INTRODUCTION
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ICE CREAM
Early writings tell of ice dessert as far back as the second century BC, but it’s hard to pinpoint its exact “inventor.” We know that Alexander the Great was fond of snow and ice flavored with honey and nectar; the Bible mentions King Solomon consuming iced drinks; and Emperor Nero would send servants into the mountains to fetch snow, which was then flavored with fresh fruit juices.
While salt was used in the Arab world in making ice cream as far back as the thirteenth century, the dessert didn’t reach Europe until Marco Polo visited China in the mid-1200s and brought back a recipe for what seems to be sherbet. Though it’s not clear how ice cream spread throughout Europe, some evidence suggests that Catherine de Medici introduced it to France in the 1500s when she married Henry II of France. England seems to have come upon ice cream around the same time, but according to Harold McGee—the legendary food writer, who happens to be an expert on the chemistry, technique, and history of food—it wasn’t until 1672 that the term ice cream was first used, in a document from the court of Charles II. In the late 1700s, the French developed a rich egg-based custard and also discovered that frequent stirring of the custard resulted in a less icy texture.
Ice cream and its variants were restricted to royalty and nobility until about 1660s, but once the Sicilian chef Procopio introduced a recipe blending milk, cream, butter, and eggs at Café Procope in Paris, ice cream became available to the general, though moneyed, public. In time, ice cream became less expensive, but because of the time and effort it took to produce a single batch, it remained a rare treat.
In the United States, ice cream remained special and exclusive, reserved for the special few, until 1843, when Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia patented a freezer that contained a large bucket for a salt/water mix, a separate cylinder for the ice cream mix, and a mixing blade that allowed the user to manually churn the base, which in time turned it into a frozen dessert.
In the twentieth century, ice cream became a lot more popular and accessible. Soda shops, soda fountains, and ice cream parlors popped up seemingly everywhere. During Prohibition, these cafés served as meeting and hangout places in lieu of bars and pubs. Once cheap refrigeration took off, so did ice cream. Ice cream manufacturers used a number of tactics to distinguish themselves to consumers, and one such tactic was offering not just affordable ice cream, but a variety of flavors to tempt the palate. Baskin Robbins, for example, became known for its thirty-one flavors (one for every day of the month).
With a few more industrial developments, ice cream soon became fairly commonplace and a fixture in home freezers. As ice cream became an industrial product, manufacturers figured out ways to make larger and smoother batches in far less time than they had been able to with manual cranking. The smooth texture became another hallmark, and in order to enhance it, companies replaced traditional ingredients with gelatin and concentrated milk, along with a number of stabilizers intended to extend ice cream’s shelf life for storage in unpredictable home freezers. Competition over selling the most ice cream led to price wars, which, in turn, led to the increased use of additives, powdered milk, stabilizers, and artificial flavors and colors. Because manufacturers still had to make a profit on the product, despite dropping costs for the consumer, many of these low-quality ingredients became commonplace. Most of this ice cream was made in the Philadelphia style (without egg yolks), as it helped to keep down the costs. Egg yolks, a relatively expensive ingredient used in French custard (our preferred method), became prominent as super-premium ice creams (like Häagen-Dazs) increased in popularity.
A quick word on gelato, with which ice cream is sometimes confused. Gelato simply means “ice cream” in Italian. Many think it’s a completely different product and, because it has a European name (and origins), is of better quality. Italy, as well as the rest of the world, has no shortage of quality gelati, but just as with ice cream, gelato may be laden with stabilizers and artificial colors and flavors. Gelato, traditionally, had a similar composition to ice cream—rich with egg yolks, cream, and milk—but these days can range from a custard base to one that is eggless and has more milk than cream. Historically, Italian gelati were typically made with more eggs and cream than almost any other region’s ice cream. It wasn’t until after World War II, in the face of both financial woes and rising advancements in food technology, that low fat and eggless became the status quo for gelato. Since then, gelato has become known as both eggless and low fat, when in reality those are relatively new characteristics for Italy’s version of ice cream.
