Salted Caramel Ice Cream – Recipe

Hello!

This recipe will show you how to make very creamy, sweet, and rich homemade salted caramel ice cream. The ice cream will have a strong sweet note with the salt felt on the end note.

Ingredients: organic semi-skimmed milk, organic double cream, organic skim milk powder, organic un-refined sugar, organic free-range eggs, organic sea salt, organic vanilla extract.

If you are using cream at 38% fat:
Organic cream at 38% fat – 422g
Organic milk at 0% fat – 331g
Organic skim milk powder - 38g
Organic egg yolks – 70g
Organic un-refined sugar – 140g
Organic sea salt – 3g (1/4 tsp)
Organic Vanilla extract – 3/4 Tbsp 

If you are using cream at 50.5% fat:
Organic cream at 50.5% fat – 317g
Organic milk at 0% fat – 435g
Organic skim milk powder - 38g
Organic egg yolks – 70g
Organic un-refined sugar – 140g
Organic sea salt - 3g (1/4 tsp)
Organic Vanilla extract - 3/4 Tbsp  

If you are using cream at 36% fat:
Organic cream at 38% fat – 445g
Organic milk at 0% fat – 307g
Organic skim milk powder - 38g
Organic egg yolks – 70g
Organic un-refined sugar – 140g
Organic sea salt - 3g (1/4 tsp)
Organic Vanilla extract - 3/4 Tbsp  

It’s important to use good quality organic ingredients if you want to make good quality ice cream.

Directions

1. Freezing the freezer bowl

The day before you start making your ice cream, take your ice cream freezer bowl and cover the top with cling film.  Use an elastic band to help keep it in place.

Put the bowl in a plastic bag and tie the ends. The plastic bag and cling film will help prevent water from freezing to the inside of the bowl whilst in the freezer. Water frozen to the inside of the bowl will melt into the mix, increasing its water content thereby causing a sandy texture.

Take a 1 litre plastic container, the freezer bowl, and the ice cream dasher and freeze overnight. Freezing will remove any heat stored in the dasher and container.

Heat that is transferred to the ice cream during freezing from the container or dasher increases ice crystal size contributing to a sandy texture. You don’t want to put your cold ice cream in a warm container, after it has been churned, because it will start to melt.

It’s also important that you freeze enough water to make an ice bath. Freeze water in several ice trays or small plastic containers.

2. Setting the fridge and freezer temperature

It is very important that set your fridge to between 0 and 2°C to increase the rate of crystallisation when you  age your mix. Also, the colder the mix is when it is churned in the ice cream maker, the faster it will freeze and the smoother the texture.

Set your freezer to around -25°C.  The quicker you can get your ice cream to -18°C, the smaller the ice crystal . The temperature and rate of hardening determine the final ice crystal size . Hardening is complete when the temperature at the centre of the container drops to -18°C or lower, preferably -25 to -30°C. The longer it takes for the ice cream to reach these temperatures, the larger the ice crystals will grow and, subsequently, the sandier the texture.

3. Making caramel

Once you’ve left the equipment to to freeze overnight, place enough ice in your kitchen sink, or a large bowl, to make an ice bath. Take a zip-lock bag and some salt and leave open near the ice ready for later.

(i) The wet v the dry method

There are two ways of heating sugar to make caramel: covering the sugar with water and heating it is known as the wet method, whilst heating sugar on its own is known as the dry method.

The wet method has several advantages over the dry method. It gives you greater control over the sugar as heat is evenly distributed, meaning that it is less likely to burn. Sugar caramelises a lot quicker when heated using the dry method and so increases the risk of you burning it. The wet method also allows you to heat the sugar on a high heat from the beginning, resulting in greater flavour development.

The caramel’s colour will give you a good indication of the flavour. Caramel that is a light honey colour will generate a simple sweet flavour lacking in any aromatic notes. Taking the sugar so it is a bit darker in colour will generate different flavour molecules, ranging from fruity, nutty, buttery, to dark, bitter, and roasted notes.

Because the high water content, along with the vanilla extract, in the ice cream mix will temper the bitter notes, it is important to heat the sugar until it is very dark, almost black, to develop a noticeable flavour. A caramel that is light in colour will produce an overly sweet ice cream, lacking any depth of flavour.

(ii) Heating sugar

When making caramel, you will have little time to check this recipe during the heating stage. I recommend that you visualise the different steps in your mind before you start heating the sugar to limit the risk of burning the sugar.

It is important to have the cream ready close to hand in a pouring jug, along with a long wooden spoon.

To a heavy pan add the un-refined sugar, making sure that it is evenly distributed. Add enough water to cover the sugar. Heat the sugar over a medium-to-high heat until the water starts to bubble. You will notice large bubbles rising from the sugar.

Gently shake the pan to make sure that the sugar is evenly distributed. Be very very careful when making caramel as the temperature of the sugar gets very high and can easily burn through skin, as I had to learn the hard way.

Simply let the water boil and do not stir . You will notice a lot of steam evaporating off the pan. A good indication that the caramel is nearly ready is when you see that there is no more steam rising out of the pan. This means that the water has nearly evaporated. At this point, you will need to be very attentive as the sugar will start to come into direct contact with the pan, meaning that it will burn very quickly.

