a journal of ice cream & gelato making
by john d. erickson
created 08 july 2003

I found a Krups electric ice cream maker in the basement of my new apartment a few weeks ago—a gift from the gods! It's an awful time to be firing up the oven to bake through my normal repetoire, so now I'm enjoying experimentation with an endlessly variable dessert. I'm now on the lookout for good ice cream and gelato recipes, and will probably continue to make a few varieties every week for the rest of the summer.

Click on headings to view the recipe I used.

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french vanilla bean ice cream (27 June 2003)

A wonderful first attempt, better than any store-bought vanilla, with the pleasure of those little vanilla beans. The only drawback is the price of making a batch with premium ingredients: with all the egg yolks, vanilla beans, milk, and cream, you'll pay much more than you would for a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

This is easy!

strawberry gelato (27 June 2003)

Intense strawberry flavor, no doubt partially due to my choice of fresh, local, organic, farmer's market strawberries. I wonder if it didn't taste more like a sorbet than a gelato, though; because of the water in the recipe, there were some pure water ice crystals, albeit small, that ran over my tongue.

Flavor, sugar, and cream make a very nice frozen treat. I sampled this to my coworkers along with the vanilla bean, and this won hands down. They really loved this one.

strawberry gelato, with variations (02 July 2003)

I wanted to try this again with some newfound knowledge from reading the section on ice cream in Shirley O. Corriher's book Cookwise. In the name of enhanced flavors, I added a pinch of salt. For enhanced creaminess, I heated the milk and cream to 175 degrees Fahrenheit before mixing it with the egg yolks. For greater density (less air), I didn't whip the cream at all. And because I didn't want the same sorbet-y feel of the last batch, I replaced the water with whole milk.

The final product was noticeably different from the first attempt, but it was less popular with the coworkers. It was creamier, but it also felt fattier—and despite more cream equaling more fat, I don't think there has to be more fat for it to be creamier. There was a lightness about the previous version that is easy to love on a hot summer day. Really: fruit gelato on a hot summer day? Who could say no?

pistachio gelato (03 July 2003)

The recipe calls for the grated zest of a lemon, which I thought was a bit curious, but proceeded anyway. Maybe the lemon enhanced the pistachio in some way, I thought. The final product was difficult to evaluate, though. The strong green flavor makes your mind go: pistachio! But the overwhelming lemon zest flavor makes your mind think: lemon! If you make this one, be sure to strain the mixture before heating it with the pistachio paste, to get rid of the lemon zest. If I make it again, I'll leave the zest out completely.

In the future, I don't think I'll spend $8 on a can of American Almond brand pistachio paste, either (which I got in the North End). My new Cuisinart 14-cup should be able to make better pistachio paste, with more control over the ingredients. (I want neither color dyes nor canola oil in my ice cream.) And now I have a three-quarters full can of pistachio paste in my fridge that will sit for weeks and then months before I realize that I should cut my losses and throw it away.

Also, you should either add a few chopped pistachios near the end of the freezing, or sprinkle some on the top. It helps to remind you that this is pistachio gelato, and the crunch is a nice change in texture.

hazelnut gelato (07 July 2003)

There is a tedious step in this recipe where you must strain the mixture through a double-thickness of cheesecloth. I found that almost none of the mixture went through the cloth without me forcing it—a messy operation. All that just to be sure that the final mixture has no actual hazelnut bits, just hazelnut-infused milk. Hmmm. Next time I think I'll just pour it through my fine-meshed sieve and allow any fugitive bits of hazelnut to enhance the final product.

The gelato itself is only okay. At the few U.S. gelato shops I've visited, nocciola as an independent flavor is rare; one is more likely to find gianduja, the name for the chocolate-hazelnut combo. (Which I plan to make soon.) The hazelnut flavor is strong in this attempt, but it's a peculiar taste—it hasn't the strength of chocolate or lemon or any other fruit, which is perhaps why it's usually used as a flavor accompaniment: hazelnut coffee, chocolate-hazelnut, et cetera. The recipe definitely needs more sugar, though. I'd say at least 1/2 a cup.

chocolate gelato (08 July 2003)

Easy enough to make, very easy to eat—I achieved a stomach ache within 10 minutes of scooping. (Note that I omitted the corn syrup from my version because I think it's so awful for you.) It comes out of the ice cream maker with the consistency of chocolate mousse, and freezes to a gelato consistency in a few hours. There's a very intense chocolate flavor, partially due to the Valrhona chocolate I used in cocoa powder form and in a Guanaja (70% cocoa) bar. The recipe makes a perfect quart, and you needn't change a thing. In the future, I may try mixing in some brownie bits or cherries.

upcoming:

chocolate-hazelnut gelato (a Williams-Sonoma online recipe)

honey ice cream (a Wolfgang Puck recipe)

bing cherry ice cream (a Williams-Sonoma online recipe)