The Ice-Cream Journal

Banana Choco Goodness

theicecreamjournal — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:51:21 +0000

This home-version of Chunky Monkey is probably my most satisfying experiment to date. It took all of 15 mins to prepare the mixture and came out tasting yums. The banana ice-cream base recipe was taken from here, and I added mixed nuts and Lindt dark chocolate. To have banana without chocolate is just a sin.

What not to do when making your own ice-cream

theicecreamjournal — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 07:39:32 +0000

You can’t tell just by looking, but this cup of ordinary-looking but sinfully indulgent coffee was the result of my failed attempt at making condensed milk ice-cream. It turned out too sweet and didn’t even manage to emulsify. The only way to have it was with coffee.

Lessons learnt:
- Never ever put 2 cans of condensed milk into a 1-quart recipe
- Choose your recipes carefully
- When trying out new funky flavours, halve the recipe to reduce wastage

Experiment #1: Vanilla

theicecreamjournal — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 15:53:24 +0000

My first attempt at making ice-cream!

Please pardon the lack of styling! I was:
a) too eager to try it.
b) in a hurry to portion the remainder into plastic cups to bring to work.
c) half-lazy.
d) all of the above.

I used an ice cream recipe from Salon. I wanted to follow the exact instructions, but ended up making changes/mistakes. Instead of leaving half the cream till the end, I heated all of it with the milk and sugar right from the start.

Raw cream from Hokkaido.

Also made a mistake with the ice cream maker. I was supposed to switch it on before pouring in the mixture so as not to damage the motor. Despite reminding myself repeatedly, I forgot all about it.

Ice-cream maker hard at work

Still, I’m happy to report that the ice cream turned out fine! Fresh out of the maker, it tasted just like soft cream/soft serve. After a night in the freezer, the texture was just like commercial ice-cream (if not better ). It was just a little too sweet for me… Will try reducing the sugar, but MY said this may affect the smoothness of the ice-cream.

My kind colleagues who tried the ice-cream had very kind words for me. All said it was really smooth and creamy, which is probably because of the high percentage of fats in the raw cream (45% to be exact). It wasn’t intentional. This was the only kind of cream in my supermarket. According to Wikipedia, cream with at least 38% fats is known as extra-heavy, double or manufacturer’s cream in the US and is typically not available in retail stores.

Next attempt: chocolate ice-cream.

Midday strawberry kiss

theicecreamjournal — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:55:10 +0000

Nothing like a cup of fresh strawberry ice-cream to brighten up a dull and stressful Tuesday afternoon. The double cream balances out the tartness of the fruit perfectly this time around. Will need to work on making the texture even smoother though – more egg yolks to emulsify?

Virgin attempt

theicecreamjournal — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 04:51:27 +0000

Dark chocolate ice-cream made with a double-cream custard base and 70% dark chocolate. Super rich and aromatic. My kind of ice-cream, but the hubby thought it was too creamy. Will try light whipping cream the next time. Overall just really glad that it turned out more palatable than expected.

Once upon an ice-cream

theicecreamjournal — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:31:05 +0000

Since young, I’ve had a habit of eating up every last bit of ice cream in my cup/cone, even when it had melted. My dad scolded me for that. He said eating melted ice-cream isn’t good for the body. But whenever my parents weren’t looking, I’d finish up every last bit, melted or not.

Ice-cream is too good to waste.

When I was about eight or nine, I secretly ate ice-cream every night. My parents had bought a huge tub just before Chinese New Year, and I couldn’t stop helping myself to it. Of course, my parents wouldn’t have allowed me to eat so much ice-cream… and for good reason, because I ate so much ice-cream I got a very bad case of diarrhoea.

It hit one day before Chinese New Year.

So no CNY goodies for me that year… but I didn’t regret it at all. Of course, I have learned the hard way that everything should be eaten in moderation. But ice-cream should never be regretted.

The Ice-Cream Maker is Here!

theicecreamjournal — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 05:54:49 +0000

For the life of me, I can’t quite recall when or how my love affair with ice-cream started. It might have been the cheap but awesome Paddle Pop from the void deck mama shop; the first time I discovered Swensen’s Earthquake, the most indulgent dessert item in my book; or it could have been from my first bite of Ben & Jerry’s Strawberry Cheesecake – I swear that was a breathtaking (almost spiritual) moment.

And so during one of those inane but usually entertaining chats with YZ, we decided to make an epic attempt to take our love for ice-cream to the next level: by making our own. Fresh, homemade goodness, with any amount of chocolate, nuts and kooky and weird ingredients customised to our own liking – and no thrashy preservatives.

This is going to be so damn fun. Watch this space for more updates.

Spanking new Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker

Hello!

theicecreamjournal — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:09:53 +0000

We’ve only just started to churn the mix. Please check back soon!