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Thinking about Cathy2's fudge swirl inquiry, I'm remembering my inadvertent discovery of chocolate chip technique. Having previously cooled my base, I decided I really wanted chocolate, not vanilla, ice cream. I melted some chocolate and added it to the cooled vanilla base as it churned, (thinking naively that it would emulsify in spite of the temperature difference). Imagine my delight when I discovered small, uniform chocolate chips were being formed before my eyes!

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Can you easily explain the benefits of the Paco-Jet? The folks that run Kitchen Chicago recently got a Paco-Jet and started making ice cream. The texture of the flavors I've sampled has been great, though they're still working out good flavors.

They were pretty excited about the machine, and expressed that it's the cream of the crop when it comes to ice cream machines, but I'm not clear who the market is and what makes it so good. I did see that it is quite a pricy product.

Hi,

While waiting for Queijo's take on the situation.

I saw Paco-Jet at Charlie Trotter's last year. I had the impression they could make an ice cream in minutes. In my link, they take frozen fresh pineapple to sorbet in 20 seconds.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
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Paco Jet, from Switzerland, is incredibly versatile - basically a food processor that can freeze miniscule batches (800g max) of ice cream to order, ensuring that every serving is at its peak. There is this little dessert place called Chikalicious in NYC that has a Paco Jet front and center - when you order, they quickly whip up ice cream for you. One of the first restaurants to popularize it in the US was Al Forno, in Providence, RI - in the '80s, I think. As Cathy2 points out, the beauty is that it makes ice cream and sorbet in minutes, compared to traditional batch machines.

You have to check out their website, which is linked above in Cathy2's post - they use words like "Pacotize" to describe using the machine to break down/freeze foods.

Mmm. Tasty topic.

I, too, am developing recipes for my own (Krups) ice cream maker, which is small. Someone earlier was was asking about cream cheese/sour cream issues. Here are a few of my own recipes that have worked. These are more to my liking - not super-high in butterfat, but full of flavor, good texture:

Sour Cream
1 cup half and half
12 oz. (weight) sour cream (full fat)
3/4 cup sugar
4 yolks
1 tsp. vanilla

Zabaione
1/4 cup cream
1 3/4 cup half and half
1 egg
3 yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup + 1 TB marsala

Caramel Mascarpone
1 cup sugar caramelized with 2 TB H2O
1 cup cream
7 oz. mascarpone, dumped into a 2-cup measuring cup, the cup then filled with whole milk until liquid = 2 cups
3 yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla

OK, so that last one isn't very well-designed, but it was a last-minute alteration a few years ago to a caramel recipe that worked, so I keep it. Why 7 oz. mascarpone? That was the size of the container I had that day.

General process involves whisking the eggs while heating up the milk and sugar, tempering the eggs, adding them slowly to the custard, cooking until 160F, straining into a bowl, adding alcohols (vanilla, marsala), chilling, freezing. Enjoy!

I've been freezing bananas as they get ripe, but as it's too hot to make bread, I decided to try my hand at a banana ice cream. Based on what I could scrounge from my pantry and a bit of googling, I came up with the following recipe:

Base
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (I had nonfat for no good reason; this I will change next time)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp dark rum
3-4 chopped frozen bananas
Milk to make mixture equal 2.5 quarts (used 1% as it's what we have)

Add-ins
4 oz. chopped dark chocolate chips (Next time, I'll make a ganache, adding it melted while freezing)
1/3 cup Toasted walnuts

It turned out surprisingly well, though a bit lighter than the commercial variety - (e.g. Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey) the brown sugar and rum really add something.

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What kind of processing did you do to this mixture before you put it in the ice cream freezer? Do you beat it with a mixer or just stir everything together? Any heating?

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

Thanks, LAZ: Everything was just stirred with a spatula until the sugar dissolved and the condensed milk was incorporated; the Donvier did the rest. Since it didn't have any egg, it wasn't cooked.

A caveat: this made a delicious semifreddo, kind of like a banana sorbet, but if you're not going to serve it immediately it still needs tinkering. Since it lacked fat, the texture suffered when it was kept in the freezer. Next time I'm going to try whole milk and full-fat condensed milk.

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Does anyone know where I can get organic light cream? I've been making ice cream with a mixture of 1/2 1/2 and whole milk and it's turning out icy...but I really don't want to buy conventional light cream.

Thanks in advance!

Hi,

You may want to use full cream diluted by whole milk especially after reading Mike G's experience using half and half in ice cream.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
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You can also fight iciness a little by using corn syrup instead of sugar, and/or including a liqueur - both depress the freezing point for a softer, more scoopable texture. But your best bet is to up the fat content, either by using more cream, or adding egg yolks, or both.

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Steve Z.
Photographer/Pseudojournalist

"The only time to eat diet food is while you’re waiting for the steak to cook." - Julia Child

I made blueberry ice cream last night and used half-and-half and it did not have a greasy texture. I did use eggs in the base. It was 2 eggs, 3 cups 1/2 and 1/2 and sugar, blueberries and the juice of 1/2 a lemon.