HOW TO MAKE GREAT CUSTARD EACH AND EVERY TIME
This isn’t a recipe for a custard—rather, treat it as a way to understand the important players in French custard and what happens during the cooking process. As you go through the recipes in this book, you will see that amounts of each ingredient will vary from slightly to quite a bit—this is because, depending on the flavor of your ice cream, there’s no “set” formula. However, if you understand what happens while you make the custard, then the recipe will be much easier to read—and use!
1. Pour the cream and milk into a double boiler or a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water). The water bath, which produces gentler and more evenly distributed heat than you’d get with the saucepan directly over the heat source, is there to ensure you do not overcook your custard—it will also give you the silkiest, smoothest custard ever. Whisk in some sugar (the recipe will tell you how much) and salt, and stir until they have dissolved. Warm the mixture until you see steam rising from the top.
2. Meanwhile, prepare an ice bath in a large bowl and set another bowl over it. Set aside.
3. Set a kitchen towel under a medium bowl—this will prevent the bowl from slipping around. In this bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until uniform.
4. Now, you will temper the egg yolks—this part can be intimidating, but trust us, you will get the hang of it in no time. While whisking, add a small splash of the hot dairy mixture to the yolks. Continue to add the dairy mixture, whisking it in bit by bit, until you’ve added about half. Add the yolk mixture to the remaining dairy mixture in the double boiler, or in the bowl of the water bath. Set the heat to medium or medium-low (you’ll need to monitor it to see how your stove works best), and cook the custard, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon, until steam begins to rise from the surface and the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. While cooking your custard, be sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan or bowl—and do not let your custard come even close to a boil! To test the custard, you can use any heatproof utensil with a straight edge, but we like a wooden spoon the best—it’s a little better at showing the custard coating the spoon. Hold the spoon horizontally and run your finger through the custard. If the trail from your finger stays separated, the custard is ready to be cooled. You can also use a thermometer and take your custard off the heat when it reaches between 170˚F (77˚C) and 175˚F (79˚C).
5. Strain the custard into the bowl sitting over the prepared ice bath and stir for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the custard has cooled. Transfer the custard to a quart-size container, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or, preferably, overnight. This step is important—overnight rest ensures a thicker base, which in turn will give you a smoother, creamier ice cream. It allows the sugar to fully hydrate and to be incorporate into the custard.
notes You may need to chill the bowl of your ice cream machine in advance—if your canister requires pre-freezing, place it in the freezer about 12 hours before you start the base. After your ice cream base has had an overnight rest in the refrigerator, the ice cream maker bowl will be ready for use.
When custard is cooked, evaporation will always occur. Depending on your pot, the BTUs of your stove, the weather (seasons, humidity), and slightly over- or undercooking, evaporation levels can vary drastically.
When evaporation occurs, your water content is reducing in the overall mix. Since milk fat, milk solids, egg yolks, and sugar will not evaporate, their content, as a percentage of the mix, will increase.
For example, if you start with 1 quart of mix, and 10 percent evaporates during cooking, your liquid amount will go down, but because your overall fat, sugar, and eggs will remain the same, they, as a percentage, will increase.
Thus, it is possible that, owing to too much evaporation, you will end up with a mix that is too sweet (too much sugar) and/or too rich (too much fat and/or egg yolks).
When we work on our recipes, we develop all of them to account for evaporation. We developed high-fat, solid, and egg recipes that can withstand some variance; their stability allows us to easily correct an overevaporated batch of custard to get perfect ice cream texture each and every time.
So, how do we do this? We add back a little milk! Because milk is mostly water (87 percent), adding it will increase overall volume and decrease the fat and sugar percentages in the custard. Start with a tablespoon and taste; usually one or two, for the batch size tested for this book, will do the trick.
WHAT IS EMULSION?
When we talk to audiences about ice cream, the word emulsion comes up pretty quickly as someone in the audience always/often asks, “What’s an emulsion? How do you define it?”
So let’s get the definition out of the way because it will help in discussing (on a geeky level) what ice cream is and why it works the way it does.
An emulsion is a homogeneous solution that has separate parts that appear uniform and smoothly joined together. Put another way, emulsions comprise liquid droplets that are mixed (or merged) with another liquid’s droplets.
