The spin of the machine, the rotation of the tub, the rhythm of another instalment of
400 FLAVOURS
Recipe 013: Blueberry Vanilla
This started as a “use up something” recipe cause I had some blueberry juice on hand, but when I actually tasted it, it just didn’t have the flavour I wanted. So, I used a sweet cream base from Jeni’s (one from another book, a little different than my usual), and made a blueberry syrup with actual blueberries. A check of the Flavor Thesaurus suggested pairing blueberry with vanilla, and, here we are.
Blueberry syrup (I didn’t add sugar so maybe it’s not technically a syrup, but):
Ingredients:
1 cup regular blueberries
1 cup “wild” blueberries (I got both these bags frozen, I’m not out on the mountain trails picking blueberries myself)
½ cup water
Instructions:
In a saucepan, put the berries and water together and heat on medium.
Once water is simmering, turn down heat to low and let simmer for half an hour or so, until the berries are mush.
You can mash the berries to help get out the juices, but be careful of drops splattering out and staining things!
Strain out the mash to get a thick juicy syrup.
Blueberry vanilla ice cream:
Ingredients:
Syrup from above (about 2/3 of a cup)
2 + 2/3 cups whole milk
5 tsp corn starch
2 oz cream cheese, softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1.5 cups heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup clear corn syrup
¼ tsp Fresh Blueberries flavour (optional; I used Lorann’s, but you do what you’d like)
Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch with two tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl, whisking to make a slurry. Set aside.
Whisk cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Set aside.
In a large pot, mix the remaining milk, cream, sugar, and corn syrup over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar and corn syrup. Once the mix gets to a boil, let it boil for four minutes.
Remove pot from heat and whisk in the corn starch slurry.
Return pot to heat, have it reach a boil, and stir until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
Remove from heat. Carefully pour a bit of mix into the cream cheese bowl, whisking to make sure the cream cheese is melted into the mix, then add the rest of the mix.
Add blueberry syrup (and any food colouring if you want to make it more blue, mine was sort of a light purple at this stage before food colouring). Add blueberry flavouring. Stir to incorporate.
Let cool, or put bowl into a large bowl filled with ice water to speed cooling.
Once cool, put into fridge for at least 4 hours.
Once chilled in fridge, churn mix until soft serve thick, about 25 minutes.
TASTING NOTES: Melts well, I think due to the amount of blueberry concentrate. Good taste, very forward with the blueberries.
WORTH MAKING: Yeah! I I think I could do more to bring out the vanilla, but it’s good. Maybe tonka beans or another similar flavour would stand out more. Also some acidity might be nice.
Recipe 014: Saffron Lemoncake
Many years ago, I had a lemoncake gelato from Dolce Amore that sticks in my mind to this day. This is one attempt to recreate it. I added some cake bits to one container of it, but I like my ice cream sans cake so I did another container without. The original didn’t have any saffron, but Gerald suggested it, and it works gangbusters. The recipe is based on one for banana pudding ice cream from a reddit post; thanks, beachguy82!
Lemoncake cake bits:
Ingredients:
Small panettone cake you got as a holiday gift that you still haven’t eaten (100g)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp lemon instant pudding mix
Instructions:
Cut panettone into small cubes, about 1cm.
Toast in oven at 300 F for about 20-30 minutes, until just getting toasty.
While toasting, mix milk and pudding powder to make a lemon bath for the bits.
(in retrospect, also prep a small baking sheet with a layer of parchment paper, and preheat oven to 350 F)
Remove from oven and put cake bits into a bowl with the lemon bath.
Quickly see that the cake is falling apart faster than you thought, realize if you let it soak further it’s all just gonna be mush, and hurriedly strain out the milk from the cake bits.
Arrange the soggy cake bits on the pan so they’re not touching each other, and bake for 30-40 minutes, until moisture is evaporated and cake bits seem stable.
Remove cake bits from oven, let cool, and mix into ice cream later.
Saffron lemoncake ice cream:
Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 big pinches of saffron
1/4 teaspoon clear artifical vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup lemon instant pudding mix (roughly, y’know; I just used up the packet I opened to make the cake bits)
Zest of one lemon
Cake bits from above
Instructions:
In a large pot, mix the cream, milk, sugar, saffron, and salt. Head over medium until it gets to 170 F.
Let mixture cool a bit, then whisk (or immersion blend) in the vanilla extract and lemon pudding mix.
Chill in fridge for at least 2 hours.
Churn until soft-serve consistency. Add lemon zest just before finishing churning.
Put into chilled container, adding cake bits as you scoop it in as desired, and freeze overnight.
TASTING NOTES: Suprisingly rich and reminding me of Christmas times. It’s got a good tang, but stays mostly creamy, and the cake bits are ice and soft. The saffron is a good counterpart to the lemon.
WORTH MAKING: Yes, especially around the holidays.
Recipe 015: Rice Krispie Treat
I wanted to test out tempuring chocolate to enrobe crispy things so they’ll stay crispy in ice cream, for a future recipe (foreshadowing!). So this is crispy! It’s the sweet cream base again, except I melted in a few marshmellows before chilling it in the fridge.
White chocolate coated rice krispies:
Ingredients:
White chocolate (I used 85 grams (half a box) of Baker’s White Chocolate)
About a cup of rice krispies
Instructions:
Prep a baking sheet with parchment paper, and put the rice krispies on it.
Melt & temper the chocolate as per your desired method, I used the double boiler method of Serious Eats.
Pour the chocolate over the rice krispies, stirring to coat them, then spread them out and let the chocolate cool.
Once solid, break chocolate to leave little rice krispies with surrounding coating.
Rice krispies ice cream:
Ingredients:
2 + 2/3 cups whole milk
5 tsp corn starch
2 oz cream cheese, softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1.5 cups heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup clear corn syrup
4 medium marshmellows
¼ tsp Marshmellow flavouring (optional; I again used Lorann’s, but you do what you’d like)
Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch with two tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl, whisking to make a slurry. Set aside.
Whisk cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Set aside.
In a large pot, mix the remaining milk, cream, sugar, and corn syrup over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar and corn syrup. Once the mix gets to a boil, let it boil for four minutes.
Remove pot from heat and whisk in the corn starch slurry.
Return pot to heat, have it reach a boil, and stir until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.
Remove from heat. Cut up the four marshmellows into small chunks and add to hot mixture, stirring to have them melt and incorporate into the mix.
Carefully pour a bit of mix into the cream cheese bowl, whisking to make sure the cream cheese is melted into the mix, then add the rest of the mix.
Add marshmellow flavouring. Stir to incorporate.
Let cool, or put bowl into a large bowl filled with ice water to speed cooling.
Once cool, put into fridge for at least 4 hours.
Once chilled in fridge, churn mix until soft serve thick, about 25 minutes. Add rice krispies bits right before finishing churning.
TASTING NOTES: I think it could have more rice flavour, like soaking the milk in rice, or using rice milk somehow in the recipe. The marshmallow comes through, and the enrobed rice krispies do stay crispy!
WORTH MAKING: If you make it more rice-ish, yes.
Thanks for reading, and let me know if you try any of these recipes. Every week I’ll be posting one (or two, or three) more, until we reach….