We’ve got a trio of duos here this week on
400 FLAVOURS
So is that like, six flavours overall? I don’t know math.
Recipe 044: Grape & anise ice cream
Coming off of the grape sorbet, I had some uncooked, unmashed grapes left over. Checking the Flavor Thesaurus, it suggested anise as a pairing. So I made a star anise base using our usual Jeni’s recipe, put in a grape swirl, and tasted.
Grape syrup:
Ingredients:
1 cup concord grapes
½ cup white sugar
½ cup water
Instructions:
In a saucepan, put the grapes, sugar, 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 grapes are mush.
You can mash the grapes 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.
Put the syrup back over low heat & let it reduce until it reaches desired thickness. Stir often and pay attention so sugar doesn’t burn.
Grape & anise ice cream:
Ingredients:
Syrup from above (about 2/3 of a cup)
2 cups whole milk
1 + ¼ cup heavy cream
2/3 cup white sugar
4 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp clear corn syrup
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1.5 oz cream cheese, softened
Six pods star anise
Instructions:
Heat the milk until it’s lightly boiling.
Grind the star anise in a spice grinder and add it to milk. Stir it in well, turn off the heat, and let it steep for half an hour to an hour.
Strain the milk to remove the ground anise.
Mix the cornstarch with two tablespoons of the cream 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 milk, remaining 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 two minutes.
Remove pot from heat and whisk in the cream & 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.
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.
Put ice cream into a chilled container, pouring the syrup over it as you do to incorporate it.
TASTING NOTES: Very good! The grape and the anise do work surprisingly well together. The syrup is a bit much, I think that putting in ¾ of the amount I did would be better. Dialing in the proper ratio of syrup is a skill I’m working on.
WORTH MAKING: Absolutely.
Recipe 045: Green apple & vanilla ice cream
This was a themed request from friend DJ! If ~YOU~ have a request, hit me up and we’ll see what we can do!
Green apple & vanilla ice cream:
Ingredients:
4 cups whole milk
3 tbsp corn starch
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
2.5 cups heavy cream
1 + 1/3 cup white sugar
¼ cup clear corn syrup
Green apple flavouring, 1 tsp or to taste
Pear flavouring, ¼ tsp or to taste
Vanilla, 1 tsp or to taste
Neon green food colouring
Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch with four 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.
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.
After chilling in fridge, divide into two equal portions. Flavour one portion with the vanilla. Flavour the other with the green apple and pear flavourings, and add colour.
Churn both mixes, at the same time if you have two machines, until soft. Pack into containers, giving it a few swirls in order to incorporate the two flavours.
TASTING NOTES: I’m not usually an apple fan, but I think this worked out really well. The addition of pear gives it a sweeter & deeper body, and the paring with vanilla works really well.
WORTH MAKING: For sure.
Recipe 046: Blackberry & goat cheese ice cream
This was a request from friend Pat. There’s a few recipes with jalapeno ice cream or sorbet out there, but I wanted to start with this lemon sorbet recipe from Serious Eats & modify it by adding jalapenos and using limes instead of lemons. I made a suspension/juice/forbidden matcha from the jalapenos and added it to the rest of the mix to bring in the flavour and heat. Jalapenos vary in their strength, so I bought six of em and picked the spiciest two. Good luck in your spicy pepper hunt!
Blackberry syrup (I didn’t add sugar so maybe it’s not technically a syrup, but):
Ingredients:
1 cup blackberries
½ cup white sugar
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.
Blackberry & goat cheese ice cream:
Ingredients:
Syrup from above (about 2/3 of a cup)
2 cups whole milk
2 tsp corn starch
6.5 oz soft goat cheese, even more softened
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
1 + 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp clear corn syrup
Instructions:
Mix the cornstarch with two tablespoons of the milk in a small bowl, whisking to make a slurry. Set aside.
Whisk goat 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.
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.
Put churned mix into a chilled container, pouring in blackberry syrup as you do so to incorporate it.
TASTING NOTES: The flavour is good. The blackberry does work really well with the light touch of goat cheese. But the texture is wrong. It’s much too thick and clumpy, and hard to melt even in the mouth. I had reduced the amount of corn starch, but I think getting right of it entirely, perhaps even reducing the amount of cream, would help.
WORTH MAKING: Yeap, with less stabilizers.
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….