Re: Culinaria: What's for dinner ?
by Darby on September 9th, 2015, 1:06 pm
So, two more batches with the ICE-21:
First up was a cantelope sorbet, which was too hard and crumbly when fully frozen, and a chunky. Next time I'll try pushing the puree through a medium strainer, and then perhaps a little liquid pectin to improve scoopability. More on pectin below.
Second up was an attempt at Ben & Jerry's "Cherry Garcia" Ice Cream. Cherries are out of season here in the northern hemisphere, so I looked around for substitutes and happened across a jar of whole sour cherry jam at my favorite indo-pak market. It seemed like a no brainer that instead of pitting and cooking cherries in simple syrup, I could just use a ready made jam that already has cooked whole cherries the simple syrup present. So, I got everything nice and cold, then pureed a pint of jam with 3/4 cup whole milk (reserving half a cup of jam for a brief chop, for texture), then added it to the machine with a pint of heavy cream, 3 oz of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate, 1/8th tsp salt, and (this was a successful guess) 1 tsp of homemade vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp almond extract, and let it churn, and then transferred it to the freezer. The next day, the the flavor was very good, but the color was a bit like pepto bismol, and texture was a bit too soft ... comparable to room temperature whipped cream cheese. I checked the ingredients on the jam and lo and behold was a large amount of added pectin. Pectin apparently inhibits ice crystal formation. Next time I'll obviously have to cut back on the amount of jam, and supplement with dried sour cherries instead (perhaps partially moistened with a little vodka or white rum).
I'll upload a pic as soon as my device driver unborks ...