Pistachio Ice Cream

Pistachio is one of my favorite flavors of ice cream and I have been wanting to make it for awhile. One of the things I was nervous about was how to add the pistachio flavor, without having huge chunks of pistachio in my ice cream. To add to my discomfort, one of the things I like least about the Jenni Britton Ice Cream Recipe is that while she does a great job of telling you how to make a great ice cream base, she does not tell you when would be a good time to add in any flavors. I played around with a couple different ideas and finally came up with a recipe I thought would work.

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients:     

2 cups whole milk

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces cream cheese softened/room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar 

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

1 cup shelled pistachios

 

Preparation:
In a small bowl, mix about 2 tablespoons of milk with the cornstarch and whisk together.
In a medium bowl, add the salt and room-temperature cream cheese and whip all the bumps out. Set aside.
In a food processor, add 1 cup of shelled pistachios and blend them until they are fine.
Add the heavy cream to the pistachios in the food processor and blend until they are a paste.
Pour the sugar, corn syrup, remaining milk and the pistachio and cream paste into a saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, set a timer for precisely 4 minutes and boil for exactly 4 minutes.
Add the cornstarch to the boiling milk mixture and stir until slightly thickened.
Strain the hot milk mixture into a clean bowl.
Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth, adding about a cup of the hot milk mixture at a time and whisking the cream cheese mixture with an electric mixer for about two minutes in between each addition of the hot milk mixture. Continue until none of the hot milk mixture remains in the pot.
Chill the mixture in the refrigerator until it is completely cold.
Put your mixture into your ice cream maker and churn.
 

Texture: I think this is the first time I have over-churned an ice cream. As my husband said, it was bound to happen at one point. The consistency of the ice cream was so solid, it was almost a butter. If I was once concerned that my ice creams were too soupy, those days are now long gone. The cream cheese based ice creams will definitely give you a solid ice cream consistency that freeze well and look like ice cream when you scoop it into a bowl.

Flavor: The ice cream has a strong pistachio flavor. As my husband pointed out, he never realized how much sugar and artificial flavors were in store bought pistachio ice creams, until now. I think the nut flavor was almost too strong, but my husband enjoyed it. As he said, if you like pistachios, then this is the ice cream for you. If you want a less strong nut flavor, try 1/2 cups of pistachios. One thing I did like about using all the pistachios is that they turned the ice cream green! This is the first time that I had an ice cream that was a color other than white or gray, which was kind of cool and also makes you realize just how much food coloring they put in store bought ice cream.

Overall: I would give this ice cream a 3/5 scoops. I like the flavor and the consistency is good, but it is not one of my favorite ice creams. I do not know if this is because of the strong pistachio flavor or the fact that the ice cream is over-churned, or a combination of the two, but for whatever reason, this ice cream did not quite hit the spot for me.

In addition, this week I tried the much acclaimed Ice and Vice ice cream. You can find Ice and Vice at LIC Flea and Astoria Coffee, Brooklyn is not the only cool outer borough, as well as various other places around New York City. I tried the Milk Money flavor. The flavor and consistency weren't bad, but for $11 pint, I was expecting more. Sorry Ice and Vice, but for those prices, I want an orgasm in my mouth.

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on.

Red Wine Ice Cream

If you are anything like me, you enjoy an occasional glass of wine with your meal. You also enjoy some ice cream for dessert! I thought what better than to take two of my favorite vices, wine and ice cream, and combine them together. I have always struggled to make ice cream with alcohol in it, see my attempt at making a Baileys Ice Cream, in part because alcohol does not freeze well. My attempts may have improved slightly this time around, but I still have a long way to go when it comes to making alcohol flavored ice creams.

Some of you will also notice that I also introduced a new format to my blog. I made a section marked texture and a section marked flavor, as I think it is hard to talk about the success of an ice cream without going into the specifics of these two qualities. I then also talked about the overall quality of the ice cream. In the overall section, I ranked my ice cream using a five scoop scale (similar to the one I use to rank ice cream stores). Five scoops is the highest, 1 scoop is the lowest. I thought by ranking my ice creams, people could gain a better understanding of what I thought of my ice creams and determine which ones are worth trying to duplicate in their kitchens.

