >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. >> >> >> >> But any time you use any heating device to "soften" ice cream >> >> (including setting it out on the counter), you're going to get >> >> uneven heating, and generally some melting. >> > >> >That does not really happen. If you do it right >> >there is no melting, just softening... >> >> The edges of the container - closest to the place where the >> temperature is larger than that of the initial temperature of the ice >> cream, are inevitably going to heat faster than the center, and if >> that external temperature is above freezing, they will melt. > >Well, that's not what happens. This is what has happened every time in my experience. I wonder why our results have been so different? > Besides, I believe microwaves >supposedly heat from the inside out. Didn't "Mythbusters" explode this belief at one point? I can't remember for sure. IIRC, they stuck a roast in there and found that the outside was cooked long before the center. .... >> If you use a microwave, you're going to exaggerate this problem, >> because a microwave contains hot spots... >That's why they put turntables in them. Except that a turntable will create a toroidal "zone" of uneven heating, so it won't eliminate the problem. You could if you had some device that could toss the object inside around randomly, sort of like a lottery machine, but this wouldn't work for anything but light, unbreakable, closed-container or solid objects. >> My sister says that a lot of people like to do this. To me, however, >> this seems like a circuitous method of achieving a texture that you >> could get using different formulations. I thought from your previous >> posts, that you preferred the very dense, hard consistency of >> super-premium, but it seems that this is not so > >I never said I preferred hard, just dense! There's a difference. >I like very dense and rich and cream. But if you (try to) eat it >in its hard state, just out of the freezer, ... If you hold >it in your mouth long enough to soften it enough so that you *could* >taste the flavor and feel the texture, your mouth is so numbed by >the cold that you still can't taste or feel anything anymore. IME this is true if you're storing it in a long-term, deep-freeze freezer (a standalone unit with no refrigerator), storing it at temperatures below 0 F. But in a freezer that's with a refrigerator, set to a milder temperature range, (20F or so) that's not the case. Nonetheless, super- premium ice cream IME is still pretty block-solid out of such a freezer, although it melts pretty readily in the mouth. >> - that you prefer a texture that more closely >> approximates that of Italian ice cream (gelato). Given that this is >> the case, why not make/buy that? If it's exactly the texture of soft >> serve that you like, why not, in turn, make/buy soft serve? > >Well, soft serve is not the same thing - different ingredients >and lower quality ingredients generally and very limited flavors. > >Actually there used to be a cool place here in Pgh. >where they made their own premium quality ice cream >with many different flavors... So in your case it's more a matter of market unavailability than of the nature of the product itself being inherently lower-quality. That seems to suggest there's little market for the kind of ice cream you'd prefer. Yet, based on yourself and other people, I find this hard to believe. I suspect there's a huge, untapped market for high-quality, high-variety soft-serve. I wonder why nobody's tapped into it yet? >> Finally, if you want an >> even softer consistency, this is a "semifreddo". Same thing applies. > >But it's not the same thing!!! I don't want a semifreddo!!! >It's not ice cream!!!! I want real ice cream that is soft. I wasn't suggesting that this is what you really wanted. I was just giving you what I've seen are the range of available textures. You seem to prefer true soft-serve - softer than gelato, harder than semifreddo. >> Is there a particular appeal to the process of letting ice cream melt >> and then stirring it around? I'd like to know what makes people choose >> this method over simply using the product that has the desired texture >> at the outset. > >Because you can't *get* it at the desired texture to begin >with! That's what I've been saying all along!... > >I love my homemade ice cream best right from the ice >cream churn. Yes, this is how you get the texture you like. It's pretty clear based on your comments that your preferred texture is indeed that straight from the churn. I agree that good ice cream is hard if not impossible to find commercially in this consistency. It would appear that to some degree you're the victim of blindness to a market window. >> >> >Yeah, if you want to mortgage your house to buy a vanilla bean. >> >> >Do you know how much those things cost???? Yikes!!!!! >> >> >> >> $ 1.59 in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And the beans are >> >> super-fresh and plump. >> > >> >Where the hell do you live????? Vanilla at my local >> >co-op bulk foods place is outrageously expensive and >> >they are way cheaper than supermarkets. ... >> >> >> Even if they were up at $5-6, I would consider this a relatively >> >> trivial expense (after all, how much, really, is $5.00?) >> > >> >Well, to me it's a lot. Must be nice to be rich. >> >> If $5.00 is really so much, why buy ice cream at all? > >Duh! Because I like ice cream. > >> If you are so hard up >> for cash that $5.00 is a major expense in an absolute sense instead of >> just a relative sense, then it would seem to me that getting ice cream >> at all is a luxury you can't really afford to indulge in. > >Oh, give me a break. Because I don't want to waste $5 of >my precious money on just one of the ingredients of the >ice cream I shouldn't eat ice cream at all? I just love it >when people who can afford it tell those of us who can't that >we should just forego it! But if you like ice cream, why is the extra expense of $5.00 so unbearable? After all, a super-premium ice cream itself costs nearly that much, so clearly $5.00 isn't an impossible expense for you. I'm not actually advocating that you should forgo ice cream, I'm advocating a different perspective on whether $5.00 is a waste of precious money. In other words, to say "getting ice cream at all is a luxury you can't afford to indulge in" is suggesting that the poverty level where it might be necessary or productive to consider $5.00 a waste of precious money would be so low that everyday survival would pose a much more immediate concern than whether you could have ice cream or not. IMHO, money is only valuable insofar as it allows us to acquire things that are of value to us, and if we choose to accept things of lower value in order to retain a greater amount of money we are making a fool's bargain - convincing ourselves indeed that money has an absolute intrinsic value. .... >Well, the whole thing is moot, anyway, because I never make >plain vanilla ice cream. I prefer fruit flavors in homemade >ice cream. Here we come to the crux of the matter. The extra expense of a vanilla bean might really not bring extra value to you simply because it's not really a flavour you prefer. In that case, that's the argument I'd have made from the outset. You don't need to justify your personal preferences on economic grounds. However, with those preferences in mind, it probably would be worth your time to seek the best fruit available - something local, seasonal, produced by a farmer interested in quality, and quite probably organic. Pay whatever price you need to - although if it's local and seasonal it'll probably still be cheaper than out-of-season, trucked-in fruit. -- Alex Rast (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply) |
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Ice Cream Question???
"Kate Connally" > wrote in message > > >Kate Connally wrote: > > >> >Why would you have to chisel it out? If it's kept at the > > >> >proper temperature for ice cream it shouldn't be too hard. Mos freezers have zones that are a bit warmer than the rest of the freezer. I keep the ice cream on the fron of the top shelf and it is very scoopable. > > Well, that's not what happens. Besides, I believe microwaves > supposedly heat from the inside out. Whether or not that's > the case, in my experience, the whole contained softens almost > equally much, given a not too large container - pint and quart > containers work best - there is a small difference in softness > between the outer portions and the center, but unless you > overdo it the outer portions won't melt. The waves penetrate about 1 1/2" into the products. Sugar and fat have an infinity for the reaction and heat faster than other portions. The 20 second zap works well on the real hard stuff. Ed http://pages.cthome.net/edhome |
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