First Outing of my Ninja Creami

[kerravonsen]

So my Ninja Creami see previous post) arrived today. And as I had two pre-frozen tubs of ice cream base, I was able to start right away. After reading the manual, that is.

Being warned by the reviews, I wore headphones while operating the machine. That definitely helped.

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

As expected, utterly delicious. I am currently eating it. It is worth noting that there is a thin 1-2mm crust of mango-ice on the sides of the container. Which makes sense, they would need to leave a portion un-smooshed so as to not risk the blade touching the sides of the tub and causing mayhem and destruction.

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

This worked too. Rich raspberry red, slightly tangy full-bodied raspberry flavour; you wouldn't have known it was solid raspberries interspersed with milk before it got pulverised -- except that one can see the original mix showing in the ice-crust on the sides of the tub.

I have now prepared a third tub, which is now in the freezer.

Tub 3: Coffee inspired by James Hoffman's recipe

I actually prepared it yesterday and it has been in the fridge awaiting the proper tub to pour it into. Considering that some people in the comments to the coffee ice cream video said that the mixture can only be improved by letting it sit in the fridge to let the flavours meld, I'm happy for that.

• 350ml coffee (made in pourover style with 35g ground coffee and 500ml water - I put the rest in a smoothie)
• 2 tablespoons Natvia
• 1/2 teaspoon Guar Gum
• 1 teaspoon Dutch cocoa
• 1/4 teaspoon citric acid powder
• 1/32 teaspoon salt

We shall see how that goes tomorrow.

I have two more tubs I can fill -- make that three, I just finished eating the mango sorbet. Yum.

Edited to add:

Note about the raspberry sorbet: the disadvantage of using the "smoothie bowl" method is that, if one is eating it out of the tub, the ice on the sides melting will mean that you end up with milk in your sorbet. So I ended up taking a hint and making a milkshake with it. Which I enjoyed. But I don't think I'll be using the smoothie bowl method as much as I thought I would.

Also...

Tub 4: Date Loaf

Made up a packet of date loaf mix according to the instructions (one egg, plus water), though I added more water than they said to. That was more than enough to fill a tub, and the remains I made into date loaf cupcakes. I'm fairly confident that this will be good, because I've done it before, with my traditional ice cream machine.

Comments

[thewayne]

I'm glad it's working well for you.

I do 99% of my shopping at Albertsons, but a before Thanksgiving I went to another store that's a bit downmarket to pick up some needed things that Al's didn't have. And this other store had "ice cream milk", which I found interesting and have been pondering. Dunno if I would buy it if I ever buy a small ice cream machine, but I would research it and give it some thought.

[kerravonsen]

What is "ice cream milk" supposed to be? Milk especially made for making ice cream out of? Makes me wonder what they would have added to it. Probably thickeners. Seems a bit pointless to me...

[thewayne]

Yeah, I know.  Whole milk + heavy cream or just heavy cream by itself I think is about all you need for traditional recipes.  I dunno, been a while since I looked into the subject.