Now, the reason I used half and half is because I couldn't find any cream without carrageenan. Any good suggestions for a brand or where to buy? Even the organic stuff I saw had some sort of gum in it.

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I can't recall the name, but there's a brand at Whole Foods that comes in smaller bottles where the only ingredient is "heavy cream". Not ultra-pasteurized, either. It's in the upper-left corner of the refrigerator case at the North Ave store.

After being inspired by this thread, I've been following along at home.

Here's my problem: I need to run my Cuisinart for 45 minutes before it reaches even a soupy milkshake consistency. Then, after freezing, I either maintain milkshake consistency or I get an ice cream brick of death. I've tried four or five batches and I still can't reach a happy medium.

I want to blame it on some sort of faulty ice cream maker equipment, but I'm sure the problem is with the user. Could it be that my freezer isn't getting the container cold enough to begin with? Exactly what should I be expecting when I turn the ice cream maker off? I stop when it looks like something I could freeze into a substance that resembles ice cream.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Yeah, it sounds like the canister is either not getting completely frozen or it's thawing too quickly when you freeze it on the counter.

We find the ice cream we make in the winter superior to that made in the summer, because it freezes faster when the house is 66 instead of 76.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

Several things could be going on. Is it a Cuisinart model with a freeze-the-bowl-in-the-freezer design, or a Cuisinart with its own built-in freezer? If the former, the bowl must be solidly frozen - ideally in the back, coldest part of your freezer - at least overnight.

The other thing to think about is your mix. Mixes low in fat can turn out like bricks. Mixes high in things like alcohol and corn syrup can come out soupy. The ratios can be pretty important; slight variations either way can result in huge differences in the final product.

Are you thoroughly chilling your base before you put it in the ice cream maker? Are you scalding any dairy ingredients to partially denature the proteins?

Ideally, when the ice cream maker is finished doing its thing, the consistency should be like soft serve (e.g. Dairy Queen) consistency ... if you're not going to eat it right away, you can harden it off in the freezer to get a more traditional ice cream consistency.

If you post the recipe you used for a batch, and tell us how it came out, it might be easier to give you specific recommendations.

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I'm new to ice cream making, having purchased a Cuisinart (freeze the cylinder first) machine two months ago.

Though I've had a couple of failed batches - because I'd not prepared ingredients properly in advance - most of what I've been making has been great. My best production thus far has been the Ben & Jerry's recipe for fresh cherry/vanilla ice cream with shavings of chocolate; peppermint; maple; chocolate; vanilla; and this past weekend's batch of mango (my favorite thus far).

I'm using the "make a custard first" method, with the (cooked) egg yokes - and the texture is great. The Ben & Jerry's recipe's call for uncooked (entire) eggs in the mixture, though.

It takes my ice cream maker about 30 minutes to do the job, but I'm finding I like the results after 45-50 minutes better - excellent "soft serve" consistency; you want to sit down and eat the entire quart then and there.

Yes, making certain the cylinder has been frozen for a couple of days has been important for me, but cooling the ingredients, the ice cream liquid, properly (overnight for me) is important as well.

I've bothered my neighbors enough with my ice cream making (they really do love it, though), so I'll be boxing the machine until sometime in the Fall when I'll try this once again.

Thanks for all of the helpful hints (I wish I'd seen this thread two months ago, instead of tonight!).

p.s.: I forgot to say I'd made a musk mellon sorbet with the ice cream maker, and it was out of this world.

Thanks for these tips. I'm rearranging the freezer today -- the canister currently lives in the front --- and will look for a different recipe. The recipes in the Cusinart instruction pamphlet are no-cook recipes, and it sounds like I need to start with the real custard base, not the easy base. Thanks again! I can't wait to post results!

Hi,

Over the weekend, I bought several pounds of spotted bananas. In addition to daily consumption, I thought maybe make a banana cream pie. Later, I bought four pounds of strawberries. Neck deep in fruit, I wasn't so keen to make pie, because it wouldn't use enough bananas. Instead, I thought a banana ice cream would be better use.

In a short search of banana ice cream recipes, I found more I didn't like than I would like. Alton Brown had banana ice cream consisting largely of mashed bananas, corn syrup and cream. Epicurious had banana ice cream of bananas, condensed sweetened milk and cream. I like my condensed sweetened milk more hidden, because generally the taste of cooked milk turns me off. I finally googled "banana ice cream, sugar, cream," where a blog called Evil Chef Mom had a roasted banana ice cream adapted from a book called The Perfect Scoop.

