You love it from the first bite: that creamy richness, both sweet and cold. It’s smooth, too, if sometimes with a slight chew, a good textural contrast before the frozen treat softens. There may be nuts or bits of fruit. They’re second fiddles. The point is the feel, the melt, the slight shudder—and the second bite.
Ice cream is the best afternoon treat, the perfect dessert, and the go-to late-night snack. It’s the antidote to a hot day. It’s also apparently the antidote to a winter storm. Come to New England. You’ll find our supermarket freezers bare before a “snowpocalypse.”
Still, there’s nothing like homemade. Sure, premium ice creams have gotten smoother and creamier over the last few decades, but you can’t beat the home-churned stuff. How do you make it to capture all it promises? Let’s hold that question for a minute while we discuss the current state of ice cream in these United States.
Back in the late ’80s a couple of ice cream stands in Wisconsin (we’re looking at you, Michael’s and Culver’s) started cranking out a cross between ice cream and gelato, something they called “frozen custard.” For years, most Americans had been making custard-based ice creams in hand-cranked machines on their back porches. However, these Badger State concoctions were different: the custards were made not just with milk (as in gelato), or even with milk plus a little cream (as in the American standby), but with a heavy pour of cream. What’s more, they weren’t made with just a few egg yolks (again, as was sometimes the case with the American standby) but with gobs of them (as in gelato).
More cream, more egg yolks, a richer custard—naturally, the mere notion flashed across the country (probably after it took a nap). In its wake, all frozen treats, even the likes of sherbet, have undergone what we call a frozen-custard-ization; they’ve become creamier, thicker, and sweeter. Even sorbet has gotten into the act. Pastry chefs now violate its no-dairy prime directive to create buttermilk or goat cheese sorbet (by which we take it that they’re still “sorbets” since they contain no cream, if other dairy).
Know it or not, we’ve all been happily frozen-custard-ized.
As you can see, ice cream and its ilk have gotten richer while the definition of what’s what has gotten murkier. So before we get rolling, here’s what we mean by the terms.
ICE CREAM • a churned, frozen, mostly cream-based dessert without eggs. Some are not thickened (like the Italian classic fior di latte); others include flour, cornstarch, or potato starch. Even melted chocolate adds a slight chew. Most are made from a mix of cream and milk, sometimes in equal measure. Or all that was true before that vaunted frozen-custard-ization. Still, we stick by the old definition, although we bend it when there are only a couple of egg yolks in a recipe, not really enough to set the mix up into a puddinglike custard but just to enrich it. We’ll call that “ice cream” although it’s a “light” frozen custard.
GELATO • a churned, frozen, milk-based dessert made with eggs (usually just the yolks). This Italian staple uses lots of eggs, sometimes six or eight yolks per quart. They’re the primary thickener (unless other liquids like brandy have been added, at which point even all those eggs need help). But there’s a “but”—Italian whole milk production includes up to 6 percent butterfat; American, 3.25 percent. More cream has been left in Italian whole milk. We Americans then must compensate by adding a touch of cream (say, ¼ cup) to a gelato recipe to get that eccessivamente soft, creamy texture.
FROZEN CUSTARD • the crown prince of churned, frozen desserts. Consider it an egg-rich gelato with lots of cream—but never only cream or it would get unpleasantly rich. Frozen custard is instead made with a mix of cream and milk, although distinctly weighted to the former.
SHERBET • a frozen, churned, milk-and-sweetened-fruit-puree combination. It was probably a Persian concoction that got popular across medieval and Renaissance Europe as trade routes increased. It was made by pouring mare’s milk over fruit and shaved ice. Modern sherbet is actually an American revamp of the classic, using a sweetened fruit puree, rather than fresh fruit. (And no mare’s milk!) However, because of that frozen-custard-ization, sherbets these days almost always include gelatin (or another thickener) to make them even creamier.
SORBET • a churned, frozen, sweetened fruit puree, no dairy or eggs in the mix. These days, that standard definition has slipped quite a bit. Witness our one sorbet in this book. It doesn’t include dairy or eggs; it also substitutes peanut butter for the fruit.
FROZEN YOGURT • just what it seems—churned, frozen yogurt. However, we always add a little cream. Why not? We want an ultrasoft texture that keeps that yogurt zip intact.
