Get Out Your Ice Cream Machine or Buy One

Make certain you sugar them and let them macerate. The skins of cherries become very tough when frozen in ice cream or sorbet. It's cherry season here and I am looking forward to both pie and ice cream.

BTW, used the remainder of last year's cherries in a pie yesterday. During the day, I began to think about chocolate pie crusts. Sure, there is chocolate cookie crust made from crushed wafers but no one makes chocolate pie crust. I learned why. I mixed two T of my fav cocoa, Pernigotti, with flour and sugar and began cutting in the butter.

As I mixed with the pastry blender, the dough didn't crumble into "rough corn meal" mini-chunks but into dough. Hmmm. King Arthur Pastry Flour, butter and Pernigotti cocoa are all expensive. So, I "patted" the dough into the pan, let it chill, then partially pre-baked it and let it cool again. Tasty!

Cherries 'n chocolate are a great combination (thinking chocolate covered cherries here LOL).

Osso, I'm going to try this recipe for Gelato di Fragola...I have everything except the strawberries! (I'm also going to use her modifications...like the Vodka).

http://www.italylogue.com/food-drink/strawberry-gelato-recipe.html

I've looked at only a few gelato recipes and I see everything from non-fat milk to adding whipping cream. Haven't found any yet that fit Fant's description of making a zabaglione first (that takes egg yolks) -

quoting Fant, "The good Roman gelaterias, like Giolitti or the even older Fassi, as well as many less famous, use only fresh, real ingredients and highly individual recipes. The base of the nonfruit flavors is a zabaglione of egg yolks and sugar, to which is added cream and other fresh ingredients. Inferior producers may use freeze-dried eggs, powdered cream and bottled flavorings and follow the recipes of the manufacturer of their machines or the products they use."

I suppose what is against that is possibility of bacterial contamination with uncooked egg yolks (but wait, they maybe cooked, I think zabagliones are). If I remember, classic zabaglione typically uses the alcohol Marsala, hmmmm.

Anyway, I have lots of happy recipe hunting to do. Will be interested to hear how your gelato di fragola turns out..

So, tonight I made my first ice cream and it turned out great. A simple recipe, using fresh fat nectarines/vanilla.

My question is near silly. The booklet that comes with the ice cream maker says not to put the ice container back in the freezer with the container wet inside. But, but, but, the contain is still quite cold, and beading moisture on the inside, after I've wiped it down after removing the ice cream.

Do I have to wait until the container thaws to put it back in the freezer?

Not a big deal, just a matter of counter space.

So, you have one of those machines that have some sort of gel in the ingredient container that you refreeze before using, right? You have to hand wash the ingredient tub after each use. Generally, the container is still so cold that wiping it out means that lint from your cloth towel or bits of paper from your paper towel will adhere to the surface.

I give mine a shake, upside down over the sink to eliminate most of the water, then leave it in the dish drainer for a few minutes. I generally wipe it quickly with a towel.

I suspect that the mfger wants to make certain ice does not form on the side wall, which could break the paddle and/or damage the surface of the tub.

The longest I've ever run our ice-cream maker (I think we have the same one, Osso) is 25 minutes and the freezer bowl is always still frozen when the cycle ends. (I make sure all the ingredients are very cold to begin with). I quickly wash it and dry with a lint-free tea towel and put it back in the freezer, sealed in a large zip-lock bag, per the instructions.

POM's right about the reasoning - you don't want to scratch or damage the inside, but I think it would take a lot of icy build-up to make that happen.

Thanks, both of you! In this case I wiped it best I could and left it overnight on the counter, wiped it better this morning, and it's now freezing it's merry self again. Next time I'll follow irishk's process..

Yes, I think we have the same ice cream maker, irish. As I probably said on this thread before, after talking here with you, I got a cuisinart in what I think was a good deal from amazon.

Next problemo is to organize my freezer space so that I can easily keep the i.c. maker, ice cream, and all the other stuff I like to have, in the relatively small freezer space of my fairly new - and smaller than I'm used to - refrigerator.
(what a whiner)

Did you think it was noisy? Many of the reviews I read before I bought mine complained of it, so just curious. Doesn't bother me, since it's only 25 minutes and I don't always stay in the kitchen while it's running. A few reviewers returned it for just that reason, though...go figure.

I have the Cuisinart ice cream maker as well. Compared to the old Waring ice cream maker I had years ago, this is almost silent.

I hadn't remember how noisy the Waring was . . . I guess I just concentrated on how inefficient it was . . . until my daughter brought it up earlier this summer. We put towels over to keep the cold in and to smother some of the noise. Generally, we ran it when we could go outside because the thing was that unbearable to be around.

