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Thanks for the apology - I appreciate that.

Not so sure about the implication that I'm a hermaphrodite, though ...

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

The Reason your ice cream is hard is that there is no air in it. Commerial brands whip a ton of air into there ice creams. There's a couple of soulutions to this problem. You could let the ice cream temper in the refigerator for a 30 min or. When you make your custard base leave out the the eggwhite and fold them in before you put it in the freezer to harden. The Stablizer are for ice creams that use milk instead of half and half or for recipes that are low in fat. Naturally the faster you freeze it the smaller the ice crystal. If your using one of the freezer bowls and not ice and salt. Use a freezer that can go to 0 degrees F -15 degrees is ideal. If your freezer just goes to 32 degrees or below, make sure your ice cream mix is as cold as possible before you put it into the machine. The alcohol ,in this case vodka or any neutral grain alcohol ie no taste, is a good idea for a quick fix. For a qt of ice cream 1 tablespoon well do.

The following recipe is in liquid(volume) measure and weight:
Water, whole eggs and milk are the same in volume and weight.

8 Large egg yolks 4.5 fluid oz 5.25 oz
sugar 3/4 cup 5.25 oz
salt pinch -----
heavy cream 3 liquid cups 1.5 lb
milk 1 liquid cup 8 oz
2 vanilla bean cut lengthwise or 2 tsps ------
(if you use tahitian vanilla use 1 bean)
vodka 2 Tbsps 1 oz

In a saucepan stir together the yolks, sugar, salt and a little of the milk until well blended, using a wooden spoon.

In another saucepan or microwavable bowl heat the cream, milk, and vanilla to boiling point. Temper your yolks by adding a little of hot milk mixture at a time while stirring constantly.

Heat the mixture, stirring constantly , to just before the boiling point 170 to 180 degrees. Remember its going keep cook for a little while after you take it of the heat.
Steam will begin to appear and bubble or foam that you had while mixing will disappear.
The mixture will be slightly thicker than heavy cream and should leave a well defined track when you run your finger across the back of your wooden spoon.(that trick will not work with other spoons).

Immediately remove form the heat and strain thorough a fine mesh seive to remove any curdle egg that might have happened. Remove the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the sauce. Stir until the seeds separate.Stir in the vodka. Return the pod the the sauce until ready to freeze. The next day is best to develop the best flavor.


Other tips and variations:
Do not heat above 180 degrees or the sauce will curdle. If you do over heat it pour it instatly into a blender and blend until smooth before straining(without the vanilla pod).

Fire and Ice:
I really like this one!

It slightly nutty, slightly fiery, and sooo sooo good , add 2 tsps pink peppercorns, crushed, with the vanilla.

Hope this helps

Chef Bear Italia
Michael Zito

Okay, I'm about to make a batch of bittersweet chocolate and raw honey ice creams, the former for a party and the latter for my belly. My questions:
I never made the honey one before so I'm just going to do like the recipe says. I was thinking of throwing in some cardamom too - how many pods do you suggest for a 1-qt batch? Or how much ground stuff, if that texture would be more interesting. Does anyone have an opinion about using regular ol' orange blossom, as opposed to any other honey?
If adding corn syrup to the chocolate to reduce rock-hardness, should I assume it's a 1:1 ratio?
Is there such a thing as over-churning? My electric ice cream maker doesn't shut off by itself like it's supposed to, so I just let the thing go til the sound drives me nuts.

I'll post the results of both very soon.
We ate the last of the Chocolate Macadamia Nut and Mint Chocolate Cookie so I'm almost out of ice cream. All I have left is Pineapple Mint Sherbet from Ruth & Phil's (superdelicious) and Shitty Banana of my own making.

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I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert. ~ Jason Love
There is no pie in Nighthawks, which is why it's such a desolate image. ~ Happy Stomach
I can't go to Hollywood. I got biscuits to make. ~ Dwight Henry

Late-Nite Eats Database

I don't know what type of recipe/method you are using, but I'll share a couple of recent experiences:

I made a 1.5 qt batch of honey cardamom gelato with 15 cracked cardamom pods. I steeped the pods in my (heated) milk/cream base for about 15 minutes. The primary flavor was cardamom, and the gelato was a big hit.

I recently used cardamom as an accent flavor for a batch of coffee gelato. I used the same method with 12 cracked pods and found the result to be overwhelmingly cardamomed. The coffee and cardamom fought, and the cardamom won. Next time, I'm going to go with 4 or 5 pods max, when I'm looking for a secondary flavor.

I wouldn't even think of using ground cardamom. Might work, but I don't see any good reason to try.

Good luck,
--Rich

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I don't know what you think about dinner, but there must be a relation between the breakfast and the happiness. --Cemal Süreyya

Since honey is mostly monosaccharides, I doubt you'd need corn syrup in addition for smoothness. You might use it if you want additional sweetness without the honey flavor, though.

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Chicago Craft Beer Week!

Do you mean you made a bad batch of Banana, or have you actually named one of your ice creams this?

I just had to ask!

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"things like being careful with your coriander/ that's what makes the gravy grander" - Sondheim

Oops, I should have been more clear on the corn syrup aspect: I meant corn syrup in the bittersweet chocolate, not the honey.