Red Wine Ice Cream

Ingredients:     

2 cups whole milk

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces cream cheese softened/room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar (I would use less - maybe a 1/3 cup)

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

Red wine (at least 1/2 a cup)
 

Preparation: 

1.  In a small bowl, mix about 2 tablespoons of milk with the cornstarch and whisk together.
2. In a medium bowl, add the salt and room-temperature cream cheese and whip all the bumps out. Set aside.
3. Pour the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and remaining milk into a 4-quart saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, set a timer for precisely 4 minutes and boil for exactly 4 minutes.
4. Add the cornstarch to the boiling milk mixture and stir until slightly thickened.
5. Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth, adding about a cup of the hot milk mixture at a time and whisking the cream cheese mixture with an electric mixer for about two minutes in between each addition of the hot milk mixture. Continue until none of the hot milk mixture remains in the pot. 
6. Add in the red wine. Use your taste and judgement to add in however much red wine you would like. I started off adding in 2 tablespoons at a time of some left-over red wine I had sitting in the fridge. The tablespoons did not seem like enough, so I eventually stopped measuring and just poured in the rest of the bottle (I think it was around 1/2 cup).
7. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator until it is completely cold.
8. Put your mixture into your ice cream maker and churn. For red wine ice cream, my mixture needed close to an hour to churn.

Texture: For those of you who remember my last blog, you will remember that this is only my second time working with a cream cheese based ice cream. As such, it might not have been the wisest decision to work with an ingredient as fickle as alcohol. Nonetheless, I think I was able to straighten out the textural difficulties I had last week. Using an electric whisk, I beat the cream cheese mixture for about two minutes after every cup full of the hot milk mixture I added to it. I think this really helped to blend the lumps of cream cheese into the rest of the ice cream mixture and make a smoother, more fully composed "batter." While the texture of the ice cream was better, no lumps this week, it did take awhile for the ice cream to freeze because of the alcohol. It took almost a whole hour to churn and may take longer with some churners. 

Flavor: The flavor was not quite what I was expecting. Rather than tasting like wine, the ice cream tasted very fruity. This may be because in addition to the sugar that wine has in it, I added in the normal amount of sugar you would to an ice cream. If I was to make this ice cream in the future, I would drastically decrease the amount of sugar I was using.

Overall: This ice cream was ok. I would give it a 2.5/5 scoops. The consistency/texture was not bad, but it probably could have been improved had there not been alcohol in it. In addition, while the ice cream tasted nice and fruity, it was not the flavor profile I was expecting. It tasted more like a berry ice cream, less like a red wine ice cream. 

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on.

Rosewater Flavored, Cream Cheese Based Ice Cream

As promised, this week I tried to make ice cream using a cream cheese base versus the egg base I usually use. In an egg based ice cream, the egg yolks act as a stabilizer. In a cream cheese based ice cream, I think it is the cornstarch and corn syrup that act as the stabilizers. I have a limited understanding of both cooking and science, but I believe the cornstarch thickens the ice cream, while the corn syrup binds everything together. The recipe I followed is from Jenni Britton Bauer, who is apparently a goddess in the world of ice cream. She has scoop shops in Columbus, Cleveland, Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, Charleston, Los Angeles and St. Louis. I have not actually tried her ice cream, but if you live in one of those cities, try it and leave a comment letting us know how it was. I was introduced to Jenni Britton Bauer by a woman I met at an ice cream workshop. I found the recipe for her cream cheese based ice cream base on a website and duplicated it below for anybody who is interested. As you will notice, this recipe is only for creating an ice cream base, you will have to add the flavoring on your own.

Jenni Britton Bauer's Cream Cheese Based Ice Cream

Ingredients:     

2 cups whole milk

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces cream cheese softened/room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Preparation:    

           

1. PLEASE NOTE: 24 HOURS BEFORE YOU WANT TO MAKE THE ICE CREAM, WASH THE CANISTER, DRY IT WELL, AND PLACE IT IN THE COLDEST PART OF THE FREEZER. DO NOT REMOVE IT UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO POUR THE CHILLED CREAM INTO IT.
2. PREP 3 BOWLS In a small bowl, mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch to make a smooth slurry. In a medium bowl, add the salt and room-temperature cream cheese and whip all the bumps out. In a large bowl, make an ice bath (heavy on the ice) and set aside.
3. COOK Pour the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and remaining milk into a 4-quart saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, set a timer for precisely 4 minutes and boil for exactly 4 minutes—the timing is critical. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Return the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
4. CHILL Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Do this a little bit at a time so that you can whip out any lumps of cream cheese. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag, seal, and submerge the bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until very cold, about 30 minutes.
5. FREEZE Cut the corner off the bag, pour the chilled base into the frozen canister of your ice cream machine, press a sheet of parchment paper directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours.
6. HOW TO TELL WHEN YOUR ICE CREAM IS DONE The ice cream is finished at the exact moment when the machine isn’t freezing the ice cream anymore; the ice cream will begin to pull away from the sides (about 25 minutes). If you stop too soon, there will be a thin layer of really dense ice cream on the sides of the canister.
7. SERVE When you remove the ice cream from the freezer, let it sit and relax for 5 to 10 minutes before you scoop and serve it—it doesn’t need to melt, but it does need to thaw slightly. Ideally, serve and eat it while it’s quite firm but pliable and you are able to easily roll it into a ball. Once you’ve scooped it, return any remaining ice cream to the freezer. If the ice cream has melted too much at room temperature, refreezing it will result in an ice cream that is too icy.