SEMIFREDDO • a frozen loaf of utter bliss, not churned, instead built from three components. Despite pale imitations in Italian-American restaurants, a semifreddo is actually a mix of pastry-chef favorites: a zabaglione (a thickened egg-yolk sauce), a Swiss meringue (a cooked egg-white-and-sugar mix, like Marshmallow Fluff), and whipped cream. It’s complicated to make. You’ll dirty every bowl you own. It’s also one of our passions. We’ve included two here plus a “semifreddo-ish” version of Bavarian cream, a traditional sauce.
First, here’s the rule: churn frozen treats as little as possible.
Now here’s the explanation. Ice creams, gelati, and the rest are frozen foams: air is churned into a liquid, even a thickened liquid, which in turn freezes around those bubbles to create a pleasingly light texture. In fact, ice cream’s famed creaminess is a result of the churned-in air, not the thickened custard. If you don’t believe us, try setting a small bowl of chocolate pudding in your freezer overnight and then sample the results.
In industry parlance, the amount of churned-in air is the “overrun”—that is, how much the volume of the final ice cream “runs over” the original volume of the custard. Standard, store-brand ice cream can have a 100 percent (or more!) overrun. That means the ice cream is at least double the volume of its starting mixture. Or to put it another way, it’s at least half air. Thus, it turns foamy as it melts: all that air comes out of suspension. A premium ice cream is denser: maybe a 50 percent overrun, or a creamier 30 percent overrun, or even a ridiculous 15 percent overrun.
We do indeed want some air in the mix (otherwise we’re eating a block of frozen pudding) but we don’t want too much (otherwise we’re eating foamy nothingness). With home ice cream machines, the bulk of the air is churned in once the custard starts to firm up. After all, an ice-cream machine’s dasher is not moving as fast as, say, the beaters of an electric mixer; the dasher can hardly put much air into a still-liquid custard. It adds more as the custard freezes. And again, we want to churn in just enough air for a great texture, not so much as to make the ice cream foamy.
To churn less, everything must be cold. If the insert to your ice-cream maker needs to be frozen, it must, indeed, be frozen. It should frost when you take it out of the freezer (unless you live in zero-humidity Nevada). Nothing should slosh inside. If you’re using a machine with a built-in compressor, follow the manufacturer’s instructions: some require the compressor to run for a bit before freezing; others are plug-and-play. And if you’re churning by hand (the old-school way), you need to follow the manufacturer’s instructions, adding salt to the chipped ice around the canister to drop the freezing point below 32°F.
No matter which machine you’ve got, put its dasher and lid in your freezer for an hour or two before you make ice cream. The colder they are, the less air you’ll churn in (and so the lower the overrun). Or store the lid and dasher in your freezer so they’re ready when you are.
In like manner, chill the custard or other ice cream mix before freezing it in the machine. In fact, most of these mixes can be made at least a day in advance and stored overnight in the refrigerator. As a bonus, their flavors will mellow and balance. So plan ahead.
While we’re at it, read the instruction booklet for your machine. Refresh your memory by looking it up online if you’ve lost the original. Clean and dry the parts that will touch food.
But what if you’re ready for ice cream now and don’t have four hours to chill the custard? Fill a very large bowl about halfway with ice, add a little water, then pour the custard into a medium bowl. Set this in the ice bath and chill, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes, replenishing the ice as necessary.
All of the above about overrun and air leads us to two final points:
1 • If you’re going to eat a frozen dessert right out of the machine, enjoy it slightly underfrozen, when it’s still a bit soft. It’ll be creamier and richer with a lower overrun.
2 • If you’re going to make the frozen dessert and store it in your freezer for a while, keep churning it to get a little more air into it, until it’s firmer and the dasher has a hard time pulling through it, until it pulls away from the sides of the canister. In this case, it will be firm enough that it won’t trap many ice crystals as it becomes more solid in your freezer. You’ll end up with creamier ice cream when you finally enjoy it.
Before we ever get to the ice-cream machine, how do you know when a custard is, well, a custard—when it has thickened to the right point to make the creamiest ice cream or gelato? What we’re about to tell you is one of the most innovative features of this book. (And a food geek’s dream come true.)
There’s a long-standing culinary trope about custards, invoked once all the eggs, dairy, and possible thickeners are in the saucepan over the heat: cook them until they can coat the back of a wooden spoon. In other words, dip a wooden spoon in them, run your finger along its back, and watch the line you make; it should have distinct edges that do not run when you tilt the spoon this way and that.
