Making Ice Cream - v0.1b: `Hello World`
After thinking about it for ~7 years, I finally started making ice cream.
Here’s the gear I got:
Disclaimer: some of these links point to the Amazon page for the product. I got this with my own money, and there’s no referals or anything like that. I work at Amazon, this text and opinions are my own and not my employer’s, etc.
- Whynter 2.1 Stainless Steel ICM-201SB Ice Cream Maker: I went for a compressor machine because you can just pour your mix in, press a button and you’ll get your ice cream after an hour or so. Other alternatives that required chilling a container were not going to work for me, too much friction.
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Tovolo Glide-A-Scoop Ice Cream Tub: I needed something to put the ice cream in. These looked cool and durable.
- Norpro, black 683 Nonstick Anti-Freeze Ice Cream Scoop: this one looked cool. “Defrosting fluid sealed inside the handle” sounded cool. In the cart it goes.
I was able to get pretty decent results following the recipes that came with the machine.
I’d call these 3 batches my Hello World build: follow the recipe, don’t try to change too many things. Learn how the “build” process works. Have fun.
Build v0.1b: Hello World
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Strawberry ice cream: very tasty and fresh. Replaced the heavy cream with half-and-half. Went rock-solid after freezing overnight, I’m guessing it’s because that substitution.
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Banana ice cream: same as above.
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Lemon-lime gelato: this one did not freeze solid, which was nice! It ended up a bit bitter with a bitter aftertaste. Likely due to the lemon pith (I blended the peeled lemons instead of juicing them) and 2 whole limes I threw into the blender. I’ll be trying a second batch soon that fixes that.
Now that I got a hold of the whole “build” process, I want to start tweaking things. So I found myself looking for documentation: stuff that helped me understand how ice cream works. I was surprised at how hard finding that kind of resources is compared to finding a recipe. So far I’ve found two promising resources:
- Underbelly blog, Ice Cream category: It says “I’m definitely assuming that your curiosity runs deep, and you like to know why things work—which is to say, you think science is cool.”. I’m in! So far it’s been exactly the kind of documentation I’ve been looking for.
- Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop: A Cookbook: the title and comments sound like it’s the thing I’m looking for. Will know when it arrives a couple of weeks from now.
I’ll be posting my progress here, hopefully with some pictures.