Home made ice creams are absolutely delicious. If you are going to eat them right away, there is no need to sterilise and ice creams containing cream and milk are no more difficult to make than sorbets.
By René Espart, a Tom Press customer. Ice cream In the majority of cases, ice cream are made using a kind of vanilla cream and contain caster sugar and eggs, with or without the egg white.
The albumen is interesting because it is a natural stabiliser that brings the ice cream together well.
In a round bottomed bowl, mix the ingredients together with a whisk. The mixture will turn pale yellow in colour.
We are going to pour hot milk at 40 or 50°C onto this mixture. Now bring this liquid to 70°C while stirring constantly with a spatula. It will begin to thicken.
When this temperature is reached, turn off the heat: the base is now ready.
Now it is time to add the flavours (vanilla, chocolate, coffee, etc). Add a little crème fraîche and stir everything together. Now it is time to mature.
Personally, I prepare my mix in the evening and I leave it in the fridge overnight at 4 to 6° C. The next day, I make the ice cream at the freezing stage.
Ice cream makers have their own cooling system and they can go down to temperatures as low as -30°C making them very suitable, because in order to obtain quality ice cream, you need to have very low temperatures.
Sorbet machines in which the bowl is placed in a freezer also work very well, but you should avoid filling them too much.
Whatever the model, the paddle of the churn will bring the ice cream together gently and minimize the size of the ice crystals.
During the freezing period, you can incorporate ingredients such as rum soaked raisins, brandy prunes or some chocolate chips or other things…
Take a look at my recipe for Touron ice cream
Sorbets Sorbets are exclusively made using a fruit base. Sorbets never contain any fat!
You can make excellent sorbets using the fruit from your garden or from the market (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries etc).
In most cases, you will need to heat the fruit gently to extract some water. Drain and add the juice of a lemon which will heighten the taste, juice from an orange and sugar.
The proportions change depending on the fruit and the recipes. Use a juicer or a food processor to obtain fruit puree and put strawberries, raspberries and other fruit with tiny seeds through a strainer.
Leave it to cool in the fridge overnight and churn the next day.
Take a look at my recipe for Strawberry Sorbet.
René Espart held a high position at a famous ice cream and dessert manufacturer. Passionate about his profession and food processing, he is enjoying his retirement and using the time to cook, make his own meat products, etc. And of course he continues to make ice cream!