As the caramel gets darker in colour, it will become less sweet and develop a more intense caramel flavour. As the large bubbles will prevent you from clearly gaging the colour of the caramel,  you can take the pan off the heat and set it aside on a cold surface to allow the bubbles to settle.

I also recommend sniffing the caramel during the heating stage. Do be very careful not to get too close to the pan if you are sniffing. You will notice a sweet smell when you first start heating the sugar. This sweet smell will develop into a stronger caramel smell as the sugar darkens. You will also be able to smell when the caramel starts to burn.

When you notice, and smell, smoke rising from the pan, gently stir the mix, to prevent the sugar from burning, and leave it going for a little while longer to generate a more intense flavour. You have to take the sugar a little way beyond when it starts to smoke.  The milk, cream, eggs, and vanilla will temper the bitter notes. If you don’t let the caramel smoke, the flavour will lack depth and be too sweet.

I recommend that you play around with caramel to find the bitterness level that best suits you. Remember, the longer you leave the caramel to smoke, the stronger and more bitter the flavour will be. (Be careful not to leave the caramel smoking for too long as it will easily and quickly start to burn.

Allow the caramel to smoke until it reaches the colour of a copper penny. In the picture below showing four shades of sugar, the colour should be similar, if not slightly darker, than the second one from the right. The bitter notes will overpower the sweet notes if you let the caramel reach the darkest shade in the picture.

Quickly take the pan off the heat and add the cream whilst stirring. Be extremely careful when adding the cream as the caramel will bubble rigorously. I recommend standing well back and wearing oven gloves to limit the risk of hot sugar from coming into contact with your skin. It is likely that the caramel will clump into large bits when you add the cream but keep stirring until these large bits have dissolved a little. Don’t worry if you cannot get them to completely dissolve. Keep stirring the mixture for another 5 minutes or so to dissolve the caramel into the cream and to allow the mix to cool.

Set the pan to one side and allow the temperature to drop to below 40°C, stirring occasionally.

The darker the colour, the stronger and more bitter the flavour

Once you have allowed the caramel to cool below 40°C, whisk together the egg yolks and the milk and add to the pan, followed by the skim milk powder and salt. It is likely that the egg yolks will curdle if you do not allow sufficient time for the caramel to cool before adding them.

4. Heating the mix

Over a medium to low heat, heat the mixture until the temperature reaches 71.4°C, making sure that you are constantly stirring the mix. You will risk burning the proteins and curdling the egg yolks if you do not constantly stir the mix.

Once the temperature reaches 70°C, turn the heat down to low and continue heating until the temperature reaches 71.4°C. Use a kitchen thermometer to keep the temperature at 71.4°C for 60 minutes. This will ensure that the whey proteins undergo reversible unfolding, but not aggregation, which will significantly improve the texture of the finished ice cream.

Do not let the temperature rise above 71.4°C. You will risk developing the unpleasant and eggy hydrogen sulphide taste if you heat the mixture above 71.4°C.

Heating the mix for 60 minutes may sound like a long time but believe me it is a small price to pay for extremely creamy ice cream. I have played around with the heating periods and have found that a mix heated for 60 minutes will produce a much creamier  and smoother ice cream than one heated for 15, 30, and 45 minutes.

By heating the mix for 60 minutes, you will concentrate it by roughly 10%. This will intensify the sweet cream flavour and reduce the water content.

After 60 minutes, take the pan off the heat and add the vanilla extract. The flavour compounds in vanilla extract are highly volatile, meaning that they will easily evaporate at high temperatures. The more flavour compounds evaporate, the less intense the vanilla flavour. Adding the flavour compounds at the end minimises the loss of these volatile flavour compounds.

5. Cooling the mix

Carefully pour the mix into the zip lock bag and close. Add 3 tablespoons of salt to the ice to lower the temperature. Using the zip lock bag and ice bath will ensure that the mix is quickly cooled. It is important to quickly cool the mix in order to preserve the bacterial quality and fresh taste.

Once the mix has cooled, place it in the fridge and leave overnight. It is important to allow enough time for the ice cream mix to age. The texture of the ice cream will suffer if you don’t properly age the mix.

6. Churning the mix

Once you have allowed the mix to age overnight, place the freezer bowl in the machine and add the asher. Put the lid on and, with the machine switched on, pour in the mix.

As soon as you pour in the mix, use your thumb to push the dasher against the side of the bowl. Pushing the dasher against the side of the bowl will prevent and ice from freezing to the side. Any ice that is frozen to the side of the bowl will act as an insulator, slowing the release of heat from the ice cream to the bowl. If the transfer of heat from the ice cream to the freezer bowl is reduced, the ice cream will take longer to freeze. The longer the ice cream takes to freeze, the larger the ice crystals will grow and the sandier the texture will be. Keep the dasher pushed against the side of the bowl until you have finished churning the mix.

Use a spoon to push along any static lumps of ice cream. Any static lumps will start to melt, causing a sandy texture.

After about 20 minutes, switch the machine off and quickly empty the mix into the pre-chilled container. The longer you take to empty the ice cream into the container, the longer the ice cream will spend at room temperature. At room temperature, ice crystals will start to quickly melt. If ice crystals melt, they will grow bigger when they are re-frozen. Therefore, the longer the ice cream spends at room temperature, the sandier the texture will be. It is therefore critical to get the ice cream out of the ice cream maker and into your freezer as quickly as possible.

Homemade salted caramel ice cream using the Cuisinart ICE30