Adventures in Ice Cream

Free Ice Cream

2009-06-09T09:19:00.004-04:00

I recently had a great run of free ice cream.

A few weeks ago, some group had an ice cream social in the Capitol. Sure, it was only Edy's but it was still free ice cream. A few days later, UConn had an ice cream social for some reason or other and had ice cream from their dairy bar. The following Thursday, the young farmers of Connecticut or some group like that had an informational ice cream social, which included ice cream from Tulmeadow Farm, which is just terrific.

Then, my sisters-in-law shipped me 10 pints of Kopp's Frozen Custard for my birthday. It's great stuff. Plus, getting ice cream in the mail is incredible.

This past weekend, there was Friendly's free ice cream afternoon. That was followed by an ice cream social at a local hardware store down the street from me. They had ice cream from Robb's, a farm in town that makes their own ice cream from their own eggs and cream.

Good times.

Ice Cream Party 2009

2009-05-20T16:19:00.005-04:00

The theme for the ice cream party this year was ice creams vs. sorbets. I enjoy them both and they each have their positives and negatives. I was curious to see if one would come out consistently ahead of the other. In three cases, I made comparable products. In three cases, I made similar but not completely comparable products for a variety of reasons. In one case, I made a sorbet without making a comparable ice cream.

Now to crib from last year’s report (with a few modifications).

Every participant received a small sample of the same ice cream at the same time. In almost all cases, the ice cream and the sorbet paired together were served together. No one was told what flavor the ice cream or sorbet was until everyone had formed an opinion.

Ice creams were scored in three categories. The first was appearance, ranging from one to three, with three being the best. The second was texture, ranging from one to five. The third was taste, which ranged from one to 10. This weighting reflects my own opinion about ice cream. The scores below in the appearance, texture, taste, and total columns are all averages.

There were 13 flavors. So, the rank goes from 1 to 13 (one being the best) based on the average total score. The max and min scores show the high and low total scores for the flavor. The range is the difference between the high and the low and shows the variety of opinion in the group.

1A Tomato Basil Ice Cream
1B Tomato Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
tomato	2.4	4.0	6.4	12.1	11	17.5	5.0	12.5
tomato sorbet	1.9	1.9	3.2	6.6	13	17.0	3.0	14.0

I’ve been meaning to make a tomato sorbet for a while although I’m not sure why. I found a recipe that seemed to be what I was looking for and yielded about a half-gallon. I looked and looked and finally found a tomato ice cream recipe that seemed interesting. It called for using basil to flavor the base.

To be fair, I did skip the one teaspoon of sugar the sorbet recipe called for because I was out of sugar at that moment. That aside, the sorbet was a complete disaster. It seemed to refuse to melt even a little bit so that it could be scooped. It had to be scraped instead. It was almost universally reviled. It had an acidic taste. A late-comer refused to try it. However, one person on Day 2 did really enjoy it and asked if I could bring her the leftovers when it was convenient.

People thought the ice cream was pretty good but maybe there was too much basil flavor, which I agree with. It did have a nice texture. The color was much, much lighter than I hoped it would be. It was barely pink.

2A Blueberry Ice Cream
2B Blueberry-banana Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
blueberry	2.8	4.3	7.8	14.9	4	18.0	13.0	5.0
blueberry-banana sorbet	2.8	3.6	7.2	13.6	9	16.0	10.0	6.0

I had intended to make a strawberry-blueberry sorbet to go with the blueberry ice cream but I lost my strawberries in a dreadful freezer accident. So, blueberry-banana (and a different recipe) it was. In retrospect, it wasn’t a great recipe; there was a bit too much banana flavor and made it a little unbalanced.

They were both a deep purple, although the sorbet was a bit deeper and yet brighter at the same time. As much as I liked the ice cream, I’m a bit surprised that it was ranked 4th behind only the peanut butter ice cream and the pair of chocolates.

3A Burnt Orange Ice Cream
3B Blood Orange Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
burnt orange	2.3	3.9	6.6	12.8	10	18.0	8.0	10.0
blood orange sorbet	2.9	4.1	7.7	14.6	5	18.0	5.0	13.0

I made blood orange ice cream previously. Not surprisingly, it curdled and was awful. Just as there’s no crying in baseball, there’s no diary in sorbet and that makes it ideal for citrus flavors. I love blood oranges and I had to make this as a sorbet.

