Get Out Your Ice Cream Machine or Buy One

My folks have a hand-crank maker in their attic...I should probably steal it one of these days to see if Alton is telling us the truth LOL. Anyway, here's a video where he explains it all, plus discusses making Italian gelatos. (Just love him!)

Thanks for the response POM and IrishK.

I just love italian gelato..

As I understand it, the hand cranking only goes on for about 20 minutes.

Malted Vanilla Ice Cream
1/2 C heavy cream
2 C whole milk
4 T powdered malt
1 t vanilla

Mix powdered malt and milk either in a hand shaker or a blender. Add all ingredients to ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's directions.

Note: My son-in-law is a brewer and is hosting one of his regular beer bashes soon. I made this for the event. I thought the malt would make it a nice finale to a beer dinner.

i used Tahitian vanilla as it is supposed to not stand up to the heat of baking well. I am used to Madagascar Vanilla, so, I rather regret using the Tahitian but I have to use it up.

David Lebovitz (The Perfect Scoop) shared this yogurt recipe online a few years ago. It's very simple and I've made it a lot.

Frozen Yogurt to Rival Pinkberry's
3 cups (720g) strained yogurt (see below) or Greek-style yogurt
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/a-frozen-yogurt-recipe-to-rival-pinkberrys-recipe.html

I use Fage yogurt and sometimes add fruit during the last few minutes of freezing.

About fruit in frozen dessert: You can use canned fruit if your puree it. If using fresh fruit, peel and slice it, then add to the fruit the sugar that would be used in the ice cream recipe and allow the fruit to macerate overnight. The fruit probably should be pureed or at least mashed.

If you were to add fresh fruit, that is peeled bits of peaches or other fruits, they could freeze into bullets!

I looked at Food and Wine mag at work. A 'recipe' for bourbon ice cream caught my eye. Supposedly, alcohol keeps the ice cream from freezing but that's not true, as I learned today.

The recipe sounded awful. You were supposed to keep store bought ice cream in the frig, not the freezer, for 24 hours, then beat bourbon into it and serve. Ugh.

I had no bourbon so I mixed the leftover cream with milk (2 C) and dissolved 1/4 C turbinado sugar in it. I added the mix to the freezer and, while it churned, I put in 1/2 t Scott's vanilla (made in Acton, MA without sugar) and 1 t Jameson.

It was amazing!

Mr.Irish likes a low-carb version of ice-cream that I sometimes make, but without sugar it freezes rock-hard over night. I tried adding a bit of alcohol with no luck, then more...still no luck lol.

I finally got a scoopable version by trying a combination of a little alcohol and a few teaspoons of food-grade glycerine.

Freezing rock hard is a prob with ice cream. Too much cream makes it freeze. Too much water. Food grade glycerine sounds like a good solution.

BTW, the Jameson ice cream scooped immediately without softening out of the freezer.

It is, but it takes some experimenting, depending on the ice-cream recipe. Too much and you might get a sort of metallic aftertaste, plus a kind of slimy mouth feel. Too little, of course, the ice-cream doesn't stay scoopable.

The Jameson's sounds good...might have to try that one lol.

Ok, ok, I ordered a Cuisinart ICE 20 Ice Cream Maker from Amazon. I almost got a refurbished one, but with the shipping charges, it came to about the same as the one I did order with free shipping. This is a luxury expense for me, very naughty.

You're gonna love it! Get that freezer bowl into your freezer first thing and within 24 hours you'll have creamy, delicious homemade ice cream with NO additives The recipe book that comes with it is pretty good, plus there's tons of recipes on the net and youtube.

Enjoy!

I have fantasies of faux-replicating the gelati from my favorite gelateria - but I suppose I should take one ice cream at a time..

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/19/travel/fare-of-the-country-ice-cream-for-la-dolce-vita.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.giolitti.com/

There are newer favorites in Rome since 1990, when this article was written, and I think Maureen Fant may have gotten her air theory incorrectly (not sure), but the article is sentimental for me and inspiring re flavors..

Taking a small roast out of the freezer, I found blueberries from last summer! Oh nose! I had some cream and since I love blueberry ice cream, I thought I would make it but the cream (from the raw milk dairy) was overaged. So, I added the juice of 1/2 lemon and the last of the simply syrup (about 1 C) to a pint of blueberries and pureed it.

Then I added one quick shake of cinnamon. You have to be very careful about cinnamon in ice cream. Freezing it makes it very strong. It didn't freeze well but the kitchen was hot. The texture was like silk. Tempering it in the freezer now.

Congratulations!

Wait...you didn't put any dairy product in at all? Just the blueberry mixture, simple syrup and lemon juice? That sounds really refreshing. How long did you freeze it?

It was sorbet. My son has some probs with lactose, so no dairy is fine here. I had it in the freezer for about 90 mins, but, I should say that I divided it between two containers and sampled the sorbet in the smaller container, which should be more set than the larger one.

It is so delicious!

That sounds really good. I found fresh cherries on sale today...Cherry Sorbet!!