Ice Cream Making Musings

Hey guys! 

One of my recent goals is to doing something fun each week (or go an a mini adventure!) This week, I'm making ice cream at home with just five main ingredients - egg yolk, cream, milk and sugar, as well as your flavour of choice. 

I have an Ice Cream Recipe booklet back from 2019 when we attended the ice cream making workshop at Tom's Palette.

Six years later, I finally followed up on the promise to try making my own at home.

I chose to make two flavours - coffee and pistachio. 

For pistachios, I made my own paste by blending it. It's a tedious process but you need to be patient! The dry, nutty consistency will surprise you by suddenly transforming into a buttery texture at the very moment you feel like giving up.

I also blended some pistachios into small pieces and put them aside to use as toppings and texture in the ice cream. (To be added after some churning)

After all the cooking and sieving, the recipe instructs us to pour the mixture into stainless steel bowls. I don't have any such bowls, but then I remembered we had Zebra stainless steel tiffin carriers, that came with covers too! I thought I was a genius because this takes up little space in my crowded freezer.

It's giving: Big Brain Energy (until you need to dabao...)

☕ For the coffee ice cream, I had to use creamer (luckily I usually collect some from hotel stays...) to thicken it as it was still very watery after heating and mixing it on the stove.

You can see ice crystals on the surface of the coffee ice cream, but the pistachio texture looks much creamier even though I barely added any creamer to it. 

After second churn, I decided to add the chopped pistachios in, but I probably should have added them at the very end for better aesthetics.

🍦 

Churning, or in my case - mixing is important so that you create larger ice crystals. This helps to slow down melting as well!

The coffee ice cream has an icy, sorbet feel to it. You can still see a lot of ice crystals forming. I'll try adding a bit more cream next time to get it thicker. 

The pistachio one has a much nicer texture! 

As you can see, the coffee one melted really quickly.

Flavour profiles:

Coffee: It's a little sweeter than I expected, but this tasted a bit like Mocha Almond Fudge from Andersen's. The texture is totally wrong, however, and I hope to thicken this considerably next time.

Pistachio:

Nice and nutty! Would be good if it's a tad creamier too. Was a bit worried as I used Salted Roasted pistachios (what I had on hand) but it turned out nice and balanced.

Overall thoughts:

I thought the coffee ice cream would turn out better than the pistachio since I really eyeballed it, but turns out somehow the pistachio texture was much better! Perhaps paste like flavourings are better than powders for getting a thicker consistency? Or perhaps pistachio, being a nut, has more fat in it.

Without any emulsifers or additions, it's gonna be hard to bring this ice cream anywhere out of the house!

It's a fun way to spend the weekend! Do ensure you have enough time to churn the ice cream though~

I'll share the original recipe and my own comments below:

 

For coffee I used Nescafe Gold Blend. 

I used the PB recipe for the pistachio ice cream, using a generous, heaped tablespoon of pistachio paste. 

The two recipes are essentially the same. For cream I used Emborg Whipping Cream (200ml), about $3.90 from the supermarket. I used the leftover cream for coffee.

Whatever brand of cream you use, make sure it has about 34-36% fat. Ice Cream needs FAT if a low fat option is gonna turn out pretty icy.

Let me know what flavour I should try next! The possibilities seem endless. And, if you happen to try this recipe, share with me your results!

Love,

Skye

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