I just made peach sorbet. Cut up the peaches with bruises (bruised flesh went into the mulch) last night, then sugared them and put them in the frig. Blended the softened fruit and added about a half cup (really didn't look) of water, a dash of peach liquor, a dash of maraschino liquor, a little Mexican vanilla and a little almond extract. Very tasty.

Noisy? That didn't occur to me. But, since I waltzed in and out of the kitchen, in retrospect, no, definitely no. If I heard anything, it was ice cream song.

Eh, back a long time ago I wanted a gelato maker that was upwards of $600.
Of course that was was at the least 10-20 x out of my money range.
I'm trying to remember the g. maker name. Same, I think, of the...


ok, it was a Gaggia.
So, imagine how pleased I am with my new macchina.

I get it that I am at the pony end re learning, and that ice cream depends on good ingredients (Walter and I talked on this slightly recently, as we shared paletas from La Michoachana. Mine was pistachio.)

Walter seems to know more about all this than I do, including about italian gelato, and he probably does. I rebuff him re my memories.

I get it that I am at the pony end re learning, and that ice cream depends on good ingredients (Walter and I talked on this slightly recently, as we shared paletas from La Michoachana here in Albuquerque.. Mine was pistachio. His was pecan. Diane's was some mango development.)

Walter seems to know more about all this than I do, including about italian gelato, and he probably does. I rebuff him re my memories.

If any of you would like a new religion, go for La Michoachana.

Is that the Mexican ice cream that is making headway in the south-west?

Yes. The family is from Michoacan and I read they lamented the lack of paletas when they came here (I forget when). They had one place here, in SE Albuquerque, over on Zuni, I think, and then the second one just off of Coors and I 40, where we went, which is all I knew about until I looked them up again when Walter was visiting recently, and it seems they've blossomed. (I remember yammering about the place when some a2kers were coming here to visit in 2007, but I hadn't been there myself, not driving much back then, and that was just one idea in many many pages.)

It was certainly the best paleta I ever had, subtle, rich in my case re pistachos (spanish spelling), not too sweet, good ingredients, on and on..... and among the best ice cream I've ever had. It was hard to choose.

Walter may have taken a photo of the place, which would give a better sense of, ah, not fancy at all, but good. He was spare with the photos as there was a whole family right by us and photos might have been invasive.

Me thinks the La Michoacana family needs to put a book together..



moving along..
I'll add as a by the way, that since I made my quart of nectarine ice cream, which I still haven't worked through but I'm being temperate about, I started to worry that my stable weight might soar.

One of the bennies of forced thrift is that I just about never buy anything desert like. So, over five years, I may have bought under five pints of ice cream. This has been swell for my weight. Knowing basic cooking and nutrition has been a help as well, as many articles point out. Thus my worry that my renovated ice cream love will bulge me up.

So far so good. I can't blimp up, I gave away most of those clothes.

I made peach ice cream. Cooked the peaches in a bit of butter. When they became soft, I added sugar. Continued to cook them until the sugar dissolved, then refrigerated the fruit for about 8 hours. When I came home from work, I put the fruit in the blender. When it was smooth, I added cream and some milk, then transferred the mixture to the ice cream machine. Wonderful! Reminded me of the peach ice cream of my child hood.

Yeah, so, I made a peach crostata, she smiles, wonderful.

I'm kidding, you know more than me on all this stuff, but I'll yatz at you anyway.

That sounds yummy!!! I keep meaning to make one of Alton Brown's recipes...I think it's one of his basic recipes (I've saved his youtube somewhere) in which he adds a whole jar of peach preserves...not so much for flavor, but something to do with the sweetening. Fresh peach ice-cream sounds really good right about now, though, lol.

Throwing a recipe in here (haven't tried it) -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/dining/232arex.html


Time: 30 minutes, plus chilling, churning and freezing

11 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon coffee beans, lightly crushed with back of knife
8 large egg yolks
1 cup granulated sugar
Large pinch salt
5 ounces roasted salted cashews, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup).


1. Finely chop 6 ounces chocolate. Break 5 remaining ounces into small chunks. Place finely chopped chocolate in a bowl.

2. In a large, heavy saucepan, combine milk, cream and coffee beans. Bring to a simmer and cook 3 minutes; pour over chopped chocolate and whisk until smooth.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the yolks, sugar and salt. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk in the chocolate mixture until fully incorporated.

4. Return custard to saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, over medium-low heat, until it thickens just enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 3 minutes. Do not let mixture reach a simmer. Strain mixture through a fine sieve and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, covered, until very cold, about 3 hours or up to 2 days.

5. Churn custard in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Add chocolate chunks and cashews during final 5 minutes of churning. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container. Freeze for 3 hours before serving.

Yield: 2 quarts, plus about 1 cup.

photo - here:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/11/01/dining/20101103-chocolate.html?ref=dining