Great. But there are two problems. First, that’s a pretty subjective cue. What if your notion of a firm line isn’t ours? And second, reading that explanation takes about as long as doing it—and the custard is over the heat at a delicate point while you’re adjudicating lines. You should be stirring; you could scramble the eggs.
We advocate a more scientific approach. Either use a (cleaned and dried!) instant-read meat thermometer or invest in a laser thermometer to take the custard’s temperature as you stir it (thereby keeping hot and cold spots even throughout). Yes, eggs start to curdle (that is, scramble) at about 160°F at sea level. They are fully scrambled at 170°F at sea level. However, there are various protective barriers in all these custards: fats (the cream, egg yolks, sometimes even butter) and/or other thickeners (flour, cornstarch, etc.). We can push these custards to 175°F, maybe 178°F in some cases—but that’s the outer limit, the breaking point. So we feel the best custards for gelato and the like should be cooked to 170°F at sea level. We want it as close to curdling as possible for the thickest gelato or frozen custard from the machine.
You must stir. Do not whisk. Use a wooden spoon. In fact, search cookware stores and sites for a wooden spoon with a small point off of one side, specifically designed to get into the crook of a saucepan. And keep the heat low. Be patient. We say it takes a range of timing: 4 to 7 minutes or 5 to 9 minutes or the like. Even such wide time markers can be misleading based on how much heat the “low” setting on your stove puts out or the rate at which you stir.
With a thermometer in hand, you’ll never be wrong. Unless you don’t live at sea level (or within 2,000 feet of it). At 3,500 feet above sea level, cook the custard—stirring constantly—until it’s at 167°F. At 5,000 feet, until it’s at 165°F. And at 8,000 feet, until it’s at 159°F. Split the difference at other elevations.
You’re about to use a lot of egg yolks (as well as some whites), and you’re about to get messy.
First rule of thumb: Crack an egg against a flat countertop, never the rim of the bowl. You’re less likely to drive bits of shell inside. Residual contaminants can lurk on the shell. Its shards can also puncture the yolk.
To separate eggs, go with the pastry chef–approved method. (You squeamish, swallow hard.) Wash and dry your hands. Set a bowl in the sink or on the countertop. Crack the egg out of its shell and into one palm. Put your hand over the bowl. Spread your fingers slightly and tip your hand so that the white runs between your fingers and into the bowl below, cupping the yolk in your palm. Now put the separated yolk in a second bowl. Then soldier on to get as many yolks and/or whites as you need.
Unused egg whites can be frozen in a sealed glass or plastic container. Or put one white in each slot of a plastic ice cube tray, then freeze them hard. Unmold them and seal in a plastic bag. Date it so you know their freshness. Use within 1 year. They should be used only for dishes in which they’re thoroughly cooked (like cakes and quick breads).
Unused egg yolks are more difficult. Whisk in ⅛ teaspoon salt for each large egg yolk, then freeze in a sealed glass or plastic container for up to 4 months. Again, use them only in dishes in which they’re thoroughly cooked.
In either case, thaw them in the refrigerator overnight. As a general rule, 2 tablespoons thawed frozen egg white = the white of 1 large egg; 1 tablespoon thawed frozen egg yolk = the yolk of 1 large egg. Use frozen yolks within 4 hours of thawing.
Most of these recipes make a quart (or 4 cups). Some make a little more (say, 5 cups); a few, a little less, based on egg/cream ratios that ended up compromised if the overall volume was increased. (Interested in adding half an egg yolk? We thought not.)
Some older canister-insert machines make exactly 1 quart, no room to spare. If you’ve got one of these, pour in the custard or ice cream mix to its requisite fill line and freeze away. Cover the remainder of the custard mix (or what you have) and store it in the refrigerator to freeze in a second batch later in the day or even tomorrow.
In the end, different machines will add different amounts of air based on the torque of the motor, the churning speed, and the surface area exposed to the ambient environment. We have two built-in-compressor machines, exactly the same make, year, and model number. One will make 4 cups (a quart) on the nose; the other, sometimes 4½ cups from the same recipe. Yours may make a full quart, a little more, or even a little less, depending not only on the speed and torque but also on the temperature of the custard when it goes in as well as the temperature of the dasher and even the machine’s lid.