As we talked so much about kulfi last week, I had Indian food on my mind a lot this week. Adding to that, for the past few weeks, I have had a bottle of rosewater sitting in my cabinet just staring at me. I had bought the rosewater thinking I would attempt to make some Indian or Middle Eastern desserts. I do occasionally make things other than ice cream. Alas, like all well laid plans of mice and men, it went awry and I never got around to it. I was curious though to see if rosewater would work well in an ice cream. I used a slight variation of the Jenni Britton Bauer method, so I will lay out my own plan below.

Rosewater Ice Cream (Cream Cheese Based)

Ingredients:     

2 cups whole milk

4 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 ounces cream cheese softened/room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

2/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons dark corn syrup

2 tablespoons rosewater

Preparation:    

     

I always leave my ice cream canister in the freezer, so it is ready to use if I need it. I also find that ice cream churns best when the canister has been in the freezer for awhile. 

In a small bowl, mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch.

In a medium bowl, add the salt and room-temperature cream cheese and whip all the bumps out.

      

Pour the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and remaining milk into a 4-quart saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, set a timer for precisely 4 minutes and boil for exactly 4 minutes—the timing is critical (I did not precisely time mine). 

Mix in the cornstarch and stir until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.                

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Do this a little bit at a time so that you can whip out any lumps of cream cheese. (I did not gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese, I just dumped it all in, and this was probably my biggest mistake. Next time, I will pour it in slowly because you do need time for the lumps of cream cheese to dissolve.) Add in two tablespoons of rosewater.

Put the mixture in your fridge until it is cool (I left mine in overnight). Churn in your ice cream make until thick and creamy (approximately 40 minutes in my ice cream maker).

The cream cheese based, rosewater ice cream came out deliciously! As I mentioned, my ice cream was not perfectly smooth because I did not do a good job of really whipping out all the lumps of cream cheese. I will definitely take care to do this next time. Nonetheless, the ice cream was very creamy and dense. It also held the ice cream texture and looked like ice cream much more than my egg yolk based ice creams, which tasted great and had a good consistency, but tended to melt quickly. My husband thought the rosewater made the ice cream taste like rasmalai, another Indian dessert, which I love, so all in all it was a win-win.

My only complaint about the Jenni Britton Bauer recipe is that it does not specify when would be a good time to add the flavoring. For flavors that are more viscous, such as rosewater, I think adding them in at the end, as I did, is fine. However, for flavors that need to be steeped before being strained out, such as in the Honey Thyme Ice Cream, I think they will need to be added in before you combine the milk mixture with the cream cheese. I will keep experimenting in the weeks ahead and report back.

I have read on some ice cream making websites complaints on using corn syrup in making ice cream because it is not a "real" food. Many feel like using corn syrup in homemade ice cream destroys the integrity of the ice cream. Here are my thoughts on the "corn syrup controversy." First, corn syrup is different than high fructose corn syrup. While they are both made from corn, high fructose corn syrup has had its glucose enzymatically converted to fructose, hence the name. Thus, while corn syrup has been processed, just as sugar cane is processed, it has not been enzymatically altered the way high fructose corn syrup is. In that sense you can say high fructose corn syrup is a "fake" food. Since corn syrup is not being altered the way high fructose corn syrup is, I am not exactly sure it is ruining the integrity of homemade ice cream. On the other hand, are both corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup bad for you? Yes. Are both hard for your body to digest? Yes. If you want to be healthy, you should avoid eating both corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup. If you want to be healthy, you should also avoid eating ice cream. The corn syrup you do or do not put in your ice cream is not going to make it any more or less healthy for you. If you want to be healthy, stop eating ice cream and reading ice cream blogs. Otherwise, everything in moderation, including moderation. So get out there and train for a marathon. Run 9 miles in 80 degree weather and when you get back, scoop yourself a large bowl of high-fat, high-sugary goodness and enjoy!

