Ice Cream Intro

Sherbet, sorbet, soft serve, low fat, premium... what's the difference between these frozen desserts, anyway? Click the image to download an explanatory PDF on the subject.

<a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/chefsteps/static/chefsteps-ice-creams-chart.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="mixpanel.track('Download PDF', {'title' : 'ice-cream-treats'});"><img src="http://www.filepicker.io/api/file/jVDd71EKTP6HlwKYez7z"/></a>

Equip Yourself

Know Your Frozen Treats

Making Your Own Ice Cream: What You Need to Know

Liquid Nitrogen–Churned Ice Cream

Making a rocher, or one-handed quenelle, is a way to give a beautiful oval shape to a homogenous mass of food—think ice cream or beef tartare. Chefs are taught to make a quenelle with two spoons, and that can work well, but by design it creates a shape with three curving sides. For smooth foods, such as ice cream, whipped butter, soft pâté, or ganache, a one-handed quenelle is ideal because it’s faster and yields a shape with no apparent edges.

A perfect rocher is simple in theory, but it’s challenging in practice. The food must be the consistency of butter at room temperature, or a little firmer, so the rocher will form and hold its shape. The food should be uniform, without large voids of trapped air, which would show up as craters in the rocher. The spoon needs to be deep bowled rather than flat. (Look for good ones at a thrift store or antique shop.) And the spoon must be hot enough to release the rocher but not so hot that it melts the food.

The technique takes practice, but if you spend the time to learn it, your dishes will reflect the effort. A rocher makes the simplest of components appear elegant and light.

Rocher

Tons of tiny air bubbles, ice crystals trapped in viscous, sugar-laden water, and a mesh of fat droplets: these are integral to ice cream's inimitable texture. But to yield that smooth, decadent consistency—rather than a coarse, grainy one—the ice crystals need to be really fine. The secret to small ice crystals? You gotta freeze the ice cream fast.

Trouble is, an enormous amount of heat energy needs to be removed during churning—and that takes power. The best ice cream is usually frozen in a few minutes, and the machines that can do this consume vast amounts of power. Inexpensive domestic ice cream makers simply don't have the oompf, which is why they yield a soft, grainy product.

But worry not, oh fans of homemade frozen treats. You can troubleshoot this textural issue by churning your homemade ice cream base in a stand mixer while adding something very, very cold. You can do this using our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/liquid-nitrogen-churned-ice-cream Liquid Nitrogen Churned Ice Cream] technique, but home cooks will have an easier time sourcing dry ice—lots of grocery stores sell it in pellet or block form.

The technique is simple: Crush the dry ice into very small pieces, then add it, one large spoonful at a time, to the ice cream mix as you churn it in the mixer. Keep going until the ice cream is firm enough to scoop, then let it sit for ten to twenty minutes in the freezer to ensure that any remaining pieces of dry ice have had time to fully sublimate. Biting into a solid piece of dry ice—at a temperature below [f -109.3]—would be a potentially dangerous, and certainly unpleasant, experience.

Making Ice Cream With Dry Ice

Level Up: Amazing Ice Cream Techniques

Soft Serve Ice Cream

Mint chocolate chip ice cream: even when it's bad, it's pretty good. But while the gummy stuff you buy at the boardwalk can leave you sugar-slapped and sluggish, the best versions have a distinctly refreshing quality. It's all about the sacred combination of fresh, cooling herb and rich, chocolatey crunch. Can eating ice cream make you feel lighter? When it's a great mint chocolate chip it can. 

We make ours stracciatella-style, with delicate flakes of chocolate instead of chunky chips, and heat the unchopped mint leaves to preserve their bright pop of flavor. For an elegant upgrade, sprinkle in vanilla seeds as you cook the egg yolks, though it's an entirely optional (albeit delicious) addition. Once the mixture's churned—we use a White Mountain freezer, but go with your method of choice—it's time to drizzle in the thin ribbons of melted chocolate that will harden into flakes. Transfer your treat to the freezer for a spell, then take it out and enjoy a dessert that appeals to your inner child as much as your outer adult-of-discerning-taste. Mint chocolate chip ice cream: pretty good when it's bad, downright spectacular when it's done right.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