I loved the color of the sorbet, it had great texture, and it tasted like Heaven – a burst of bright citrus flavor. I’m not sure if it was anything more than the personal taste of those involved but it scored a couple points better (which is a lot) on average on Day 2 vs. Day 1.

I paired it with burnt orange ice cream. The recipe gets around the curdling problem by baking the oranges – first unpeeled and covered in butter and sugar and then cut open. The oranges are then pureed in a food processor and forced through a strainer (hours of fun!). It sat in the fridge over night before being mixed with the dairy and sitting in the fridge overnight again. It turned out to be a brownish-orange and it’s fairly unappetizing color (it received among the lowest appearance scores) but the taste balances the orange and the dairy pretty well and there’s also a caramel taste due to all of the burnt sugar.

4 Mt. Dew Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
Mt Dew sorbet	1.9	2.7	5.9	10.4	12	15.0	5.0	10.0

I’d meant to make this with Mountain Dew Throwback (which features real sugar instead of the current version’s high fructose corn syrup), but I was happy enough making it out of the regular stuff. I added a little bit of corn syrup, hoping to aid the texture but other than that just put it in the ice cream machine as is. In the container, it has the expected bright yellowish color. I don’t understand why but that did not come across in the small samples served to guests (thus the awful appearance score). Also, very little flavor showed up in the samples and I’m sure that’s not a coincidence.

I thought it was interesting that some people got lemon, some people got lime, and some people got both.

The flavor was universally praised by the four kids in attendance even before I told them it was Mt. Dew. After I told them, well, they were ecstatic.

5A Peanut Butter Ice Cream
5B Peanut Butter Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
peanut butter	2.6	4.8	9.0	16.4	1	18.0	12.0	6.0
peanut butter sorbet	2.3	3.7	7.7	13.7	8	17.0	10.0	7.0

During the planning stage, I thought this would be one of two pairs that would best demonstrate the difference between ice cream and sorbet and I think that’s about what happened. The ice cream came from an excellent recipe from the incomparable David Lebovitz. The sorbet recipe came from … somewhere. I know I didn’t make up the recipe but I’m not recalling where it was I found it but it wasn’t easy to find. Both recipes called for whatever the opposite of natural peanut butter is called (unnatural? non-natural?) and I used Skippy for both.

The ice cream was smooth and full of peanut butter flavor. It was perfect on its own and also a ready partner for hot fudge or chocolate ice cream.

The sorbet wasn’t quite as smooth and not quite as full of peanut butter flavor. Some seemed to think it had a nuttier flavor than peanut butter.

6A Pineapple Ice Cream
6B Pineapple Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
pineapple	2.8	3.9	7.8	14.4	6	18.0	6.0	12.0
pineapple sorbet	2.8	3.6	7.5	13.9	7	17.0	9.0	8.0

This was another (almost) direct comparison. The ice cream, again because of the curdling that occurs in the battle of Dairy vs. Fresh Citrus, uses canned pineapple. Canned pineapple is cooked and doesn’t curdle the cream. When it came out of the ice cream maker, it was just so light and fluffy I was tempted to remake it the day of the party and serve it like that. As it was, it has a pretty nice texture that was only interrupted by the occasional chunk I couldn’t manage to strain out using a mesh strainer. A few partygoers thought they detected coconut in this flavor. One nice comment was that it reminded someone of childhood.

The sorbet used fresh pineapple (it was the first time I’d taken apart a fresh pineapple and I was pleased with how easy it was) and it showed. It had a fresher, cleaner, brighter taste (to me, anyway). The texture was a little icier than the ice cream and also had a few smallish chunks.

7A Chocolate Ice Cream
7B Chocolate Sorbet

flavor	appearance	texture	taste	total	rank	Max	Min	Range
chocolate	2.8	4.7	8.9	16.4	2	18.0	14.0	4.0
chocolate sorbet	2.9	4.6	8.7	16.2	3	18.0	13.0	5.0

This was the other flavor I had in mind when deciding on the theme. I used my favorite chocolate ice cream recipe, an eggless one from David Lebovitz and a chocolate sorbet recipe from (um, I’m blanking on where it came from, might’ve beed Lebovitz, might’ve been Emily Luchetti’s “A Passion for Ice Cream”) As you can see by the scores, people loved both almost equally. The ice cream was praised for having a rich, almost pudding-like texture and an intense chocolate taste. The sorbet was praised for having a nice bitter-chocolate taste although a few people thought it had an odd or off after-taste.