Overall: I would give my Rosewater Ice Cream 4/5 scoops. It has a unique, enjoyable flavor and good consistency that hits your sweet spot and satisfies an ice cream craving.

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on.

How To Make Ice Cream Without An Ice Cream Maker

My blog is devoted to making ice cream, but I realize an ice cream maker is something many may not have just lying around their kitchen. If you would like to join me on my ice cream making expeditions, but do not want to want to shell out the money on fancy kitchen equipment, have no fear. I have recently learned of a way to make ice cream without breaking the bank or requiring anything more than a whisk (preferably electronic) and a bowl.

Ingredients:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 pint of heavy cream

Flavoring (of your choosing)

 

Preparation:

Mix your flavoring into the sweetened condensed milk and set aside.

Whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks.

Gently combine the whipped cream with the sweetened condensed milk. Freeze for 4 hours prior to eating.

Full Disclosure: I have not actually tried to make ice cream using this method. However, I have recently eaten ice cream made by someone using the above steps and it was quite tasty. It was a little fluffier than most of my ice creams turn out, but I would never have known it was made without an ice cream maker if I had not been told. Apparently, this method of making ice cream is inspired by the steps taken to make kulfi. Kulfi is a delicious Indian dessert that is somewhat similar to ice cream.

I was introduced to this method at an Ice Cream Club meeting I was invited to this weekend by a friend of mine. As the name suggests, the club was for ice cream making enthusiasts. Each person brought a pint of of ice cream to share and a pint of ice cream to trade. I tasted a number of new and interesting flavors, including: avocado ice cream, cardamom ice cream and black sesame ice cream. The flavors were delicious, but by the time we left, even I was feeling ice creamed out and that is hard.

More enjoyable than the experience of eating ice cream at 10:30 in the morning was the opportunity to talk to fellow amateur ice cream makers. It was the first time either of my friend or I went to this Ice Cream Club. I have to admit I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the experience. I was not sure exactly what to expect or if I would be surrounded by ice cream making snobs. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone was very friendly and it was a great environment to talk shop and swap secrets of the trade. I never realized there were so many fellow ice cream enthusiasts out there! In addition to learning about this new way to make ice cream, I met a young woman who had some suggestions on how to improve the texture and consistency of my ice cream. She recommended using cream cheese, corn syrup and corn starch rather than egg yolks. I will be trying this trick next, so stay tuned for the following week's blog post.

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on.

Coffee Ice Cream

Memorial Day weekend just past and with it the unofficial start of summer, the official opening of beaches and drumroll please, ice cream season! Now that the weather has gotten warmer, I have decided to get back on my ice cream making game. I wanted to make a flavor I have been meaning to try for a while, coffee ice cream.

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk

3/4 cups sugar

1 cup instant coffee (any brand will do)

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation:

Heat the milk, sugar, instant coffee and 1/2 cup of the heavy cream in a pot until hot and steamy, but not boiling.

Once the mixture is warm, remove it from the heat and let steep for 1 hour.

After the hour is up, reheat the coffee mixture.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together.

Temper the egg yolks by pouring in a half cup of the coffee mixture, whisking constantly.

Then combine the egg yolks with the rest of the coffee mixture in the pot.

Add the rest of the cream and stir the mixture over medium heat for roughly ten minutes.

Pour the mixture through a strainer and into a clean bowl.

Chill in the refrigerator overnight and churn in your ice cream maker.

I love this ice cream. It has a rich, creamy texture and a smooth coffee flavor. It reminds me of last summer when I traveled to Vietnam and spent my days drinking Vietnamese Iced Coffee, which is a combination of coffee, condensed milk and sugar. Although they make Vietnamese Iced Coffee here, often called Thai Iced Coffee, it comes no where as close to good as the coffee I had in Vietnam. I think this is because of the quality of the coffee beans the Vietnamese use. For the first time since leaving Hanoi, the rich, creamy blend of this coffee ice cream transported me back to my Vietnamese Iced Coffee drinking days. Would it be wrong to eat coffee ice cream for breakfast?

Overall: I would give this Coffee Ice Cream 5/5 scoops. It is one of my favorite flavors and everything you would want in a coffee ice cream. It is perfect for a hot summer day!

Until next time, keep calm and get your ice cream eating on.