Howdy folks!

This weekend, we realized that we had never seen Celine and Pierre’s ice cream machine, which was sent a few months ago by Walt. We therefore decided to unite what are probably the only two existing machines in Clermont Ferrand, and to prepare a nice double dessert.

Pierre, driven by enthusiasm and ambition, had chosen nothing less than pistachio, which is considered by some of us as the Holy Grail of ice-cream… I decided to let him undergo this ordeal by himself, and to prepare something that would go well with his attempt. Chocolate seemed the best option…

I did not see Pierre’s preparation, but he described it to me and took a few pictures. He was not aware of the grinding problem, the main issue in this recipe : it seems to me (but correct me if I’m wrong) that Peter and David had tried to soak, peel and blend the pistachio, but that this gave a slightly powderish texture. Pierre, driven by his instinct, bought unroasted pistachios, peeled and ground them with a pestle and a mortar. To get a paste, he added powdered sugar, about the equivalent (in size, not in weight) of the pistachios. The pictures show it produced a nice, wet paste which Pierre chose not to sieve.

The rest of the ingredients is not very clear : about 10cl of cream, a handful of sugar, some milk, and a few seeds of cardamom… This gave about 60/70 cl of liquid, which was not a lot, but I suppose the peeling and grinding were so tedious that Pierre had decided to cut it short… We were afraid the machine wouldn’t work with so little a quantity, but it turned out to be ok…

For my part, I followed the chocolate gelato recipe (to be found on this site), which always proved to be reliable…

It was funny cranking the two machines at the same time. One single person could do it, with a lot of synchronization… The chocolate-filled machine went stiff much quicker than the other one but when we opened the canisters, the pistachio was in fact much firmer than the chocolate. The former just had a little more room in the container…

Results : the chocolate was as expected : rich and smooth. The pistachio had many qualities : the flavour was there, definitely, with a nice hint of cardamome. The texture was a little rough though : bits of nuts gave a little grittiness (which was not necessarily unpleasant…), and it lacked a certain smoothness that more cream could have brought. I think the mortar/pesle technique is an interesting idea and deserves to be investigated. Many thanks to Pierre and his family for showing us a different way on the nut ice cream, and for this pleasant desert!

Every year, in August, Celine’s friends meet  in a small campsite in Ardeche, a warm, hilly and dry region in the center of France, to celebrate the end of the holidays. It’s the occasion for everybody to enjoy the last summer days, to take a dip in the nearby cristal-clear river or in the pool, to play petanque or to drink the traditional aperitif while talking about everything that’s wrong in France.

Celine and I were invited, and we offered to bring some ice-cream. The two requests we had were chocolate and blackcurrant. Our adventurous spirit drove us to choose the never-tried-before one, of course.

It was a little late in the year to pick the fruit ourselves, and anyway the only blackcurrant bushes I know are in La Sagne (see Redcurrant Post), which was 150kms away. We had to find another solution.

I remember using, with Peter, a sort of blueberry cordial for a previous ice-cream, which turned out to be a little disappointing, so I was not expecting much from bottled berries, but when I found a refrigerated bottle of pure fresh blackcurrant juice in an organic shop, I thought I could give it a try.

It was pure juice, and yet it was extremely concentrated. We first tried drinking it, but had to dilute it and add a little sugar to make it a pleasant drink. Blackcurrant essence… I was getting more and more confident.

I used the Russell recipe, and added 60 cl of blackcurrant juice, which immediately coloured the mix. The liquid traveled from Clermont-Ferrand to Ardeche in a sealed bag. We knew 4kg of ice were waiting for us in the campsite manager’s freezer…

We arrived right in the middle of a game of petanque, and started cranking immediately after the greetings. People came in turns to crank between two petanque throws.

The ice-cream had an amazing purple colour, and everybody agreed to say it was exceptional. The berry taste was intense, fresh and slightly acidic, and yet smoothed by the presence of the cream in an amazing combination. And the week end was just starting…. 

Gosh, it’s been so long I haven’t posted anything! This is not due to a decrease in the ice-cream making activity, but rather to a lack of pictures, making posts less interesting. Fortunately, I now have a phone with a camera, and will try to post more often.

Anyway, August has been very hot in France, with temperatures exceeding 30°C at night (which, I’ve learnt, is the condition to call the phenomenon a heat wave). I was at my parent’s house these last few days, and one afternoon we were desperately trying to find a way to cool down. My mother had just bought a whole watermelon, and didn’t know what to do with (supermarkets…). Celine suggested a solution to the two problems…

We peeled (I’m not sure it’s the suitable verb, considering the very thick skin…) the watermelon, chopped it down to pieces and carefully removed all the black seeds (tedious but compulsory). Once blended, it represented an amount of approximately 1100mL.

While making the sugar syrup , we had the idea of infusing herbs in it, to complexify the rather bland taste of the watermelon, and add some originality to the treat. After hesitating between a few samples (basil, thyme…) we decided to go for fresh mint, that seemed to be the most refreshing herb (gosh we were so hot…). Thus we added a handful of leaves to the syrup, composed of 250g of sugar and the equivalent of water. Once the syrup cooled down, we sieved and simply poured everything into the canister.