Final Tally

type	w/tomato	w/o tomato
ice creams	13.9	15.0
sorbets	13.0	14.4

Sorbet beat ice cream just once (the blood orange was judged better than the burnt orange ice cream) and came within a few tenths with chocolate and pineapple. Really, that’s about what I expected. I really like some sorbets but I love ice creams.

Mint Chocolate

2008-08-30T00:59:00.004-04:00

I had to make ice cream for a party this weekend. I wanted to make something a little different but not too far out. I'd been meaning to make mint chocolate for a while so I decided on that.

I had wanted to make it with real peppermint. I've used spearmint in the past and the results are a bit polarizing. Some people love it and others find it too herbal. I was curious if peppermint would have the same result. Well, even though Whole Foods definitely had peppermint previously, they did not have it a few days ago. I picked up a bottle of peppermint extract.

I was in a bit of a hurry putting it together and I couldn't quicly find a recipe to suit my needs. I turned to the William-Sonoma book and used the vanilla recipe. I added 2/3 cup cocoa (I was making a double-batch) to the dairy while I was heating it but before tempering the eggs. After thickening the custard, I added a tablespoon of the peppermint extract.

Actually, I was thinking of making it mint chocolate chocolate chip. I decided not to on Katie's suggestion. She tasted the base and thought it didn't need any chips. I wasn't sure I had enough minichips anyway.

The result was really good. It was a bit more minty than chocolate, which wasn't the intent. Maybe next time two teaspoons of extract and 3/4 cup of cocoa. But, I still really like it. I'm not sure if it's just the mint or if it's also the make-up of the ice cream but it feels very cold. That sound obvious but not all the ice creams I've made do feel cold.

Awesome Arena!

2008-08-21T10:51:00.003-04:00

Go vote in Panel of Awesome's Awesome Arena's Tournament of EVIL! Currently, Doomsday is facing down Superman-Prime! Black Adam is facing off against Magneto!

Peach

2008-08-18T08:59:00.004-04:00

I picked peaches about a week ago and needed to do something. I also wanted to bring ice cream to help celebrate a friend's birthday (The Leavening Agent's author). Peach ice cream it was.

Well, I made this ice cream last year as it turns. I liked it then and I liked it this year, too. It packs a lot of peach flavor. I'd like to compare it against the recipe from William-Sonoma since that doesn't call for cooking the peaches.

Chocolate Ice Cream

2008-07-21T12:59:00.002-04:00

I'd made enough combination flavors in the past bunch of months (not all of which I've blogged about) that I just wanted to make chocolate. Just chocolate. Nothing-in-it-chocolate. I had eggs on hand, so I went with a custard-style recipe in A Perfect Scoop.

The recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder. The result is a really deep, smooth chocolate flavor. The recipe is pretty darn perfect. I wouldn't change it at all.

Strawberry, Second Thoughts

2008-07-11T10:14:00.005-04:00

I've eaten the strawberry ice cream again. I'm having second thoughts about it.

It leaves my mouth coated in a vaguely unpleasant way. I think this might be due to a combination of the high fat content and the absence of eggs, although I'm not sure about the eggs (I mean, I know the ice cream is eggless).

I still like the flavor of the ice cream but this mouthfeel issue is troubling.

Strawberry

2008-07-10T13:30:00.002-04:00

It's the end of strawberry season. I had some leftover berries. I'd been meaning to make strawberry ice cream for a long time but haven't gotten to it.

I used fresh berries that we picked. They were actually a couple weeks old but they were still in good shape.

I picked up fresh milk and cream from Fish Family Farm that I bought at the farmer's market around the corner from my office.

Randomly, I chose Emily Luchetti's recipe. She has you cook the berries down with some sugar until you've essentially created jam. You combine that with the warmed dairy. That's a decent way to deal with iciness usually associated with strawberry ice cream. Not a great way, since you lose the freshness of the berries (although, with the berries spending a couple weeks in the fridge, they weren't just out-of-the-field fresh) and you sort of end up with Strawberry Jam Ice Cream instead.