The best-known example of an emulsion is vinaigrette, in which fat particles (oil) are mixed with water particles (vinegar). If you emulsify your salad dressing and then let it sit on your countertop for a bit, the oil and the vinegar will likely separate. The separation is a natural occurrence and happens because emulsions tend to coalesce, or gather in like parts, if you will—not dissimilar to how, in high school, you tended to hang out with the kids who were most like you. This process of coalescence makes emulsions “unstable” in the culinary sense; they will, when given a rest, ultimately break apart. Ice cream, if you think about it, is a kind of emulsion that has been chilled, churned, and transformed from a bona fide liquid state to a somewhat solid one.
In ice cream custard, the milk proteins act as emulsifiers and help stabilize the oil-in-water (dairy fat and water) emulsions by preventing fat droplets from coalescing.
When emulsifiers are added to ice cream, they actually reduce this stability, meaning the fat globules will be more likely to partially coalesce when whipped in the ice cream machine. Partial coalescence, when it comes to ice cream, is exactly what we want; we want the milk fat globules from the cream to cluster and clump together. This improves ice cream texture by preventing the bubbles, whipped in by the ice cream machine, from breaking down, which helps the ice cream to maintain a creamy mouthfeel.
GUMS
Gums are mostly derived naturally: carrageenan comes from seaweed, guar gum from guar beans, and xanthan gum is a largely indigestible polysaccharide produced by the bacterium called Xanthomonas campestris. Gums are used to give a smoother texture and a fuller body to the ice cream. They are particularly useful in ice creams that don’t use egg yolks. We rarely use any of these in our ice creams and when we do, we prefer to use agar agar or carob bean gum.
POWDERED MILK
Powdered milk is an inexpensive way to bulk up milk solids in your ice cream, which will make ice cream taste thicker and fuller. Especially for some large-scale producers, using some powdered milk is an effective way to emulate the evaporation that occurs during the cooking of custard on a stovetop. Evaporation is essential, as it condenses milk, increasing the overall milk solids, which makes for a chewier, creamier ice cream.
EGG YOLKS
Stabilizers in and of themselves aren’t bad, but we feel that when you have good ingredients at home—milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar—you don’t need additional stabilizers to achieve smooth, luscious ice cream. Egg yolks, full of naturally occurring lecithin, are already fantastic emulsifiers and will give your ice cream body and lusciousness with no need for powders or gums. If lecithin, or another emulsifier, is not added to an ice cream mix, the fat particles will resist partial coalescing. In plain English, this means that the ice cream will not have the same smooth texture as an ice cream containing egg yolks (or another emulsifier). But—and there’s always a “but,” isn’t there?—if too much emulsifier is added, too much fat is de-emulsified and the fat droplets become so large that you can taste them. In other words, the ice cream will taste like someone just added butter to it, an occurrence aptly known as “buttering.”
WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TRY TO AGE YOUR CUSTARD
There’s a slew of reasons why aging your custard is a good idea. Mainly, this will deliver a creamier ice cream in the end. A colder base churns better and smoother; overnight rest tends to thicken the custard, which also helps to produce a creamier ice cream. Aging also helps the lecithin from egg yolks to better attach to the fat droplets, which, as we previously mentioned, helps with partial coalescence resulting—you guessed it—in smoother ice cream and ice cream that has a higher resistance to meltdown; and aging properly allows for the sugar molecules to hydrate and to be incorporated into the custard. And, finally, cooling the mix to just under 40˚F (below 4˚C) makes the fat inside the droplets begin to crystallize, which also helps with partial coalescence and smoother ice cream.
WHAT IS ARTISAN AND WHY DO WE USE IT IN OUR NAME?
We’re well aware of how overused the words artisan and artisanal are these days. Dunkin’ Donuts has its artisan bagels, Panera Bread has its artisan loaves. It’s become an on-trend word, rather than something that has much meaning.
To us, the word artisan means focusing on quality rather than efficiency. It means creating something out of a passion for creation as opposed to a passion to succeed, be recognized, or make money. Artisanal food is food made with great attention to detail in the sourcing of ingredients as well as in the process itself. It involves a constant evolution, a constant process of learning and improving, never being complacent. It’s holding quality, rather than profit, as a true benchmark of excellence.