We love ice cream year-round, but we’re even more inspired to perfect time-honored summer classics as the weather begins to warm. This smooth and creamy vanilla bean ice cream has just the essentials: milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk, and as many vanilla beans as you want. It is absolutely delicious on its own, topped with our sweet, crunchy [Sea Foam Powder](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sea-foam-powder), or served Seattle-style with a shot of espresso.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Classic French vanilla ice cream, with its characteristically yellow appearance, is the more decadent version of its American cousin. The addition of egg yolks in the base results in a rich, easily churned scoop that melts slowly. The problem? It’s unmistakably eggy in flavor. We wanted to bring the vanilla bean to the forefront without losing the richness and texture the egg yolks provide. A blend of locust bean gum, xanthan gum, and kappa carrageenan—naturally occurring gums that aid in stabilization—came to the rescue. These gums work in concert to provide the stability the ice cream base needs, eliminating the need for egg. The result: perfectly creamy ice cream that’s vanilla, through and through.

Egg-Free Vanilla Ice Cream

Crusty bread. Caramelized onions. Those crispy burnt ends of meat. Dark beer. Maple syrup. All tasty. All for the same reason. The Maillard reaction, so named for Louis-Camille Maillard, the French physician who discovered it, occurs when the amino acids in proteins react with sugars, usually with the help of heat. The resulting flavors are rich and complex, so we thought, why not double up on the reaction for an even more rich and complex final product? We begin with cocoa—a product that has already undergone a Maillard reaction during the roasting of the cocoa beans and roast it once more. As it roasts, aromas of dark coffee and pipe tobacco signify that the maillard reaction is taking place once more, as does the darkening appearance of the cocoa powder that becomes incredibly dark brown (almost black) during this second roasting step. We then proceed as we would with any other gelato recipe. The result is an uber decadent chocolate gelato with rich, roasted notes and an intensity we have yet to find matched in any other gelato.

Dairy-Free Cocoa Gelato

Anyone who’s been to a cocktail bar in the past 10 years knows that bitters are as integral to drinking as booze itself. But bitters, potent concoctions of herbs, roots, and spices, have long been overlooked as flavor agents in American kitchens. The world’s most ubiquitous bitters is Angostura. First crafted in 1824 by a surgeon general of Simon Bolivar’s Venezuelan army, Angostura bitters were marketed as a remedy for upset stomach and hiccups. Today, the closely guarded recipe is produced on the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, where cooks add it by the spoonful to stews and marinades.  

We think bitters play as well with sweet recipes as they do with savory ones. Though it might sound counterintuitive, this strawberry sorbet proves that opposite flavors can be surprisingly complementary—and refreshing. Here, the berries’ natural sugars soften the bitterness to reveal Angostura’s distinct herbal quality. An even more interesting effect comes from the bitters being almost 45 percent alcohol by volume. Though we add only a small amount, the ethanol presence is enough to lower the freezing point of the sorbet. This means you have less ice and more unfrozen syrup at freezer temperature and a softer, easier-to-scoop sorbet. Finally, there is the fun science fact that ethanol evaporates much more quickly than water. When this happens on your palate, the ethanol carries aroma molecules up into your nasal cavity, heightening the strawberry flavor of the melting sorbet.

Strawberry-Angostura Sorbet

Although literally translating from French as “white cheese,” fromage blanc is more texturally akin to Greek yogurt or sour cream than it is to cheese. Fromage blanc begins with milk, which has been partially or fully skimmed, that is then dosed with rennet and left to ferment and strain for several hours. The final product has a lower fat content than cream-based sour cream and the flavor is more nuanced than yogurt.

Fromage blanc, with its refreshing tang and nutty aroma, translates beautifully in a frozen state. French chef Alain Ducasse popularized fromage blanc sorbet back in the early 2000s. Our recipe for fromage blanc sorbet includes touches of both locust bean gum and glucose syrup. These help render the base so stable you can churn it successfully in an any old ice cream machine. The result is creamy but light: a sorbet best served by a bright fruit accent such as [compressed strawberries](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/compressed-strawberries) or a spoonful of intense [strawberry broth](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/strawberry-broth).

Fromage Blanc Sorbet

Butter Rum Sherbet

The remarkable thing about this pistachio gelato is not that it's dairy-free, but rather that eating this gelato makes you realize how little traditional pistachio gelato tastes like pistachio. The problem is that pistachio nuts (well, technically they’re drupes) have a delicate aroma easily overwhelmed by the dairy flavor of cream. While producing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982761007/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0982761007&linkCode=as2&tag=delvkitc-20" target=blank>Modernist Cuisine</a> we decided to make a “constructed cream” using pistachio oil instead of milkfat, and cane sugar instead of lactose. The idea is deceptively simple, but it took several months for our development chef Sam Fahey-Burke to dial-in the ideal blend of hydrocolloid gums together with a modern emulsifier that made it possible to create a pistachio gelato that is almost entirely water, pistachio, and sugar. 