The result was interesting. I'm not sure if it's the recipe, a step didn't follow correctly, something with the cream before I even used it, or something else entirely, but the ice cream has a distinct tang. It's not a bad tang but neither I nor my wife expected it when we started eating it. I do like it but it's not what I was expecting. Again, I'm not at all sure what happened. That said, next time, I'll be tempted to try a different recipe.

Ice Cream Sandwich: Three Tarts

2008-07-10T13:21:00.003-04:00

Some friends and I went on a bakery tour of Lower Manhattan. This was our fourth such tour, so we're experienced enough to know not to eat yourself into a coma at the first stop. The last stop, however, you can go as wild as you want. Three Tarts was the last stop. They had a lot of delicious looking items and they also had ice cream sandwiches. I had room and figured it was the right thing to do.

A sign indicated they had one banana ice cream in a chocolate brownie sandwich. Naturally, this is what I selected. The banana ice cream was practically perfect. Not at all icy. A goodly amount of banana flavor and it didn't taste artificial. The brownie part was soft and chocolaty. It was delicious.

Robb's, Glastonbury, CT

2008-06-16T13:01:00.002-04:00

Robb's Farm in Glastonbury has been making and selling ice cream for several years now. Three? Four? I'm not positive. But, I've been going there regularly as long as I've known about it. It's a pleasant drive and the farmland is serene. They do need a little bit more in the way of shaded areas but nothing is perfect.

I had chocolate peanut butter cup and banana. I need to get out of my flavor ruts. They are, however, tasty ruts. The chocolate peanut butter cup was chocolaty enough and had plenty of candy pieces. The banana was smooth and creamy with a moderate amount of banana flavor. The two went together really well.

Chocolate peanut butter

2008-06-16T12:55:00.003-04:00

I made the Lebovitz chocolate peanut butter ice cream again. I wasn't paying enough attention to it while it came to a boil and I burned a little bit of it. It didn't seem to matter, fortunately.

I don't know if I noticed this before but as long as it's not frozen solid, it doesn't feel cold on the tongue. It's an interesting thing. I don't understand it in the slightest but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it has to do with fat content.

I served it for a group again. It's definitely a crowd-pleasing flavor. I also served coconut mango. This flavor was actually about two months old. I think the age of the ice cream wasn't perceptible.

Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter

2008-06-13T11:17:00.002-04:00

After making a successful peanut butter banana, I thought, well, CHOCOLATE peanut butter banana should work, too, and be just as easy to make.

I did go a different direction with the recipe. Instead of adding chocolate to the peanut butter banana recipe, I added bananas to the Lebovitz chocolate peanut butter recipe I love. I didn't follow it exactly. The recipe calls for heating everything to a boil. Instead, I dumped everything into the blender and put it on puree for about five minutes.

This was another success. The bananas add just a little more smoothness, I think. Two bananas seemed to be the right amount to keep all three flavors balanced. But, really, standing on the shoulders of giants as I did, it was very easy for this to work well.

I think I've taken this about as far as I can. I'd like to work on making something similar to the bittersweet chocolate I had at Rancatore's.

Eating: Rancatore's and Herrell's

2008-06-09T15:27:00.003-04:00

I'm going to start including posts about eating ice cream along with posts about making it.

On Sunday, I went to the Red Sox game with a couple friends. On the way home, I stopped at Rancatore's and Herrell's. Both have been visited by the people at Roadfooddigest.com as part of their New England Ice Cream Tour.

At Rancatore's, I had a medium. I went went with bittersweet chocolate and chocolate banana. The bittersweet chocolate was excellent. An outstanding ice cream. It was rich in chocolate flavor. The texture was smooth and creamy. It was nicely dense, too. The chocolate banana was also very good. It struck a nice balance between the two flavors. There were nice bits of banana, too. I don't always care for bits of banana but they seemed to add to this ice cream. It wasn't nearly as chocolaty as the bittersweet chocolate but that was a good thing. It made it easier to balance the banana against it.

Dutch chocolate orange caught my eye at Herrell's. So, I had a medium with that flavor and mint chocolate chip. I don't know if it was the recipe or just the combination of flavors but I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. Still, it was good. It had a really bright orange taste and a good chocolate taste. They just weren't working as well together as I hoped. The mint chocolate chip veered towards medicinally mint more than I like. Not unenjoyable but it could've been better.