A NOTE ON YIELD
You will note that in our recipes, the yield for ice cream and sorbets always says “about” with a measurement following it. Why couldn’t we be more precise?
Ice cream base, custard or otherwise, when frozen in a machine, will expand by a certain amount as air is incorporated into it. For home machines, depending on what machine you are using, that amount can vary anywhere from 20 to about 30 percent, while for commercially produced ice cream that amount can be more than 100 percent! The amount of volume exceeding that of the base/custard is called “overrun.” The overrun will depend on your ice cream flavor, how fast it is churned, how much air it incorporates (thicker bases may stay more compact than thinner ones), as well as how much of the base evaporates during the cooking process. The latter bit can be affected by just about anything: from the size and width of the bowl containing the base, to the intensity of the heat from your stove, to how much humidity is in the air, to the phases of the moon. We kid about that last part, but ice cream yields, if you want to get incredibly precise, are all affected by a multitude of elements. So, in some cases you will get a bit less than a quart, while in others, it might be a bit over (not that anyone has ever complained about excess ice cream).
INGREDIENTS
ALCOHOL—Alcohol helps keep ice cream texture soft and provides flavor (as in our Apple Crumble with Calvados and Crème Fraîche). We recommend using alcohol you would want to drink—i.e., it should be good enough to be consumed on its own.
CHOCOLATE—Throughout the book, we use various types of chocolate: unsweetened, dark, milk, and white, as well as unsweetened cocoa powder (Dutch process or natural), pure cocoa butter, and cocoa nibs. For the most part, we’re devoted to Michel Cluizel chocolate (see Pete’s Ingredient Spotlight—Chocolate) for reasons we’ll get into later. However, as long as you use your favorite quality chocolate, the one that tastes good to you, then you’re guaranteed to get quality results. Our favorite chocolate chips, which we use in our Mint Chip Ice Cream, come from a great Missouri company, Askinosie.
COCONUT CHIPS—Unless we call for unsweetened coconut, we prefer our coconut to be unsweetened.
COCONUT MILK—Use high-quality whole (not light) coconut milk—we like the Native Forest brand, since it doesn’t contain emulsifiers. Thai and other Asian stores often carry good coconut milk. Please note that coconut milk is not the same as Coco Lopez, which is a sweetened concoction.
COFFEE—One of the things that has been important to us from the very beginning at Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream is to serve good coffee. We tested out different roasters and finally settled on Toby’s Estate, an Australian coffee roaster with a roastery nearby in Williamsburg. However, when it came to getting the most true coffee flavor for our coffee ice cream, freeze-dried coffee worked so much better that, much to our surprise, we wound up going with that. So long as it’s a quality coffee brand, you should be in good shape.
CRÈME FRAÎCHE—Higher in fat than sour cream but also pleasantly tangy, crème fraîche can be used interchangeably with sour cream except when you want to heat it (probably not applicable in this book, but still)—sour cream tends to break when heated and crème fraîche does not.
EGGS—All the recipes in this book have been tested using large, organic eggs. The better quality your eggs, the better quality your ice cream.
FRUIT—Whether stone or citrus, fruit is always best when it’s ripe and at the peak of its season. Some fruit works great picked during its season and frozen. For this reason, we can serve our Currants and Cream Ice Cream year-round. We prefer local, organic, unsprayed fruit, and try to use it as much as possible. Please keep in mind that where the fruit was grown, the climate during its growing season, and when it was picked (after rain or during a dry spell) will affect its sugar content and moisture level. Because of these variables, among others, your fruit ice creams and sorbets will vary slightly from batch to batch.
HEAVY CREAM—A funny thing: Most heavy cream contains some kind of an emulsifier (usually carrageenan gum) so it will help to give you smoother ice cream. However, we recommend that you seek out heavy cream without any additives, which we think tastes so much better.
HONEY—Some research supports the theory that local honey—harvested as close as possible to where you live—holds the greatest nutritional benefit and may help you build immunity to seasonal allergies, as well as help with digestion. Raw, unpasteurized honey is full of enzymes and compounds that make it a nutritional powerhouse and not just a sweetener for your yogurt and tea. Pasteurization, however, destroys much of those beneficial enzymes, which is why natural food proponents emphasize raw honey over its pasteurized cousin. Pregnant and nursing women should not consume unpasteurized honey, and children under one year of age should not be fed honey of any sort.