This same technique can be applied to almost any other nut, including almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, or peanuts. Simply replace the pistachio paste with another smooth, unsweetened nut butter, and replace the pistachio oil with the flavorful nut oil of your choice.

Dairy-Free Pistachio Gelato

Out of ice cream cones? Don't skip off to the store just yet. You can make excellent homemade cones using—get this—plain old white sandwich bread. The method works with pastry as well, and it's super simple. Just roll out your cone base of choice, brush with a little butter, sprinkle with sugar or other flavoring, bake briefly, roll, and enjoy. 

Below, we offer three different cone preparations: sandwich bread, feuilles de brick—a light pastry that yields a delicate, crispy cone—and frozen puff pastry. These are just jumping-off points, however. You can make "glass" cones from your favorite homemade candy recipe, or roll cones in crushed pistachios, cereal, or graham cracker crumble. If it tastes good with ice cream, chances are it will make for a great cone. Home cooks without a cone roller can wrap their base of choice around a small bowl instead to create an edible serving dish for sundaes and other desserts. Then again, you can just buy one—[link http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=a9_sc_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Apizzelle+cone+roller&amp;keywords=pizzelle+cone+roller&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1401816606 we've seen them online for as little as $6]. 

Ready to roll? Find even more ideas at the bottom, and, as always, feel free to fire questions at us in the comments.

Ice Cream Cones

Recipes

Strawberries and cream are a summertime classic. We wanted to give this time-tested combination a modern twist, so we combine strawberry juice, cream, sugar, and CO2 to create a rich strawberry and cream foam. By briefly poaching this foam in liquid nitrogen we create a bite-sized cryosicle that shatters crisply in your mouth. The delicate frozen shell gives way to fizzy strawberry and cream soda.

We use a centrifuge to prepare the strawberry juice, but any technique that gives you a pulp-free juice will work. The classical technique is to lightly sugar the berries and let osmosis draw out the juice.

Strawberries and Cream Cryosicle

BOOM! No more root beer from a boring glass. Why not eat it in the shape of a ball? This Root Beer Float Cryosicle is a fun new take on the soda fountain classic. We cranked up the three base flavors (sassafras, sarsaparilla, and wintergreen), charged ’em up in a whipping siphon, and dipped the whole thing in liquid nitrogen. Unlike other solid foams, this soda-pop (!) sets by freezing rather than heating, but the concept is the same: start with a liquid foam, and let it set into something solid. 

Why doesn’t a quick bite of this super-cold, sodalicious pop burn your tongue, you ask? Because it’s a foam (of course!), and its coral-like texture prevents the entire object from freezing to an extremely low temperature. Your mouth is able to supply enough heat energy to quickly thaw the thin frozen layer, and the rest is a piece of cake.

WARNING: Do not eat a cryosicle that has liquid nitrogen trapped inside; this can happen if one cracks during poaching, allowing liquid nitrogen to seep in. If the cryosicle is dripping or feels heavier after poaching than before, toss it.

Root Beer Float Cryosicle

One of the few bright spots in 1929, the year of the Great Stock Market Crash, was the birth of Rocky Road, an enduring all-American ice cream favorite. The name was purportedly coined as an acknowledgement of the tough road ahead for most Americans during the Great Depression. We’ve given it a modernist tribute with our deconstructed version. 

In lieu of mixing chunks of nuts and chocolate into a chocolate base, we separate the ice cream into its component parts, each of which we’ve reimagined to create an ultimate version: there’s our roasted cocoa gelato, egg-free vanilla ice cream, chocolate Turkish delight, malted peanuts, and cream cheese marshmallow.  Then, we freeze the ice creams (yes, you can freeze frozen ice cream until it becomes brittle), Turkish delight, and marshmallow in liquid nitrogen baths and smash away. The result: a truly rocky Rocky Road.

Rocky Road Ice Cream

Spumoni is a classic Italian dessert: an ice cream layered with whipped cream, usually flavored with chocolate, cherry, and pistachio. This recipe applies new techniques to each component.