The cranking went normally in spite of the temperature, and in less than 30 minutes we had our refreshing snack. It was pleasant, not to sweet, perfectly adapted to the situation. The mint was very mild but perceptible, and the watermelon was…as you could expect it. All in all, I don’t think it was an outstanding sorbet, but everyone enjoyed it.

Back to business!

It’s been a while since my last post, but the ice-cream frenzy is still on!

Last weekend, my friend Bastien had a few visitors : his brother and his girlfriend, who live in Youngstown, Ohio.  Bastien’s sister and a friend of hers also joined this happy family gathering.

Knowing that Bastien lives about twenty meters far from us, a sunny sunday afternoon was a perfect occasion for a casual, laid-back lunch, involving, of course, ice cream.

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Calisson ice-cream had been on our mind for a while now, since we got offered a tiny ice-cream recipes book with this one featuring.

Calisson is a small delicacy from the south of France. It is aesthetically perfect, a smooth and silky pebble with sharp angles making it as streamlined as an Airstream van. I’ve always been fond of this almondy paste with a sugar icing… although I have to say the taste is not that refined. But calissons benefit from their everlasting reputation of luxury delicacy.

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Charline, a friend of Céline’s, had planned a big party in her new flat on the 14^th of February, partly to dance like crazy but also to relieve people from this indigestible tradition that is called Valentine’s Day. Charline is a connoisseur, she offered me a recipe book about ice cream (containing an interesting Calisson ice cream recipe I’d like to try one of these days…), and so the standards were quite high… And yet we did not have much time and ingredients. Therefore we opted for an easy-to-make and yet original sorbet: Litchi and lime sorbet.

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By Jove, the blog is as rusted as the mechanism of our beloved machines. But it still works! I just wish other crankers would write more often. And I wish I could crank with them! When is the next meeting of the ice cream team?

Anyway, I brought the machine home for the Christmas holidays in Auvergne. I thought we would serve gallons of frozen dessert, but due to the huge amount of food already present, we did only one batch. It was still worth bringing the machine!

To go with the chocolate cake of Christmas Eve, the best flavour seemed to be tangerine, light and refreshing seasonal fruit.

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This week end, Dear Old Pat came to visit. Having lived with Peter, he shares our ice cream frenzy, and insisted for doing one batch. No need to say it twice!

I had been wanting to make fig ice cream for a while. I’ve been told this was not a good idea, considering the very light flavour of fresh figs, and the multiple seeds contained in them. But as I’m stubborn, and as figs were cheap on the market, we tried nonetheless.

The Ice book supports the making of a custard to get the best flavour in the ice cream. But custards are long and tedious to make, and the Russell Recipe is so tempting….

Ingredients:
- 1kg of fresh figs
- 1 cup of sugar
- 250 mL of cream
- 2 eggs
- About 1/2L milk

Cook the figs with a few tablespoons of water. Let them simmer until the skin is tender (about 15min). Then blend them, but not too thin (you don’t want to crush the seeds).
Beat 1 egg and a yoke with the sugar. Add the cream. Sieve the fig puree (you can choose to leave a few seeds to keep the characteristic crunch, but do not let them all, it would be most unpleasant), and enough milk to fill the canister.

We went cranking in the street, with 2 other friends. The machine is slowly making its reputation through Paris.

The ice cream was delightful, smooth and creamy. The fig flavour was very light, but nonetheless present. I guess if you want to obtain a strong flavour you have to make a custard, and even infuse fig leaves.

It’s been a while since we’ve made that one, but never too late to write a post!

After the more-than-disappointing lemon ice-cream we made in Carbisdale Castle during our Hebridean trip (the lemon juice curdled the milk, and we ended up with a gross yoghurt-flavoured ice cream… and yet our roommate shouted “It’s the best ice cream I’ve ever had”, in his sleep, in the middle of the night, hu hu…), I needed a better experience with lemon.

I have to say my brother is a huge lemon sorbet fan, he tries them everywhere he can, and his expectations are quite high. When he asked us to make one, pressure was therefore on us…

We followed the recipe from the book “Ices”, that is to say:

-10 lemons

- 750mL of sugar syrup

-250mL water

- 1 egg white

We put the zest of 10 lemon in the syrup, brought it to the boil, then added the juice, and left it to cool. It’s probably better to wait something like 12h, but we did not have time…

The peculiarity of this sorbet is that we opened the machine at mid-cranking to add the beated egg-white. This is supposed to give a better consistency. It’s actually not that hard, you just need another bucket: remove the canister from the machine and open it, then put the ice and water in a separate bucket (otherwise you won’t be able to replace the canister), the replace canister and ice in the machine, and resume cranking!

My brother was not disappointed, and ranked our sorbet among the best ones he had ever tried. It was very strong but not too acidic, and incredibly refreshing. A true success.

Another interesting element has made its appearance in the quest for the nut ice cream: almond milk. We’ve discovered this peculiar liquid in an organic shop, first for drinking but then, on account of its slight bitterness, for using in an ice cream.

Abricot seemed to be the fruit to go with, sweet, delicate… And almond/abricot is a common combination, maybe because one contains the other…
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