Sugars in Ice Cream / Mastering the art of

[Seth Price]

So, I have been making ice cream for a long time with reasonable results, but have always felt that something was lacking. When you have icecream at Jean George, or Daniel, the texture, taste and mouthfeel is out of this world. For the longest time, I have been attributing this to equipment, which does play a large part in production abilities. Those with access to a pacojet and a blast freezer leave the rest of us at a disadvantage. Recently, I have been playing with various sugars.

There is a Chef in Chicago named Kriss Harvey that I have been following for some time. I have incorporated his ice cream philosophy into my thinking. Basically, ice cream is water and sugar – wet and dry – you need to keep that in mind when choosing your sugars. For the dry components of a simple base, I have been using plain sugar, atomized glucose (glucose powder) and nonfat milk solids (add depth of flavor). For a base with added saturated fats (chocolate, nuts, etc), using granulated sugar and Trimoline, which retains more moisture than granulated sugar, less prone to crystallization, and has a high freeze-suppressant quality that softens the fat. I have also been experimenting with dextrose, which is less sweet than granulated sugar and has some emulsifying properties.

What I cant seem to figure out is when to use what sugar and in what quantities. I certainly experiment, but i am not methodical. I don't take notes, nor do i treat each attempt like a science experiment. If you have any thoughts or fantastic recipes, please share them.

My objective is to make ice cream, sorbet, gelato etc... with fantastic flavor and mouthfeel, that doesn't get crunchy in the freezer after a day or even a week. So far I have succeeded with a couple of flavors but know there is much to learn. I think that I have every ice cream book out there, but maybe not.

Best,


Seth

[Jennifer Hess]

My husband has had great success with a basic vanilla ice cream from David Lebovitz' The Perfect Scoop. It retains a lovely, creamy texture for a couple of weeks (I don't have much of a sweet tooth so it gets consumed slowly).

I don't know if the ice cream maker matters at all, but we don't have a dedicated one, just the attachment for our trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer (a/k/a Big Red).

[Seth Price]

The perfect scoop is one of my favorite ice cream books. The recipes are very well tested. I just made the roasted banana which was lovely. I also made an adaptation of the coffee which I think is one of the best I've ever had.

[Benjamin Murray]

Try sorbitol mate, It works wonders use about 8g per kilo. I have studied this to and I think you will get great results. It helps with controlling crystallization, emulsifying and disbursement of sugar. Let me know if it helps. Benjamin~

[Jim Williams]

Seth, toss in a couple drops of vodka, or, some kind of liquor that would compliment the ice cream. You won't taste it, but, it lowers the freezing point, allowing it to stay creamy while in the ice cream maker rather than icy. Sounds crazy, but, it works. Doesn't take much. you could play with amounts, but, a capful or so in a normal size batch does the trick. Be careful, though, this is like antifreeze. Put in too much, you'll have soup!!

Good luck,
Jim