Principles of ice cream making

[TheSkiingGardener]

I have been given an ice cream maker and can't wait to have a go. Can anyone tell me the basic principles of how to make ice cream? The sort of things that will help me pick the good recipes from the bad and will mean I can start playing with ingredients.

Thank you. Want to make chocolate, prune and armagnac ice cream eventually. Had it in France years ago and can still remember the taste.

Make sweet eggy custard.

Add flavouring

Put into ice-cream maker, churn till frozen.

Alternatively, make sorbet with fruit-based mix (no cream).

The mix needs to be sweeter than you would for a room-temp custard as the coldness makes it seen less sweet iyswim.

Perfect, thank you. I shall give it a go.

For chocolate, melt dark choc into the custard.

For ripple effect, gently mix in fruit/toffee sauce as decanting into freezer container after churning.

Best sorbet is strawberry made with frozen fruit and some sugar and lemon juice.

All 3 of those suggestions sound gorgeous. I will try them. I was wondering how you added the chocolate, cocoa powder didn't seem right.

Usual is make eggs custard, add flavouring add cream and churn.

Or yoou can do a sorbet type thing. Can do quick 'ice creams' example mix greek yoghurt, bit sugar / fruit puree - works well (yoghurt and lemon curd (good stuff) makes aquick lemon ice cream.

Not tto much alkihol as it means the ice cream doesn't set fully - we use quite a few liquor type flavours as it does act as anti freze, gives good flavour so you don't end up with a solid lump.

Propoer ice cream is not pumped full of air - did you know ice cream is sold by volume not weight!

I can see a number of trial batches with varying armagnac volumes coming up!

Excellent tips, thank you. I have noticed good ice cream tends to feel heavy SexyDab. Never knew why though.

I need to clear some space in my freezer to freeze the bowl and then I can get started.

Cardamom is the best imo.

Cinnamon good too- infuse a stick in the milk before making custard.

Sorbets are great to start with as they're dead easy to make & delicious. Just follow a good recipe, you can't go wrong with sorbet.

Good custard based ice cream is relatively easy too, as the others have said you just make the custard (making sure it's sweeter than a normal custard), cool it completely & then churn.

A fantastic chocolate ice cream recipe is from Nigella Lawson's 'How to eat' book. Could give you recipe if you want. It's the best one I've tried by far.

LittleLapin - lovely to see you.
IIRC don't you know how to make parmesan ice cream?

another tip: for a very quick and quite respectable though not as good as doing it properly ice cream, use half good quality readymade custard and half double cream.

Parmesan ice cream?! .

Ah sethetc. a quick cheat. That is tempting for the first go just to get that "Ooooooh, I made ice cream thrill" or when I'm short of time, thank you.

Maria that recipe would be great if you have time. I need a good chocolate recipe to make my fantasy ice cream.

sorbet can be literally just fruit puree with the flavour adjusted with lemon juice and/or icing sugar.
the thing to remember is that flavours are muted when it is cold, so you want it a bit too sweet/tangy at room temp.

A super quick recipe is a couple of bananas, chopped, double cream, and a good slurp of honey

the honey in with the cream and set it going, as it starts to thicken put in the chopped banana

the honey and banana keep it soft and fudgey.

You can sub a tub of custard for the double cream if you like.

Here's Nigella's 'world's best chocolate ice cream' (as it's called):

Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
130 gr sugar (plus 2 tablespoons)
500 ml full fat milk
100 gr good quality dark chocolate
40 gr good quality cocoa powder

directions:

Whisk the yolks & 130 gr of the sugar in a bowl until thick & creamy, foaming pale ribbons when you lift the whisk

Then bring the milk to the boil & add it to the beaten yolks, pouring slowly & beating all the while

Melt the chocolate in a bowl above (but not touching) some simmering water in a pan

Then whisk this, followed by the cocoa, into the egg & milk mixture

Pour the chocolate-custard mixture into a pan & cook on a low to moderate heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until everything?s smooth & amalgamated & beginning to thicken (don?t cook until it?s really custard-like, but slightly less)

Put 2 tablespoons of sugar with 2 teaspoons of water into a thick bottomed saucepan & turn the heat to high

Make a caramel: heat this until it?s dark brown & molten (you are after the taste of burnt sugar). As it browns, whisk it into the chocolate custard; don?t worry if it crystallizes on contact as the whisking will dissolve it

Turn into a bowl to cool, then after it's cool, chill in the fridge for about 20 mins (or longer if that?s more convenient) before churning in your ice-cream maker according to instructions

It's divine & really worth the trouble of making the caramel.

Seth I might try the sorbet, but may wait until soft fruit is in season and a bit cheaper. Strawberry or raspberry would be lovely, although, thinking about it lemon sorbet is gorgeous. Is that just lemon purée do you think? Surely that has something else in?

Catsmamma that sounds magnificently naughty indulgent, that's going in the book!

Thanks Maria it will be one of the first to be done.

This book is amazing and has lots of good recipes. Lolas ice creams

Just had a look at that book. It's got a gin and tonic Sundae in it! Got to be got!

I just had a look at my copy it's got prune and Armagnac and Memphis Belle sorbet which has Southern Comfort and sherry in it.

Eek! Prune and armagnac! Could you possibly tell me what sort of quantities it gives?

Have already put book on Amazon wish list and have some birthday vouchers.....

I bought the Ben & Jerry's recipe book. I have used it loads. It's brilliant.

sugar, water, lemon juice and zest - how simple is that?!
yes we do most of our sorbets in the summer too. It's perfect as then a few months later when the fruit isn't in season any more you discover a forgotten carton of sorbet at the back of the freezer