MILK—We make all our ice cream with whole, organic milk and recommend you do the same. There’s virtually no difference between whole and low-fat milk, fat percentage–wise—about 3 percent versus 2 percent—but it will make a nice difference in your ice cream. Low-fat or skim milk may result in icy or grainy ice cream. If you’re one of the lucky few to get your milk directly from a small dairy farmer, then you may get extra-fatty (and nutritious) milk with about 4 percent fat.
NUTS—Nuts are terrific when they’re fresh and pretty terrible when they’re stale. Because of their high oil content, nuts have a tendency to go rancid rather quickly; you can slow down their spoilage by keeping them in a cool, dark place, such as a refrigerator or freezer.
NUT BUTTERS—In choosing your peanut or almond butter, seek out the kinds that have only one ingredient: the nut in question. Anything more and you will be messing with the ice cream consistency. For ice cream, we prefer the smooth variety to the chunky kind.
SALT—Unless we specify it, the recipes in this book were tested using Diamond Crystal kosher salt, which has a clean taste that is perfect for highlighting the flavors in ice cream. In ice cream such as Salted Caramel, we like briny, flaky sea salt; Maldon is our preferred brand and is widely available. Or, if you can get your hands on it, Murray River pink flaky salt from Australia is pretty amazing.
SOUR CREAM—Sour cream will add a pleasantly tangy taste to your ice cream. Seek out brands with as few ingredients as possible; some brands pack their sour cream with unnecessary additives.
SPICES, EXTRACTS, OILS—Throughout this book we use spices and extracts: like cardamom, cinnamon, vanilla, and mint extract), just to name a few. We go into detail on some of these ingredients but, generally speaking, always use the best-quality spices and extracts you can find. You are almost always guaranteed to find fresher and better quality spices from a specialty company.
SUGAR—In most recipes, we use organic, granulated sugar. Sugar helps with flavor and also texture. Not enough and the ice cream will be hard and icy; too much and the ice cream won’t properly freeze (and it’ll taste jaw-achingly sweet, too). We also like to use palm sugar as well as dark/light sugar. A quick note about palm sugar: It’s not the same as palm oil. These are two very different ingredients.
TEA—Adding tea is a great way to infuse your ice cream with flavor—and one of the easiest. Find a quality tea manufacturer, preferably of loose tea leaves, that you like, and take good care of your tea. Store it in a well-sealed, clean container free of any other scents (tea is excellent at absorbing other odors), and keep it in a dark, dry, cool place.
YOGURT—Because yogurt is already lower in fat than most dairy products, we recommend using full-fat yogurt for a better result.
EQUIPMENT
BAKING DISH—If you plan on making granitas, a ceramic baking dish (anything that will be nonreactive, basically) is a good thing to own. For our recipes, you’ll need one between 8 and 12 inches long with 2-inch-high sides.
BAKING SHEETS—You’ll need a couple sturdy, thick baking sheets that won’t warp, in both half-sheet (18 x 13-inch) and quarter-sheet (9 x 13-inch) sizes. These will come in handy, and not just for making cookies and crumble. You will find yourself using them in many other instances, including roasting vegetables.
BLENDER—We wish we could combine blender and immersion blender into one category, but in order to successfully (read: just like in our stores) execute our ice creams, they’re both necessary. For the traditional blender, we use a Vitamix and stand behind it 100 percent. Its hefty price seems excessive and cost-prohibitive to many. And yet we implore you to save for one. You may never need to buy another blender again—these things not only do not break, but the quality of blending (not to mention all the other things it can do) is just unparalleled by any other machine. We think that buying one blender in your lifetime is a pretty sound (and cost-effective) investment.
CHEESECLOTH—Handy for spice sachets for infusions and, of course, indispensable in making ricotta.
DIGITAL SCALE—We can’t stress enough the importance of a digital scale; it is particularly useful (indispensable, even!) in our vegan recipes. If you’re still on the fence about getting one, we guarantee you that once you do, you’ll start using it a lot more than your measuring cups and spoons. Compact, cheap, far more precise than measuring by volume—and leaves you with fewer dishes to clean.