I was somewhat lazy not desiring to oven roast bananas, plus my ice cream machine holds just over a quart, so I fiddled with the recipe, too:

4 medium-sized plus one small-sized ripe banana with spots, peeled
1/2 cup of dark brown sugar
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/3 teaspoon salt

Slice the bananas into 1/2 inch pieces in a quart glass measuring cup and add brown sugar. Microwave in 30-40 second periods to check banana's progress. They will soften as they cook, then mash with a fork incorporating the brown sugar. Once it was largely warm mush, I used my blender stick to finish the job. I added cream to the quart line, plus the sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and salt. I blended it together again, then tossed it into the ice cream maker along with any cream left. (My ice cream machine has a built-in chiller, otherwise I would have chilled it more before churning) Churned for 25 minutes (some of that time was really spent chilling the mixture).

Great creamy texture and real banana flavor, it was far better than any of us expected.

Happy Summer!
Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Cathy,

That sounds delicious. I don't have Lebovitz' book, but I would bet that the recipe in The Perfect Scoop doesn't call for 100% heavy cream. Sounds like a quite a decadent modification that you and/or the blogger you found made!

Kenny

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Fuckerberg on Food

Kenny,

I recall Mike G commenting on ice cream made with half-and-half felt odd in his mouth, but heavy cream didn't have that characteristic. Since that observation, I go pure cream.

It was really a super ice cream. I will probably have to make another batch just to make sure.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

I usually use 2/3 cream and 1/3 milk, but then again, I also throw in 8 egg yolks, so it's not like mine is less decadent

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Ingredients list of the original recipe from The Perfect Scoop:

3 medium sized ripe bananas, peeled
.33 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1.5 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
.5 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tsp lemon juice
.25 tsp coarse salt

It looks like EvilChefMom just decided to upgrade from 1.5 cups of milk to 1.5 cups of cream. Not a bad upgrade, personally.

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Ed Fisher
my chicago food photos

RIP LTH.

I just used that this weekend for Raw Honey Cardamom ice cream, and it turned out super creamy.



I also use that method, and I left my maker running for an hour Sunday. It was the perfect consistency, and the fact that I had cupcakes to eat was the only reason I didn't eat it right then. Because it was made with honey, I didn't have the rock-hard problem this time.

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I will be making homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches this weekend for the hub's birthday. I've got the cookies down, but I'm an ice cream novice. I've culled a lot of ideas from this thread and other online sources, and I think I have a plan, which I'd like to run past the more seasoned vets. I want it to be especially creamy and luxurious, since it's a birthday treat. The recipe is mostly adapted from epicurious, with some modifications.

The Hardware
Cuisinart ice cream maker, with freezer bowl

The Preparation
- Freezer bowl in coldest part of freezer, for at least 24hrs
- Other containers standing by in freezer to store finished product in

The Ingredients
2 c. heavy cream
1 c. whole milk
6 egg yolks
2 c. fresh bone dry mint leaves from the garden
3/4 c. sugar
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, cut into bite sized chunks

Here We Go
- Whisk eggs & 1/2 c. of sugar together, set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, heat whole milk, rest of sugar, mint, and half of the heavy cream over low heat, until steaming but not boiling. Remove from heat.
- Temper milk/sugar mixture with eggs mixture; once tempered whisk both together into saucepan.
- Place saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon
- Strain through a sieve
- Whisk in remaining cream
- Chill in ice bath, whisking constantly until cold
- Cover and stick it in the fridge for at least 6 hours
- Process in the chilly cold ice cream maker freezer bowl until the consistency of soft serve, adding chocolate during the last minute of churning
- Transfer to chilly cold containers for the deep freeze

My Questions
- Do you think this will impart enough mint flavor?
- Do you think I can take the ice cream at soft serve stage and build my ice cream sandwiches, tightly wrap them and stick them in the freezer? Is there any concern about the consistency of the ice cream?
- If I find myself with tons of free time and make homemade chocolate sauce, could I drizzle that into the freezer bowl early during processing and end up with something similar to chocolate chunks?

Hard to say, because your recipe doesn't say anything about how long you plan to let the milk/ mint mixture steep after you remove it from the heat. If you bring it to a simmer, steep it for an hour or more, then strain - pressing hard to remove the tasty mint oils - you'll be fine. Don't worry about measuring the mint into cups, just put in however much you can possibly fit into the pot.

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Fuckerberg on Food

I don't think it will work as you think. Depending on the temperature, it will either contribute to warming your bowl, which is a negative. It may just as likely freeze on contact, interfering with the rotating device and maybe even sticking it.

If you make the sauce, it could be something to dip the ice cream sandwich as you eat it.

Regards,

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Cathy2

"You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways, Road Food 2012: Podcast

Out of curiosity, why dried mint leaves instead of fresh? I've always used fresh in ice cream, and it's spoiled me for "mint" ice creams made with oils or flavorings.

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Sorry for the confusion - the mint leaves are fresh. One recipe I found said to make sure that the leaves are completely dry after rinsing them because throwing wet leaves in the mix could alter the consistency, & create little flecks of ice in the finished product.