I would definitely recommend Rancatore's. I'd love to go back to Herrell's and try some different flavors. Parking at the Allston location of Herrell's (there's three locations, I believe) was a pain. I eventually parked in a lot for Rite Aid which had signs everywhere proclaiming that if you so much as let your gaze wander outside of the parking lot, your car would be towed. I decided I could risk leaving it there for 15 minutes. Just don't tell Katie.

Peanut Butter Banana

2008-06-09T15:14:00.003-04:00

I made peanut butter banana late last week. Seems like an obvious flavor but I'd never made it before. It occurred to me after making PB and banana.

I based the recipe on David Lebovitz's PB recipe. I thought that recipe was already a little too sweet and since I was adding two bananas, I lowered the sugar to 2/3 C. Emily Luchetti and Lebovitz both have you roasting the bananas to different degrees before using them but I skipped that. I put all the ingredients into the blender and left it on for a good long while, more than five minutes. I wanted the texture to be as smooth as possible.

I'm really pleased with the results. Smooth texture. The flavors are nice and they're balanced. I'll have to make this again. Also, I might shoot for PB chocolate banana next.

Roasted Banana

2007-09-20T10:48:00.000-04:00

As part of the fun for Reach the Beach, I made ice cream sandwiches. I used peanut butter cookies and roasted banana ice cream. The ice cream recipe came from Lebovitz, again. That book is going straight onto my Christmas list.

Roasting the bananas in brown sugar and butter deepened the flavor and also added a taste that was close to caramel. I did make a slight mistake, or rather I did something that just annoyed me. I roasted double-batch worth of bananas in two 9x9 pans. I took them out of the oven and then got distracted. The bananas and the liquid at the bottom of the pans cooled off and hardened. So, it was back into the still-warm oven for a few minutes to loosen things up. Other than that gaff, it was another very easy recipe.

The combination of peanut butter and bananas was very pleasing. Putting mini-chocolate chips around the edge of the sandwich was tasty finishing touch.

Chocolate PB, again

2007-09-07T10:38:00.000-04:00

I made the chocolate peanut butter from Lebovitz again. This time, I added chopped-up Reese's PB cups. Splendid. The candy pushes the ice cream over the top. I continue to marvel at how the texture really is quite smooth for an eggless ice cream. The only thing I don't like about the recipe is that the size of the batch it makes is on the small side. The only answer, of course, is to double it in the future.

Peach Blueberry

2007-08-20T10:44:00.000-04:00

I picked a lot of peaches and blueberries last weekend, so I had a lot of fruit that needed something done with it. I also had a picnic this past weekend and I needed to bring something. I decided I would make a double batch of peach blueberry ice cream. I based the recipe on David Lebovitz's recipe for peach ice cream.

First, the cook the fruit down in water for about 10 minutes. Then, you puree the fruit and the dairy in the food processor. Done. The only minor hitch was that double batch didn't fit into the food processor all at once.

The color was a really nice light purple. The taste was a nice balance between the two fruits. The texture was very smooth and light. A perfect summer ice cream.

Corn Starch Chocolate, No Fat

2007-08-17T11:56:00.000-04:00

I made chocolate ice cream using the corn start recipe. This time I used skim milk instead of a mix of skim and heavy cream. It mixed up fine this time -- no trouble with it freezing too quickly.

I'm not sure why, but there's a bit of an after-taste that I don't really like. I haven't eaten enough of it to be able to describe the after-taste accurately. I did use Stop and Shop-brand cocoa powder, so that might be it. The texture is still good. Next time, I might use whole milk and see how that goes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

2007-08-15T09:17:00.000-04:00

I reserved a copy of David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop at the library a while ago. I just picked it up the other day. I need to buy it. The breadth of recipes is fantastic. The recipes themselves seem well-designed, too.

The book actually has a recipe for chocolate peanut butter ice cream. This is something that I've been fooling around with for some time. The book's recipe is simplicity defined. Pour a pint of half-and-half into a pot, add some sugar and cocoa powder. Heat and stir. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter. Chill. Pour into machine.

The texture is smooth and coats your mouth in a pleasant way with the two flavors. The overall flavor does lean just a little towards the PB side but that's good. If I want to change it in the future, I'd probably add just a little more cocoa powder.

