Wow! Sooooooooo many flavours to experiment with, and so little time. That's how I am feeling at the moment.
I made an incredible blueberry ice cream yesterday night (above pic). All the premium ice cream brands available in the stores don't even come close to it! It's seriously out of this world! Just ask any of my friends and family who have already tasted it. : )
Eversince I got the ice cream maker, I have not once bought so much as one stick of Mat Cool, or a single tub of Haagen Daaz for the kids! I've been mixing up a storm of icy cold treats in the kitchen and the results have been truly rewarding.
The Kids are happy... because the freezer is now an Ice Cream Wonderland!
The Mom is happy... because she knows that the homemade ice cream in the freezer are all half the fat, half the sugar, half the guilt, and has zero preservatives.
(Plus she is also thrilled that she has sneakily found a way to get her kids to eat sour, high vitamin C fruits that they would normally never touch! )
Another big bonus point is that all my ice cream creations do not contain a single egg yolk!
Unless you are making sorbet or granita, most of the ice cream recipes call for at least 3 to 5 egg yolks. I can't begin to tell you how much I hate egg yolk! Just the smell of it is enough to make me gag. It really turns me off! Ewwwwwww.....
I am now at the point where I don't really need a recipe to follow anymore. It's second nature to me now. There are a few simple principles/rules that I have learned over the past 2 weeks. And once you know them too, you will also be able to come up with your own fabulous ice creams recipes. And here they are......
(1) Always use the freshest ingredients possible.
(2) Prepare a sugar syrup. Certain books tell you to use icing sugar. Some tell you to melt the sugar in together with the other ingredients. My advice is to prepare a large batch of sugar syrup and put it into the fridge. And use it to adjust the sweetness of your mixture. It will keep for up to a month. Using a sugar syrup will ensure that the dispersion of sugar is thorough and you won't bite into unmelted sugar crystals.
To make sugar syrup: Place 2 cups water : 3 cups castor sugar into a pot and boil at medium heat until all the sugar has dissolved completely. You can substitute the castor sugar with brown sugar for certain recipes. Brown sugar will impart a 'butterscotchy' taste to the ice cream.
Remember that you will need to make mixture slightly sweeter than what you would normally like. If not, once the ice cream is frozen, the taste will be bland and meaningless.
(3) Orange juice and Lemon juice can be used to 'thin out' a particularly thick fruit puree (ie: nangka, chempedak...). It also helps certain fruits from oxidizing and changing colour (ie. bananas, strawberries, etc).
(4) Use half cream & half milk, as a healthier alternative.
You can even substitute all of the whipping cream with milk. However, the finished product will not be as smooth, and will not scoop out properly. So I don't recommend doing that.
Certain flavours will scream out for more cream than milk (ie. strawberry, blueberry, etc). When this is the case, I use 3/4 cream and 1/4 milk.
Cream really is the magic ingredient when it comes to improving the taste, body, and texture... they don't call it 'ice cream' for nothing. ;)
(5) Chill the finished ice cream mixture for at least 1 to 2 hours, before proceeding with the ice cream maker manufacturer's instructions. The coldness of the mixture will improve the efficacy of the ice cream maker.
(6) The finished ice cream will have to be placed into the freezer for at least 2 hours before serving, or else it will be too soft. When you take the ice cream out to eat, temper it by allowing it to sit at room temperature for at least 5 to 10 minutes. This will make scooping it out of the container much easier. Plus, it will also allow the full flavour to really come bursting out!
Can you make ice cream without an ice cream maker?
Yes you can....... BUT it will take 4 to 5 hours if you are going to churn the mixture by hand.
The function of the ice cream machine is to constantly churn the milk & cream–making it thick, creamy, and smooth; and at the same time it prevents ice crystals from forming and destroying the texture of the ice cream. Hand churning is terribly tedious and tiring work. And the results will never be able to match that of an ice cream machine.
So? ... What are you waiting for?
GO and get yourself an ice cream machine quickly, and try out my recipes! Then, when you take your first bite, you'll completely be able to understand why I have gone totally nuts about ice cream! And I promise you. Your taste buds will settle for store-bought ice cream ever again.
Oh... and by the way.... I will post the recipe for my blueberry ice cream tomorrow. : D
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