Spumoni

Aerated Green Apple Sorbet

Hi-Tech Ice Cream

In the 1870s, a British pharmacist created an infant formula made from malt. It quickly caught on with non-infants worldwide. The dried powder, renamed malted milk, was easily transportable, stayed good for months, and tasted great. It gradually made its way into the candy world in the form of chocolate malt balls, but then, for reasons unknown to us, it stagnated. We are here to take it one more evolutionary step: meet the malted peanut. The lightly roasted flavor of the peanut pairs perfectly with the delicately sweet, cream taste of malt, and we like it sprinkled on top of a scoop of ice cream or in our recipe for [rocky road ice cream](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/rocky-road-ice-cream). Stored in an airtight container, in a cool spot, they will stay fresh for a couple of weeks.

Malted Peanuts

Ready to add some crispy-chewy zip to your desserts? These marshmallows combine classic dessert techniques with the **wow factor of liquid nitrogen and the fun of smashing stuff with a mallet**. Around here, we use them as part of our deconstructed [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/rocky-road-ice-cream Rocky Road Ice Cream] and as an element in the plated version of our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/flourless-carrot-cake Flourless Carrot Cake], but with its crunchy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside texture and tangy cream cheese base, the possibilities are endless. Dress up ice cream, create a new breed of Fluff, fold frozen shards into brownie dough, or reinvent the ice cream sandwich. As [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoNxfE6UPgw Riley] says, “I don’t know what you couldn’t put ‘em on.”

Cream Cheese Marshmallow

There are many ways to whip cream, but we’re firm believers that whipping siphons produce excellent results the most consistently. Making whipped cream with a siphon is infinitely easier than whipping by hand, and the product can be more delicious and cost effective than the canned stuff. Once you understand how whipping works, you can make any kind of whipped cream your heart desires—soft or firm, flavored or traditional, sweet or savory. Here’s a basic procedure for making amazing whipped cream and some suggestions for flavor and texture variations as well.

World’s Best Whipped Cream

These vanilla wafers can be enjoyed on their own, atop a scoop of ice cream, or as part our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/banana-cream-pie">Banana Cream Pie</a>.

Vanilla Wafers

Liquid nitrogen makes it easy to separate raspberries, or similar fruit (blackberries, boysenberries, etc), into individual _druplets_. The druplets will have a unique gummy texture when served partially frozen, or a juicy bursting texture when fully thawed. 

What's a druplet, you ask? Here's a bit of botany for you: The term [_druplet_](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24667/angiosperm/73121/Fruits#ref597022) refers to a smaller version of a _drupe_ (such as a peach or a nectarine), where each unit of the aggregate fruit is itself a small drupe, with a fleshy outer layer and an inner endocarp that adheres to a seed. In other words, each node of the raspberry is made up of the same elements that make up an entire peach. When the node is large and stands alone, like a peach, it’s called a drupe. When the fruit is made up of several small nodes, the nodes are called druplets, and the entire fruit is called a berry.

Liquid Nitrogen Berry Drops

We use this powder to garnish our carrot cake, but it's delicious with ice cream, too. We begin with a twist on a brittle recipe, whisking baking soda into a hot sugar-vinegar syrup. As the baking soda hits the hot syrup, it reacts with the vinegar, causing a chemical release of CO2. Once the mixture cools, the CO2 bubbles become trapped in the hardened brittle, creating an airy, crunchy texture. We chop this up and mix it with nuts, brown butter solids and N-Zorbit powder, a specially modified starch that keeps this powder free-flowing. Once combined, it can keep indefinitely in a dry, air-tight container.

Sea Foam Powder

Macerated Strawberries

Toppings

Ice Cream Discussion

Ice Cream Geekery

Other Resources

Ice cream may seem like the simplest of lazy-day treats, but delving into the science can mean the difference between a coarse-and-crispy frozen fail and the smooth, creamy stuff they serve at your local parlor. Plus, it’s a whole lot of fun. Just in time for summer, we’ve assembled a class that will make a master out of anyone willing to cool things down in the kitchen. Go hi-tech with Aerated Green Apple Sorbet or a Root Beer Float Cryosicle, or keep things folksy with our classic mint chocolate chip. Planning a dairy-free party? We’ve got a pistachio gelato that’s going to blow your milkfat-free mind. Along with 14 recipes for frozen desserts that will surprise and delight your guests throughout the year, we’ve got plenty of ideas for toppings, plus tips and techniques to make the most of your ice-cream-making equipment—whether you’re churning in a stand mixture with dry ice or a state-of-the-art Carpigiani contraption. So stock up on cones and fire up the backyard speakers—you’re about to show the neighborhood a whole new take on the ice cream social.

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