Peach! Philly style

2007-08-09T08:44:00.000-04:00

It's peach season in Connecticut. I do love peach season and picking peaches. In comparison to the forever long berry-picking sessions, peach picking is a dream. It's quick. There's no bending over. It's in the shade.

I let some peaches ripen and decided to make the peach ice cream from Emily Luchetti's Passion for Ice Cream. It's a Philly style ice cream. It's a nice technique. The peaches get peeled and roughly chopped and then placed into a put with some sugar. You let them cook down for about 20 minutes -- essentially making peach jam. That gets mixed with the warmed-up dairy and then into the fridge.

I was slightly worried as I put the mix into the machine since it was a little thick. But, the thickness was due to the peach chunks. The ice cream froze pretty quickly. The flavor was excellent. If peach ice cream was always like that, it'd be my favorite. The texture was very smooth, too. I'm making this again. Or possibly making peach blueberry.

Corn Starch Chocolate, Redux

2007-08-07T08:27:00.000-04:00

I put the mix made with corn starch back into the machine last night after letting it sit overnight in the fridge after adding some skim milk. Again, it froze pretty quickly but this time, the whole of it was frozen. It still tastes chocolately and has a smooth texture. It received Katie's approval as well. This is a nice technique and I'm going to continue playing with it.

Gonna have to try that again

2007-08-06T08:25:00.000-04:00

I tried the corn starch ice cream from the NYT. Except, of course, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. It calls for dairy that isn't heavy, which is what I used for two cups (the other half cup was skim milk). This probably made a difference. The mixture was about as thick as pudding. It definitely did not pour into the machine. Then, it froze on the sides of the machine very quickly and the middle was still not frozen.

I scooped it out of the machine and put it back in the fridge but not before eating a bunch of what did freeze and then adding another half-cup of skim milk. What I ate tasted pretty good. I made chocolate by adding four tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dairy that was warmed on the stove. I'll put it into the machine again tonight.

Raspberry Chip II

2007-07-26T08:20:00.001-04:00

I made the same recipe again but made some minor modifications. I inadvertently added a half-cup of sugar to the dairy I was warming on the stove, which isn't called for. I left out the sugar that goes with the raspberries that get pureed, which is only a quarter cup. Since I'd already made changes, I added a tablespoon of raspberry extract.

Overall, the ice cream was sweeter, less tart, possibly with a rounder raspberry flavor, and didn't freeze quite as hard as the original recipe. Still very good ice cream, of course. I'm not positive which one I like better.

Raspberry Chip

2007-07-16T10:45:00.000-04:00

It's raspberry season in Connecticut. My wife insisted I make raspberry chip. She didn't need to ask twice. I used the recipe from William-Sonoma's Ice Cream for this. It calls for making a custard, processing the raspberries mixed with some sugar, and then combining the two and letting that sit in the refrigerator overnight. A straight forward recipe with no surprises or anything. The result was excellent. The fresh berries did their work. My wife enjoyed how they played against the mini semi-sweet chips she asked that I use. The flavor is sweet but not overly so and also a little tart. The texture is also very nice, smooth and creamy. An enjoyable flavor very suitable for celebrating National Ice Cream Day (July 14).

Rocky Road

2007-06-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

I made rocky road last night (okay, actually, since I didn't use any marshmallows, I guess I made heavenly hash, but I got a request for rocky road so that's what I made -- even if it doesn't have marshmallows). I started with chocolate ice cream, of course. I used the chocolate chocolate chip recipe from Emily Luchetti's A Passion for Ice Cream. Because I'm still making ice cream for a party, I made a double batch. But, this recipe yielded 6 cups of mix instead of 10 cups, as was the case with the coffee ice cream recipe from that book. The ice cream is smooth and chocolaty.

I had chopped up chocolate and had put the chocolate and some sliced almonds in the freezer so they'd be ready to add. I did better with the timing for the old Krups machine than I did with the coffee chocolate chip but I was still on the late side. Plus, the chocolate chunks were a bit bigger than chips. These combined to make the machine let me know that it was done. I was even later with the new Krups machine and so I had to mix in the chocolate and almonds by hand. This didn't go too badly. I think I might actually prefer it since it doesn't stress the machine at all.

The chocolate ice cream with the chocolate chunks and almonds was good all together. I guess it's a classic for a reason.