If you’re not going to eat a frozen dessert right out of the machine (whatsamattawichew?), spoon it into a glass or plastic container, seal it tightly, and store it against the floor of your freezer (or otherwise against the coldest part in newer-fangled appliances).
We suggest storage lengths for every frozen dessert in the book. Our numbers are subjective but based on the custard’s thickness, its overrun capacity, the sugar level, the presence of mix-ins, and/or the effectiveness of its thickeners. Some frozen custards have never lasted more than a few days in our house. Who are we kidding? More than a few hours. We’re looking at you, Salt Caramel. No matter, self-defrosting freezers are the enemies of ice cream. Their temperature rises to just above freezing on a set cycle, thereby melting any ice crystals in the unit but also melting any stored ice cream a bit—and then refreezing it, now with its own crystals in tow. Sad to say, most ice creams won’t keep their pristine texture. If you intend to keep the ice cream or gelato more than a week (seriously?), press plastic wrap directly against its surface once it’s frozen hard, then seal the container and store it in the coldest part of your freezer. However, always set the custard out on the countertop for a few minutes to soften it up. The flavors will be more pronounced; the texture, more irresistible.
Now that you know the problems of overrun and the best temperature for the set of custards, let’s nail down a few more ways to get great results.
1 • USE ROOM-TEMPERATURE EGGS AND EGG YOLKS.
They will thicken more quickly when beaten with sugar or when stirred over the heat. You want to keep the custard as thick and rich as possible before it hits the ice-cream machine. You can get your eggs at room temperature in two ways. One, crack them out of their shells, separating the yolks from the whites if necessary, and set them in a small bowl on the countertop for 15 minutes. Or two, submerge the eggs in their shells in a bowl of warm (not hot!) tap water for 5 minutes.
2 • IN ALMOST ALL CASES, BEAT THE ROOM-TEMPERATURE EGGS AND THE SUGAR TO THE “RIBBON STAGE.”
Such cookbook terminology is a long-standing marker of the desired consistency. You’ll know you’ve hit it when the mixture’s color lightens considerably because of all that added air and the mixture slides from the turned-off beaters in thick, fairly wide ribbons (not thin dribbles), ribbons that lie on top of the mixture in the bowl below before slowly dissolving. You want to reach the ribbon stage to make sure the sugar has dissolved enough that it won’t revert to a granular form when heated and to make sure there’s enough air in the mixture to provide a fluffy, light consistency to the ice cream. If you have a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment (not the paddle).
3 • WHEN YOU BLEND HOT INGREDIENTS, REMOVE THE CENTER KNOB FROM THE BLENDER’S LID.
Doing so will mitigate a pressure buildup inside the canister. You’ll avoid a spray of hot liquid all over you and your cabinets. That said, lay a clean kitchen towel over the small opening.
4 • TEMPER THE EGGS CAREFULLY.
When asked to do so, start by beating some of the hot milk or cream mixture into the eggs until smooth, then beat this combined mixture into the remaining milk or cream mixture in the saucepan. You can’t shortchange this step but you can prolong it. We’re not trying to beat in air; we’re just trying to get the eggs adjusted to the heat. The whole tempering process start to finish should take you about a minute (provided all your equipment’s out and ready to go).
5 • WATCH ELECTRIC CORDS AROUND HEATING ELEMENTS.
In general, when you’re using an electric mixer to beat things in a saucepan, take the pan off the heat (put it on a hot pad on your countertop, if necessary) so the cord isn’t near an open flame or a heating element. That said, you must sometimes beat over the heat—for example, when you’re making a zabaglione or a Swiss meringue for a semifreddo. Pull the cord back; always note where it is.
6 • STRAIN THE HOT CUSTARD BEFORE CHILLING IT.
Pass it through a fine-mesh sieve unless it has bits of fruit, nuts, or such in the mix. Remember: you’ve worked to get the custard to the edge of the point at which the eggs would scramble. There may be hot spots in the pan—or spots you missed with your wooden spoon—in which case there may be a few tiny bits of scrambled egg. A fine-mesh sieve will take care of the problem. But if you don’t have one, don’t worry. To improvise, line a standard colander with cheesecloth. Or go commando and skip this step. Skim through the custard, off the heat, to make sure there are as few eggy bits in it as possible. If a few remain, spoon them out. Even if you miss some, they won’t ruin the dessert once it’s churned and frozen.