Thanks! I think I might start out with 10 then, since I want a 50-50 ratio of honey to cardamom flavors. I think I have at least that many at home, so I might not even have to go back to The Spice House. As soon as I clear out my freezer, I'm loading it up with ice.

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I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert. ~ Jason Love
There is no pie in Nighthawks, which is why it's such a desolate image. ~ Happy Stomach
I can't go to Hollywood. I got biscuits to make. ~ Dwight Henry

Late-Nite Eats Database

Both! The name came later.
Soon I'll stop being so lazy and make some peanut butter sauce to go over it - that's how the recipe was anyway - so maybe that will make it better. One hopes.

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I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert. ~ Jason Love
There is no pie in Nighthawks, which is why it's such a desolate image. ~ Happy Stomach
I can't go to Hollywood. I got biscuits to make. ~ Dwight Henry

Late-Nite Eats Database

Ah, I didn't think of that. It could be both a bad batch and a formal name.

I did this one time with a very odd dessert recipe from a vegetarian cookbook (based on pureed canned pumpkin) that wasn't quite bad enough not to eat but wasn't quite good enough to be enjoyable. Hence..."Strange Pudding."

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"things like being careful with your coriander/ that's what makes the gravy grander" - Sondheim

I hope I'm posting this in the right place; there are about a dozen Ice Cream threads, but this looked closest to my question.

I decided to make ice cream this weekend, and I just realized I can't remember how fast to set the churn on my ice cream machine. Like the OP, I have a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment for my stand mixer. Do I want it faster or slower to reduce my overrun?

I'm not sure that it matters, but it's an avocado ice cream (2 ripe avocados, 1.5 cups cream, 1 cup whole milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tbsp lime juice, candied lime zest (3 limes) blended until smooth).

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"I've always thought pastrami was the most sensuous of the salted cured meats."

I have the KA ice cream attachment as well. Set it on the "Stir" speed.

I was thinking about adding corn syrup to my ice cream to keep it from becoming hard as a rock and unscoopable. However, I wondered about making it myself. What stage do you think corn syrup is, thread stage? I wonder if that would make a big difference instead of using the store-bought stuff.

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I want to have a good body, but not as much as I want dessert. ~ Jason Love
There is no pie in Nighthawks, which is why it's such a desolate image. ~ Happy Stomach
I can't go to Hollywood. I got biscuits to make. ~ Dwight Henry

Late-Nite Eats Database

Is anyone familiar with a soft serve ice cream maker? I have a ten year old Rival soft serve ice cream maker I bought for five bucks at an estate sale, looks like it was never used and I think I figured out why, it's a total pain in the ass and limits what you can make and how to make it. I used one of the recipes provided, did everything it told me to do and the ice cream did not solidify. My husband thinks it was because the canister that was put in the freezer was not cold enough though it sat in a bag for two weeks in the freezer. Any thoughts or suggestions? Or just anyone with feedback or knowledge of having one.

Was the ice cream mix as cold as possible before adding it to the ice cream maker?

making peach ice cream today

chilling the base mix quickly.

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my food shots

I would think so but it does get hot in our house and I think maybe the heat may have playted a factor somewhat. I'm going to try this again when I am not so pissed off at the poor thing. This time I put the canister in teh freezer in our basement which stays much cooler than the rest of our house.

On the off chance somebody just comes across this thread now (like myself) and decides they would like to try using ice cream stabilizer, you can order smaller quantities from L'Epicerie. It can be purchased in a 250g pouch that shouldn't be quite as overwhelming as the larger containers mentioned a few years back.

I've taken a couple of classes for fun at the French Pastry School in Chicago lately, and both times we made ice cream the recipes called for small amounts of stabilizer (6-11g) and inverted sugar (35-37g). The texture has been much smoother/creamier than anything I'd made at home before, and the vanilla ice cream we made a few weeks ago is still pretty much perfect.

Well, not exactly ice cream. But for the picnic this coming Sunday, I'm planning on making a tomato-olive oil sorbet to go along with gazpacho and manchego cheese straws. Problem is, I'm worried that the sorbet will separate with the olive oil - never made a sorbet with oil before. Any advice? I'd like to keep it vegetarian, so no gelatin. And I don't want to have it too sweet obviously. So, anything available for purchase in the city (north side preferably)? Arrowroot? Gum? What kind and where?

I seem to have solved my own problem. After considerable research, I decided to purchase kuzu, which is apparently a wild Japanese arrowroot. They sell it at Whole Foods in crystal form, but it was incredibly easy to turn it into a powder in my mortar and pestle. Basically, I used 1 tablespoon of powder for 1 cup of liquid, and it did the trick - the sorbet did not separate. My research had indicated that kuzu is great to use in ice cream and sorbets for mouth-feel and emulsification and because it would not impart any off flavors (which it did not). Hopefully, you'll find this helpful the next time you're making ice cream or sorbet.

And the final result was excellent. Thanks, BR!

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-Mary

I'll second that with a rave! One of my favorite things at the picnic--unique and exceptionally well done. Thank you!

Thank you both very much for the compliment - and glad you enjoyed.