Coffee Chocolate Chip

2007-06-27T08:33:00.000-04:00

I asked my mother-in-law what flavors of ice cream she wanted for her birthday party this weekend. She said she'd like coffee with chocolate chips and rocky road. Coffee with chocolate chips was my first priority since I'd never made coffee before.

In the past, I haven't cared all that much for the flavor (I'm not a coffee drinker, either). But, hey, it's ice cream, and a classic flavor at that, so I should be able to find a good recipe that I like. I think I did.

Emily Luchetti's A Passion for Ice Cream is full of great recipes (and not just for ice cream, but that's beside the point right now). I love the book. It hasn't failed me. However, I sort of balked at the coffee recipe. It called for eight egg yolks, which seemed like a lot (and like a pain in the egg-separating butt). But, I trust her recipes. It also called for steeping the ice cream mixture with crushed coffee beans overnight. Hmmm. I wasn't sure I was going to like that much coffee flavor. But, this wasn't about me.

I picked up Starbucks coffee beans at the store, so this quickly became an expensive recipe. But, I didn't seem to have a lot of options for whole beans. Well, someone I know is going to be receiving the gift of coffee in the near future.

Because I was making this for a party, I made a double batch. Hello 16 egg yolks! I also had to break out the big pot since the recipe called for 2 1/2 C cream and 2 C milk for a single batch. After taking the rubber mallet to the coffee beans (which were inside a plastic bag), I added them and some sugar to the dairy, and heated it. Sixteen egg yolks and some sugar were mixed in a bowl. Temper the eggs, add them to the pot, and gently warm the whole thing.

After a night in the refrigerator, I was set to make ice cream. I measured out one quart of mix, straining the beans out (a step I didn't notice the first two times I read the recipe!), and added it to one machine. I measured out another quart and I still had 2 C left over. I knew the recipe was going to make a lot but that much more than two quarts was a bit of a surprise.

I have a new-to-me ice cream machine (which is actually a fairly old Krupps machine that works well). I don't have the hang of when to add chips to it yet and I because I didn't want to fool around, I put the chips in the bottom of the container that would hold the finished ice cream. After the ice cream was done, I scooped into the container and mixed the chips in with it. This worked out okay but it was 80 in my kitchen and I don't think that helped anything. I do have to work on adding the chips to the machine. I'll try it with the Rocky Road, I guess.

The double batch yielded about 3 1/2 quarts of ice cream.

The flavor was really nice. It was a consistent and even coffee taste with no harsh notes. Adding in the chocolate chips (actually, I used chopped bittersweet chocolate instead) and it was an ice cream that I was enjoying. A pleasant surprise, not that the recipe worked and worked well but that I liked it.

Chocolate Strawberry

2007-06-11T15:15:00.001-04:00

With strawberry season underway in Connecticut, I'd been itching to make chocolate strawberry ice cream, because how good are chocolate-covered strawberries? And how great would that be to have in ice cream?

When I decide to make a flavor that I don't have a recipe for, there's always hemming and hawing about which direction to go. In this case, I could use a chocolate base and add in strawberries or I could do the opposite. This time, I sort of took a middle road.

I settled on the strawberry recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Ice Cream book. It's an interesting recipe. Essentially, you make sweet cream ice cream and then add in the strawberries just as the ice cream is finished in the ice cream maker. I added two tablespoons of cocoa to the base and let that sit in the fridge overnight. I put the in the ice cream maker and it spin for a while until it seemed as if it was close to done. Then, I added in the strawberries, half of which I had mashed with a fork and the other half I had left as a rough chop. Then, just before it finished, I added in some chopped bittersweet chocolate I had chilling because I just felt it was going to be missing something and that something was chocolate chunks.

I'll admit to being a little skeptical about this recipe but it did have a nice strawberry flavor along with being chocolately but not overly so.

Getting Started

2007-06-11T12:40:00.000-04:00

I've been making my own ice cream for three or four years now. I've tried making a pretty wide variety of flavors, some with great success and some I won't be making again.

The point of this blog is two-fold. First, I want to keep track of what I've made. It'll be easier to know if I've fiddled with something previously if I have a place to check for fiddling.

Secondly, I just want to make more of my own ice cream. I haven't consistently made my own ice cream in the past and I'd like to change that.