Ice Cream Attempt #3

Last week I was feeling pretty calm and confident and I knew that I had an evening along so I decided to take on ice cream. Real French ice cream. There are technically 2 styles of ice cream. French and Philadelphia style. French refers to ice cream in which an egg custard is made as the base of the ice cream. Philadelphia style just incorporates the ingredients into the ice cream maker to be chilled. So, when you see something called French Vanilla, it's not the type of vanilla or flavouring, but the way the ice cream was prepared and should contain eggs. I picked my test recipe. Vanilla cheesecake. I had bought fresh ripe cherries and was going to try blending those in as well. I also had sugar-free pound cake in the freezer that I bought when it was half off (my goodness, is it ever expensive to buy from Safeway otherwise!) for a future reduced sugar trifle.

Ice cream recipe

I read through this recipe a number of times before starting the process. Since custards I know to be a precise art, despite never having made one before, I wanted to be prepared. Ingredients out and at room temperature, tools and whisks at the ready, my ice bath in the sink waiting...

The first step was blending the cream cheese with the cream. 35% whipping cream, in fact, so I chose the reduced fat cream cheese. Maybe once I master ice cream, I'll feel confident enough to start improvising more on the ingredients and fat contents of each ingredient, but not just yet.

Cream cheese base

Now, this mixture goes into a saucepan to heat up, but I decided that before I did that, I would get the eggs prepped and ready so I wasn't doing 2 things at once. I had time so no sense in rushing myself. Eggs went into a metal bowl and with my new hand mixer, I blended them until they reached a delicate pale shade of yellow. Half of the sugar also went into this mixture so I wanted to be sure that it was very well incorporated.



Eggs, being whipped until light yellow and slightly thickened

 Now came the fun part. The precision part. This is when I like to be alone in the house while I am cooking. Full concentration. I feel like a chemist, pouring over some hair-brained experiment, being careful not to blow up the house. The cream mixture is now supposed to reach a simmer on medium heat. This means that steam will begin to rise from the liquid, but it should not boil. A careful watch is needed here. As soon as the mixture simmers, it should be taken off the heat, with a hand mixer at the ready. This is why I prepped the eggs ahead of time now... So, now you must temper the eggs. In the end, what needs to happen is that the eggs need to also be part of this cream mixture and simmering, as it's going to be the thick custard base for the ice cream. But, what would happen if you just dumped in the eggs, or heated eggs over the stove? Scrambled eggs, that's what. While I am a relatively adventurous ice cream eater, eggs are not going to be in my top 10 must try list. That is where tempering comes in. It means that you slowly raise the temperature of the eggs, slowly enough and with enough movement to keep the temperature rising slowly, that they do not cook, but instead bind with the other yummy fats and create a custard. How I did this with wonderful results was to turn on the hand mixer and start beating the eggs again, while pouring a steady but slow stream of the hot cream mixture into them, making sure they were well incorporated. After about 1/3 of the hot mixture was added, the eggs were tempered and now I put the cream saucepan back on the heat, and poured the tempered egg mix back into that pot. Now, I could raise the heat of the custard mixture, to create the creamy thick base I was looking for.

Cream mixture with tempered eggs added

Hard part number one done. Hard part number two coming up next. While many books suggested that I go by sight and timing (about 6 minutes) for the next step, which is bringing up the temperature of the custard mix while mixing it until thickened, I decided to use the thermometer method this book suggested and also time it. I have a candy thermometer that I have never used to make candy with (although I see that being a soon-to-be-tested experiment) so I had that out and ready. The problem came with attaching it to the pot. I immediately found out that the height of my pot walls wasn't high enough to hold the thermometer without it's tip touching the bottom of the saucepan. Hmm. I knew that this would skew my reading, so I used my spoon rest as an aid and off I went!

Custard mixture at its optimal 170F

Mixing the custard base as the temperature slowly rose, being careful not to scorch the milk. Finally, at 170 F, I did the spoon test. For a perfect custard, a wooden spoon dipped into the liquid should hold a firm trail if you swipe your finger down the centre of it. So, spoon dipped in, finger traced a line down the spoon, and the line remained, so it was done. Off the heat to cool. To speed up the cooling process, one if the ice cream books recommends using an ice bath. I had this ready to go. I filled the sink with cold water and the rest of the bag of ice that C was using for his drinks (sorry, hubs) and sat the metal bowl on top of the water, careful not to get any into the custard, and then whisked and whisked until the custard was cooled. Then, the custard went into the fridge for one more hour, just to be sure.

Custard: wooden spoon finger trace test

After an hour, I set up the ice cream machine and immediately poured in the chilled cream cheese custard. After about 20 minutes, the mixture was firming up in the frozen bowl.

Cream cheese ice cream base

I chopped up some ripe cherries, cursing that I didn't have a cherry pitter and trying carefully to not get any of the blood red juice on myself. On the wooden counter, yes, that was inevitable, but I kept wiping it up. It honestly looked like a scene from Dexter, if Dexter investigated vegan murders.

Cherry massacre of 2011

I chopped up the pound cake and before the ice cream was at its thickest consistency, carefully dropped in the add-ins and was sure to use a knife to push down the fruit and cake, lest it spill over the top. Another 5-10 minutes churning and it was done.

Fresh cherry cheesecake ice cream

I gave C a spoonful to try fresh (which is really the best way to eat it since it gets much harder than commercial ice cream once frozen and needs 10 minutes on the counter, at least, before serving) and his eyes rolled back into his head and his body sighed and pitched, and he gave me a huge hug and told me he loved me. He declared it the best ice cream ever and proceeded to scoop out what I missed from the frozen drum and lick it all up. So, test number 3 was a hit. Very cheesecake tasting. The cherries got a little icy in the freezing as they were fresh and full of juice. The pound cake added a perfect soft and chewy texture to the silky base. I was going to make this for my grandma's birthday but I am debating doing a French vanilla base and using maraschino cherries instead.