Ice Cream Makers

Dear Fraser,

I cannot answer your question about domestic machines because I use two Italian made Industrial scale ones from Gram. Just one pump of the two on each costs £7K to replace, so presumably we are talking over £50K per machine!

The degree of hardness is a product of two factors. Firstly how cold the Icecream is. When freshly made [at about minus six degrees Celcius] it is rather soft, like a "Mr Softee," or harder when stored at lower than minus eighteen when correctly deep frozen. Mr Softees are eaten straight off the machine, whereas your "brick" of Vanila is usually straight from the deep freeze.

And using less vegatable fat. In fairness if you make a pure dairy fat product, rather than use hydrogenated vegetable fat, your result will be softer even at minus eighteen. I am making the stuff for a living at the monent! It is helping my weight training no end. Perhaps 8 Kg of [free!] Ice cream a week! In five weeks with intensive training I have gained about 6 Kg! All muscle. In fact I have never been thinner! Our Ice cream is a minimum of 59 per cent whole pasteurised milk and up to 16 percent pure pasteurised cream, all from one dairy herd! A doctor's nightmare, perhaps, if you consume more calories than you burn off, but full of Calcium and trace elements!

Add in about 7 pints of good Polish beer and week per week and essentially one has to excercise like hell or get fat! Oh and nice meaty and vegatable rich diet, with no prepacked food at all and I reckon it shows how good real food can be for you!

Two months ago the Doctor advised me to increase milk intake, as I was in her view too thin, though being big boned for my height still well over the correct BMI spec!

ATB from Fredrik

I would just point out that the mister softie type icecream is just a dust product very much like Angel Delight that is mixed on the hoof with water through a very cold device.

You cannot make this shit at home thankfully.

Decent icecream makers are quite expensive. Another way is to do it in the freezer but is time consuming, easier for me as we have walk in freezers at work so they stay really cold.

My feeling on this is that there is a wide variety of top quality ice-creams and sorbets available now, many using natural and organic ingredients. making ice-cream is a right royal pain in the arse.

Fraser,

My wife bought one of these Magimix a few weeks ago and it is excellent. We have made ice creams with cream, milk and custard style. All have been delicious and extremely easy to make. Takes 20-40 minutes depending on the ingredients being used and the temperature they start at. Also made a lovely sorbet with rhubarb and ginger. Only downside is they are a bit noisy. Can be stored for a couple of weeks in the freezer once made, if it lasts that long.

She is making some fresh strawberry ice cream now.

Regards

Nic

Did anyone see Something For The Weekend today?
They used double cream (whipped), condensed milk and vodka to make ice cream. The vodka removes the need for the repeated stirring of the mix by lowering the freezing point of the water content, thus preventing the formation of the ice crystals in the first place.
Oh, and they mixed in some cinder toffee too!

Tony

quote:

I am looking for a device that can make ice-cream of the 'Mr. Softee' form rather than the vanilla brick form. Is there such a thing?

You should ask Maragaret Thatcher, she invented ways of making cheap, soft ice "cream" out of just water and sugar.

JohanR

I have the Magimix machine and it is just about ok. Needs to be watched over while freezing as if it runs beyond "Mr Softie" soft, into "brick" territory, the nylon/plastic paddle spindles break. We have been through four spindles so far.
It is messy and there is a lot of cleaning up.
We use it far less than we thought we would.

If I remember my trade cert. cookery classes properly, ice cream is made by stirring the mixture every so often while it's freezing to break up the long crystals into shorter ones.

So perhaps you could avoid the machinery business by just getting a few good recipes, some fresh eggs and cream etc, and getting the mixture out of the freezer every half hour and stirring it?

quote:

the nylon/plastic paddle spindles break. We have been through four spindles so far.

wow. your dentist must be happy. how do you get the spindles out of your teeth?

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:
If I remember my trade cert. cookery classes properly, ice cream is made by stirring the mixture every so often while it's freezing to break up the long crystals into shorter ones.

So perhaps you could avoid the machinery business by just getting a few good recipes, some fresh eggs and cream etc, and getting the mixture out of the freezer every half hour and stirring it?

You are absolutely correct in that the churning breaks up the ice crystals giving a much smoother ice cream.

The difference between the machines is normally whether they churn and/or have a freezing unit built in.

The Gaggia one is expensive but very very good indeed. I pretty much make ice cream and sorbets all year round. Current favourites include:

Toffee - Vanilla Ice Cream base + Dulce de Leche toffee

Cinammon - Vanilla Ice Cream base + powdered cinammon - amazing with apple pie/crumble

Pimms sorbet - Pimms & finely chopped pieces of fruit, cucumber and mint. Lovely!

The trouble is most domestic freezers cannot keep up with opening and shutting it every 15-30 minutes.

My wife and kids bought me a Magimix, same as Nic's, a year or so ago and it's fabulous.

I'm very fussy about ice cream and although there are some half decent one's about, the stuff I make at home can be pretty spectacular. Current favourite is Baileys and Amaretto served with (Baileys steeped) brioch and buttter pudding. Tomorrow I'll be making Coconut Sorbet with chili and lemongrass.

Yes, it takes a little bit of time but then that's half the pleasure, isn't it?

Thanks for all the replies guys. I've away unexpectedly, hence the rather deferred acknowledgement of your contributions.

I will go the Magimix (and extra spindles) route and see how I get on.

Fraser

Let us know how you get on. I had some brown bread ice cream the other day. Absolutely delicious!