Ice Cream Party 2009

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

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.

Chocolate Ice Cream

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.

Chocolate peanut butter

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

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.

Chocolate PB, again

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.

Corn Starch Chocolate, No Fat

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

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.

Corn Starch Chocolate, Redux

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

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.

Chocolate Strawberry

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.