How to make....

Electric

Hi,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes.

I've come across this recipe for home-made vanilla ice cream. The ingredients are easy to come by but the thing is that it does seem to be quite labour intensive.

I was wondering if anyone has made ice cream themselves and how they found it or if it's really worthwhile getting an ice cream making machine to do the work for you?

Oh and any tips and tricks would be great!

Thanks!

tSubh Dearg

I have the easiest chocolate ice cream recipe ever! It's my granny's and it involves no cooking at all just whipping up various items and freezing them.

Ice Cream:
2 large eggs (size 1) or 3 small eggs
60g icing sugar
500ml cream
3 dessertsps of chocolate powder (with this recipe cadbury's hot chocolate powder is best, I find cocoa powder makes it taste of cocoa powder rather than nicely chocolatey)

1) Seperate the eggs and mix the yolks with the icing sugar very well.

2) Whip up the cream. Whip up the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

3) Fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk and sugar mix. Add the chocolate powder to taste.

4) Carefully fold in the stiff egg whites.

5) Deep freeze for 4-5 hrs. Remember to stire the mix after the first half hour to ensure the chocolate is well mixed through. (I usually make the ice-cream the day before, it's a lot less hassle that way)

My mum gave this recipe to one of her friends who then experimented with it to make other flavours. I've not done this myself as I like chocolate ice cream too much.

Electric

Hey,

Thanks for that! It's sounds yummy and effortless! I think I'll have a go of it this weekend : )

Electric

Oh is the cream regular cream or double?

noby

'Proper' ice-cream can be a little bit of effort, without an ice-cream machine. What you want, and what an tSubh Dearg has described is a semi-freddo.
I have mape a praline semifreddo from one of Jamie Oliver's books with great results. Do a search if you don't have the book. I think it's double cream you want, but it's been a while.

The Sweeper

Home-made ice cream makes one thing pop into my head: large, watery ice crystals. They happen as the mix settles and freezes in the freezer. The only way out of them is a lot of intermittent stirring.

Electric

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

Home-made ice cream makes one thing pop into my head: large, watery ice crystals. They happen as the mix settles and freezes in the freezer. The only way out of them is a lot of intermittent stirring.

Like every hour or half hour? How long should it take for the ice cream to freeze completely?

tSubh Dearg

I just use the normal cream you get in the shops. It would probably be richer if you used double cream.

I find that stirring after the first half hour and again after an hour usually means it doesn't get full of ice crystals. It's also nicer if you let it melt a little before freezing.


EDIT: Missed a bit, that recipe there takes about 4/5 hours to be fully frozen.

The Sweeper

Electric wrote:

Like every hour or half hour? How long should it take for the ice cream to freeze completely?

Honestly, I don't know. It probably depends on your freezer, your ingredients, whether there's a Y in the day...

As an aside, Heston Blumenthal, proprietor of the Fat Duck (winner of 'best restaurant in the world' or somesuch among others) makes his icecream using dry ice for superfast freezing.

http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/learnnet/kitchenchemistry/00_video.htm

It's V11 on this link.

Talliesin

noby wrote:

'Proper' ice-cream can be a little bit of effort, without an ice-cream machine. What you want, and what an tSubh Dearg has described is a semi-freddo.

Nope, it's completely freddo.

It's not "proper" ice-cream, but it tastes and feels like it.

"Semifreddo" refers to either chilled or half-frozen deserts or to a particular combination of ice-cream and warm biscuit.

Minder

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

As an aside, Heston Blumenthal, proprietor of the Fat Duck (winner of 'best restaurant in the world' or somesuch among others) makes his icecream using dry ice for superfast freezing.

Dry ice ? I thought it was liquid nitrogen ? Either way, it is not readily found in the freezer section in Tesco.

I made a brownbread icecream years ago from a Masterchef recipe. The crumbed brownbread was sprinkled with muscavado sugar and grilled. The crumbs were mixed into a cream & egg yolk mixture flavoured with vanilla and sugar. In the freezer and stirred after an hour, and again after another hour. That stops the ice crystals forming.

Very nice it was, too.

The Sweeper

Yeah, liquid nitrogen, not dry ice.

Note to self: ice cream. Not disco.

carryboy

Now that ice cream recipe made my mouth watery.:D

bernardcat

Ice cream makers are fab! £30 well spent. Best if you have a large enough freezer to leave the bowl freezing all the time. Longest bit of waiting is for any cooked ingredients to cool down before freezing. No need to keep whisking or ice crystals.

Just need to make sure your freezer goes to -20 as doesn't make well if not cold enough.