Ice cream

 

An ice cream maker is a utensil composed of a container and a turbine that lowers the temperature of cream while preventing the formation of crystals. You prepare your mix, then place it in the ice cream maker to make ice cream in about an hour. There are 3 types of ice cream makers with different levels of sophistication:

 

Be careful what size container you buy: go for one that holds 1 litre to 1.5 litres minimum (or you won’t be able to make enough for your guests too!). Make sure your mixture is cold before you put it in your ice cream maker, otherwise you won’t get ice cream!

 

You can still make ice cream without an ice cream maker! It will take you more time and you'll have to mix the mixture manually several times. Place your mixture in the freezer and mix it again after 1 hour (with a whisk or a blender). Put it in the freezer again and re-mix every hour and a half until you obtain ice cream (without crystals).

 

There are two different types of ice cream, one based on eggs and the other with full cream.

You can make sorbets with all sorts of fruit (and vegetables!) and create original flavours. So think about adding spices, herbs (strawberry/basil for example), flavoured syrups, and mixing up different types of fruit.

 

To make sure that your ice cream softens, you can use ice cream stabiliser. Many ready to use mixtures exist and are available in supermarkets, or you can also use ingredients that are easy to store in your cupboards. For very creamy ice cream, add to your mixture:

-         a tablespoon of cornflour or starch or pastry cream at the end of cooking.

-         20g of glucose, honey (neutral otherwise it will be too strong) or rice syrup. (available in organic shops) at the beginning.

-         2 egg whites. Add the first egg white to the mixture in the machine and once mixed in, add the second and simply whisk with a fork.