Saturday, April 21, 2012

Should have made notes

In the early 80's my sister and I used to go and stay with our mother in Edinburgh. it was the first place I saw a film in a proper cinema, was taken to the theatre, saw a ballet, ate French bread, and had really good ice cream. Scotland doesn't do badly for gelato - even Aberdeen had Casa Marchini (they sold wonderful ice cream and were really the high point of my second year at university when I lived just down the road from them). The love affair with gelato continued when mum and made a trip round Italy, ostensibly I was there to look at as much art as I could see in a week but it turned into an ice cream eating marathon (especially in Venice where between us we ate an epic amount of the stuff) but since that trip I've searched in vain for something even close.

You can buy excellent ice cream from any supermarket these days but I've yet to find a anything like a satisfactory vanilla gelato that would transport me back to Edinburgh aged 9 eating the best ice cream sundae I'll ever have. Well if you can't buy it you can try and make it so ever since I got an ice cream maker a couple of years ago I've been looking for a recipe that will approximate the taste I remember - it's been surprisingly difficult. Most recipes I've found are based on a custard which is clearly not the place to start (I like custard, quite possibly more than the next person, but I don't care for it frozen) anyway long story short I bought the 'Dri Dri Gelato' book a couple of weeks ago - it looked promising - and started experimenting.

My first attempt at their vanilla was tasty but wrong (my ice cream maker is a small domestic beast and could not cope, nor was it fair to expect it to, with the still really quite warm liquid that the book assured me was ready to be churned). Also 4 vanilla pods is possibly excessive, the magical ice cream of childhood was without vanilla seeds and still very good so I felt it should be possible to recreate it without taking out a second mortgage. Finally the frozen texture of the Dri Dri version just wasn't quite right - and though they recommend eating it straight out the churn mine wasn't going to make it firm enough...

The second attempt however is divine, I used a bit less milk and a bit more cream. I didn't bother at all with vanilla pods going for extract instead, and as I added it to the churn rather than when I was heating the milk and cream the result (that I hadn't thought through) is that the very small amount of alcohol has stopped the gelato from freezing rock hard. I also cut down the sugar slightly. What I didn't do was accurately measure the amount of milk or cream I used. or vanilla extract. This is a massive fail, and whilst I've learnt my lesson regarding note taking, I will just have to hope I can recreate (and share) the magic. Meanwhile I've got a small amount of very good ice cream (not for sharing) and hope! There will be more about the gelato book when I've tried more recipes.  

8 comments:

  1. Yum! I've never tried making any really posh proper icecream in mine, mostly I use it to make yoghurty/fruity concoctions.

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    1. I bet they're delicious. I love my ice cream maker but have always been suspicious about frozen yoghurt until I tried some last year. It was excellent so this summer there will be more...

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  2. I am a freak for ice cream and have many many opinions about it in all its variations. I think gelato is definitely hard to find outside of Europe. But of course, even in Europe there is much variation in quality. I don't even have to walk into a shop to tell whether or not the gelato is the right consistency. Once we were with friends who joined us for their first trip to Italy. We were walking around Assissi and they really wanted gelato. They were very frustrated that I wouldn't let them go into all the many gelatrie we were passing. But then I finally saw one where the mounds of gelato looked properly shiny, smooth, and soft. They agreed it was worth the wait.

    Oddly, the best best gelato I have found outside of Italy was in Ibiza. Although many claim to make gelato, Americans really don't know how to do it. They do wonderful ice cream, but that really isn't the same as gelato. Surprisingly, the cafe at the National Gallery here in DC has a gelato that comes pretty close to some of the best I have had in Italy.

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    1. When I was in primary school we had an American exchange teacher and his family. I was in class with his daughter - we didn't believe her when she told us how many flavours of ice cream Americans had. We couldn't even imagine that many flavours in the world.

      The last time I was in Italy it was Venice in January and gelato wasn't really on the agenda of staying warm (nor did I see any) I think I need to go back and do more research to really get a handle on the quality. My version wouldn't make the grade in Italy but tastes how I remember that Ice cream in Edinburgh which will do for now. Next project - chocolate flavour.

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  3. I stumbled here from the booksnob's site...so glad I did! Love your writing style and had so much fun reading your old blog post...I've bookmarked your site and will definitely be back for more! You've earned yourself a new "regular."

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    1. Blushes at my end - thank you very much for your kind words.

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  4. I've been toying with getting an ice cream maker for a while, you might have just convinced me, supprisingly cheap on ebay as well.

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  5. Get one! Mine is a little kenwood, it cost about £25, makes about 500 - 600ml of ice cream which is loads because home made doesn't keep that well so you don't want tons of it. It turns out semi frozen slush which then needs to spend a couple of hours in the freezer but for all it's minor defects I love it.

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