Ice Cream Experiment In Near Future

[kerravonsen]

I have ordered myself a Ninja Creami ice cream maker, which uses a completely different approach to ice-cream making than the traditional one of churning-while-freezing. Instead, it creates the tiny ice-crystals characteristic of ice cream by taking a tub of completely frozen solid "ice-cream base" and pulverizing it into submission. This James Hoffmann video is what put me on to its existence. There seems to be disagreement amongst reviewers as to whether the texture is better or worse than traditionally made ice-cream, due to the fact that traditionally made ice cream has more air in it. And it may be that ice-cream made with it doesn't retain its creaminess when frozen and eaten the next day, but that's something which remains to be seen -- I suspect that the reviewers ate all their ice-cream immediately...

You have to prepare the ice-cream base the day before, put it in one of their special tubs, and freeze it solid, before one can use it. Which is a drawback for the impatient, but it isn't as bad as the cheap ice-cream makers where you have to freeze part of the machine itself beforehand, and thus can only make one batch every 24 hours. That is why I bought, a long time ago, an expensive ice-cream maker, which has a built-in freezer, which means one can make ice cream as quickly as one can clean out the machine for a new batch. At least with the Ninja Creami, while one does need special tubs (so that they lock into the machine correctly) one can at least prepare more than one tub at once. The machine comes with three tubs, and one can order extra tubs as well.

It so happens that I ordered extra tubs, and that the extra tubs arrived before the machine did. So I have decided to prepare two ice-cream bases beforehand, so they would be ready to try out when the machine does arrive. And I thought it would be a good idea to note down what I actually put in them before I forget.

Tub 1: 2 mangoes pureed with 1 tablespoon of Natvia.

This is basically my normal Mango Sorbet recipe, so I have high confidence it will work.

Tub 2: Frozen raspberries, milk (with 1 tablespoon of Natvia dissolved in it)

This is based on one of the recipes which I saw someone do in a review, except they were using fresh mango chunks, and no Natvia. But the main idea being fruit with milk poured over it, without pureeing it beforehand. If it works, it would save some preparation time.

I definitely have more ideas for things I want to try, James Hoffmann's coffee ice-cream being one of them. Or perhaps a mocha version. And my simple vanilla frozen yoghurt recipe, which mainly consists of my favourite brand of vanilla yoghurt. I'm also pondering peas with fresh mint. And honey carrots. After all, if one can make carrot cake, why not carrot ice cream?

Comments

[thewayne]

For a long time I considered getting the ice cream maker attachment for my mixer, a large Hobart/Kitchenaid that's approaching 50 years old. Never got around to it. A friend of mine raves about the Cuisinart standalone, says it's quite the good product. If I ever get enough functional cabinet space, it becomes a possibility.