Entries Tagged 'ice cream' ↓

I have been in South Africa for six years now. I came here to do my PhD and liked it so much I stayed on to do a post-doc. It really is an amazing country with diverse landscapes and diverse cultures. I could write a ten page testimonial about why it is great here but those of you that have been to SA will already know what I mean and those of you that haven’t should really get on a plane and experience it for yourselves rather than listen to me wax lyrical about how awesome it is. Sadly, next week I will be leaving South Africa and so to make the departure a little bit less sad, I thought I would make some ice-cream (that always cheers me up!).

The flavour I decided to go for is based on a desert I had when I was a kid. I have no idea how old I was but I remember going round to one of my parents friends houses for lunch and having the most amazing lime and blueberry cheesecake. Given that it was probably over 20 years since I ate this fabled desert and I still fantasize about it, I thought I should bite the bullet and try and re-create it with a Triple Motion twist.

Unfortunately the day I decided to crank there was not a lime to be found anywhere in Stellenbosch. This required emergency recipe intervention and so I ended up using preserved lime juice to flavour the mix and then because I found I needed  bit more citrusy zing I added lemon zest. The recipe for the lime and lemon ice-cream was then as follows:

• 8 tbs lime juice
• zest of 1 lemon
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups cream
• 2 cups full-fat milk

I though possibly mixing the blueberries in with the citrus combo might homogenize the flavours too much so instead I just softened the blueberries in a pan with a little sugar, crushed them to release the juices and then stirred through the ice-cream after it was cranked and ready to go in the freezer to finish setting.

The cranking its self took a REALY long time (nearly an hour), and it was not even that hot. Not sure why this was but we kept our selves amused by drinking wine and taking in the view so it was not all bad. I was pretty pleased with the end result – good distinction between the clean lemon and lime flavours of the ice-cream and the slightly sticky much sweeter blueberry swirl. I think it still would have been better to go with 100% lime rather than the mix but that is probably just because I am a purist like that!

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…. 

I have been fairly quiet on the Triple Motion blog for a while now.  I feel slightly embarrassed that I let life get in the way of a good cranking session and so as part of my mid-year resolution I am determined to make a mends. I was not really sure what flavour to go for to break the ice-cream famine so I went for something which is very close to my heart…coffee.

As a researcher who works in a university environment, coffee is an integral part of my day. In fact, I often muse that no science would ever get done if coffee was taken away from academics as it seems that the best ideas come up over a ‘cup o’joe’. Anyways, I am fairly particular about my coffee and try and maintain a certain standard. I have never drunk instant coffee and since at Christmas Dr Big D bought me a kick ass Kitchen Aid coffee grinder, there has been no stopping me. I usually buy my beans from a local coffee retailer who roasts on site daily and sells around 20 single origin varieties. I have been very impressed with their offerings but when the opportunity came along to take my coffee obsession to the next level, and roast my own beans, I jumped at the chance. I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to get back into ice-cream making too…from green bean to ice-cream…let the adventure commence!

The coffee roasting

The coffee roasting master class was led by Alsino who is a friend of my house mate. He is an advocate of the ‘dog-bowl’ method which as beautifully rustic as it sounds. Essentially what you need is:

• A metal dog bowl
• A paint stripping heat gun
• A wooden spoon
• Around 200g of green coffee beans

The process then is pretty simple. Put the beans in the bowl (Honduras beans in this case), crank up the heat gun and get stirring. The trick is to hold the gun close enough to the beans to get them hot (3-5 cm is best) but not so close that they burn. You need to keep siring all the time so you get a nice even roast.  Fairly soon, you start to get some smoke -this is totally normal but if indoors it could get a bit overpowering (go outdoors or near to an extractor fan). After about 5-10 min (depending on how close you hold the heat gun) the beans start to go a golden brown and shortly after that you hear the ‘first crack’. The best way to describe this is like popping corn. Once all the beans have ‘cracked’ everything goes quiet for a while and then you hear the ‘second crack’.  This is a bit like the sound of a snapping match. At this stage we pulled out as we did not want a really deep, bitter flavour to develop but you can carry on until you start to see some oil form on the surface of the beans (see below). At this point you should defiantly stop or you will just get burnt beans. Once you have finished the roasting it is best to try and cool them down as quickly as possible. We did this by pouring them from the dog bowl into a colander a few times.  6-8 hours later (or less if you were impatient like me) they are ready for grinding and drinking.

NOTE: I was going for a Vienna roast suitable for espresso here  but if you wanted something milder you could stop at the first crack (called City roast) or darker when the oil comes out (called French roast).

The ice-cream

For the ice-cream it was the traditional Russell mix base:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of strong coffee (made in Bialetti)
• 2 cups cream
• Top up with full cream milk

As there were plenty of people on-hand the cranking was over pretty quickly and before we could say cappuccino it was ready.

The flavour was pretty good and the texture nice and smooth. I think it could have coped with a bit more coffee maybe but then I am addicted so I would say that!

The search giant attempts to settle a historic argument.

Apparently 119 years ago today someone somewhere invented the Ice Cream Sundae – the classic dish of scoops of ice cream topped with syrup, whipped cream and the ubiquitous cherry. According to Wikipedia, there is some debate about where and when the ice cream sundae was invented, but today Google has featured the ice cream sundae in their logo, giving bias to Ithaca, New York’s claim to having invented the ice cream sundae on Sunday 3 April 1892.

However, I prefer the story from Evanston, Illinois. Not only does it come from the midwest, but it’s a much more fun genesis of this classic dessert. Apparently, in 1890 Evanston passed a blue law banning ice cream sodas on Sundays, so some clever drug stores worked out that they could remove the soda and just sell the ice cream and syrup. “This sodaless soda was the Sunday soda.” These ice cream sundays were a hit despite the irreverent origin, but they eventually changed the name to “Sundae” to placate local leaders who objected to such a sinful dessert being named after the Sabbath.

I’ve been making this for a number of years now to accompany christmas pudding and as an alternative to hot rum sauce. I like the contrast between hot dark rich pudding and cold refreshing ice cream. It’s become something of a family tradition.

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Just because I’ve been quiet on here recently doesn’t mean I haven’t been cranking. Quite the contrary!

What follows is a surprising treat, part by ingenuity, part by accident.

Jess invited me to make ice cream at her birthday party on a recent weekend and I was of course delighted to take two machines out to Fala and crank. On the bus I met an old man who was very fascinated by the two odd machines I was transporting and his excitement quickly turned to philosophising about the importance of fun.

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Back in March I took a trip out to South Africa to visit my sister, and whilst there we cooked up this little adventure.  Soon after arriving we had some beautifully ripe paw-paw for breakfast and decided to see if they’d make good icecream. To add a bit more interest we decided to try making it in the Cederberg national park – a spectacular semi-desert 300 km north of Cape Town.

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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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In celebration of Cheryl’s 30th birthday, I hauled my trusty half-gallon White Mountain freezer down to Brighton on the overnight MegaBus (10 hours of sheer pain!). Despite my sore back and neck, we were determined to make the effort worthwhile and decided to crank a simple batch of Maple Syrup Ice Cream. Cheryl’s friend had the great suggestion to add Morgan’s Spiced Rum to the mix, and we were off!

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