ICE CREAM MACHINE—There are several options on the market. Ice and rock salt machines require hand-cranking (an excellent workout but also one that requires you to spend a lot of hands-on time making ice cream). Self-refrigerating machines, which we prefer and used to test recipes for this book, are great for regular home ice cream makers because they allow you to make your ice cream without much advance planning or if you have limited freezer space. If you’re a frequent ice cream maker, that convenience will, in time, pay for itself. These machines are more expensive than the machines with bowls you pre-freeze, but again, it depends on how often you make or plan to make ice cream. The machines that come with bowls that need to be pre-frozen work well for most home cooks. Their affordability and relatively compact size (especially when compared with self-refrigerating machines) win over many home cooks. Whatever machine you go with, make sure you research and read the reviews to find the best-quality model that fits your budget.
ICE CREAM SCOOPS—Our favorite ice cream scoop is made by Zeroll, a solid scoop that is filled with antifreeze. As with other solid scoops, don’t wash them in the dishwasher or they’ll get ruined. There are also spring-loaded scoops, but we don’t like them nearly as much.
IMMERSION BLENDER—Compact, easy-to-clean, and inexpensive, the immersion blender is a pro at emulsifying ingredients (as in our vegan ice creams).
KNIVES—Are you surprised to find knife recommendations in an ice cream book? It might seem strange, but you do need knives to chop and peel ingredients, so here’s our basic knife set recommendation: paring, chef’s, and serrated bread knife. Paring knives should not cost a lot of money—restaurant supply stores sell them for $5 to $8. Chef’s knives, on the other hand, are a whole other matter. Buy a good one with a blade between 8 and 10 inches that weighs nicely in your hand and has some heft—you will use it for just about everything. Because it’ll be your most frequently used knife for general chopping, this is a knife worth spending some money on. A serrated bread knife is the best knife for chopping chocolate. It’s also great for cutting tomatoes and, well, slicing bread. A good one is not terribly pricey, and should last you a lifetime.
MEASURING CUPS AND SPOONS—Be sure to have both liquid and dry measuring cups as well as a set of measuring spoons. Liquid measuring cups come in clear glass or plastic and sport a spout for easier pouring. Dry measuring cups and measuring spoons are most often made of plastic or stainless steel and often come as a set.
SAUCEPANS, SKILLETS, AND POTS—You should own a few heavy-bottomed pots and pans; they will come in handy in everything from making caramel to toasting nuts. Stainless steel and enameled iron (not aluminum) are best as they are nonreactive and are excellent at conducting and evenly distributing heat.
SPATULAS—Heatproof silicone spatulas are great for stirring custard and getting every bit of it out of the bowl. We like having a few on hand, in a few different sizes. The ones with wooden handles last longer if you hand-wash them.
STAINLESS-STEEL AND GLASS BOWLS—It’s always good to have a few in different sizes on hand. Kitchen supply stores will sell them to you for a song—no need to go to a special culinary store for fancy ones. If you don’t like the bowls wobbling on your counter space, place a towel underneath the bowl.
STRAINERS—Fine or medium mesh will be useful for straining your custards as well as fruit purees that might contain seeds. Get sturdy ones that will stand up to pressure.
THERMOMETER—A good instant-read thermometer is useful in making candy, monitoring the temperature of custard, and even checking whether meat is done (not that you need it in this book). Thermapen is the king of culinary thermometers and is worth every penny despite the hefty price tag.
WHISKS—Have a few sturdy ones on hand for whipping cream, stirring egg yolks, and so on. Tiny ones are handy for stirring spices together; the flat ones are useful for getting into those rounded edges of the pot.
WOODEN SPOONS—A workhorse of just about every kitchen, home or professional. We like wooden spoons for stirring our custard. When we’re not using a thermometer, it’s the most reliable way to check whether custard is done.
ZESTERS—Nothing beats a Microplane zester, and if you don’t own one yet, run, don’t walk, to the nearest cookware store to get one. The most basic ones will let you get beautiful, finely grated citrus zest and shaved chocolate. You can even use it in your savory cooking (e.g., for grating cheese over pasta). They won’t break the bank and they’ll last forever.