Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream -Recipe
This recipe will show you how to make a rich, sweet, and extremely creamy organic balsamic vinegar strawberry ice cream. The rich dark flavour of the balsamic vinegar will cut into the sweetness of the strawberries and add depth the sweet, bright flavour.
As always, it is very important to use good quality organic ingredients to get the best flavour possible. Using free-range organic eggs will give the ice cream such a strong creamy colour that you cannot get with eggs from caged birds. This recipe will produce about 750ml of ice cream.
Ingredients: organic cream, organic semi-skimmed milk, organic un-refined sugar, organic egg yolks, organic strawberries, organic balsamic vinegar, and organic sea salt.
If you are using cream at 36% fat:
Cream 431g
Semi-skimmed milk 376g
Sugar 148g
Egg yolks 65g
Strawberries 700g
Balsamic vinegar 4 teaspoons
Sea salt 1/4 teaspoon
If you are using cream at 38% fat:
Cream 407g
Semi-skimmed milk 400g
Sugar 148g
Egg yolks 65g
Strawberries 700g
Balsamic vinegar 4 teaspoons
Sea salt 1/4 teaspoon
If you are using cream at 50.5% fat:
Cream 303g
Semi-skimmed milk 504g
Sugar 148g
Egg yolks 65g
Strawberries 700g
Balsamic vinegar 4 teaspoons
Sea salt 1/4 teaspoon
The tables below show the composition of the ice cream mix before and after heating for 60 minutes. The totals are expressed as a percentage of the mix.
Composition of mix before heating
Composition of mix after heating for 60 minutes at 71.4°C
1. Freezing the freezer bowl
For this recipe, I use the Cuisinart ICE30 which comes with a large 2 litre bowl. The day before you start making your ice cream, take your 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 place them in your freezer. 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, by melting the crystals, contributing to a sandy texture.
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 in the fridge overnight. Crystallisation of fat during the ageing process helps maintain the shape of ice cream when it is served and also helps minimise the rate at which the ice cream melts.
Set your freezer to around -25°C, or as cold as you can get it. Once churned in the ice cream maker, the quicker you can get your ice cream to below -18°C, the smaller the ice crystal are likely to be. 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.
It is also important to get your freezer bowl as cold as possible. The colder your bowl is, the quicker it will freeze the ice cream. The quicker you freeze your mix, the smaller the ice crystals are likely to be and the creamier the texture.
I set my freezer to ‘super freeze’ when chilling my freezer bowl. This drops the temperature to around -27°C. At this low temperature, it takes me about 15 minutes to churn a mix, which is very good for a domestic ice cream maker (professional ice cream makers take about 8 minutes). If I set my freezer to around -18°C, it takes about 20 minutes for the bowl to churn and freeze a mix. Remember, the quicker you can churn your mix, the smaller the ice crystals are likely to be and the creamier the texture of your ice cream.
3. Preparing the Strawberry Syrup
Wash the strawberries and leave until dry. Hull and cut the strawberries into quarters. Combine the strawberries with 20g of sugar and leave in the fridge overnight.
The strawberry juice will combine with the sugar, because of osmotic action, and will form a juice. This syrup will impart a stronger strawberry flavour on the ice cream than would the strawberries used immediately.
Use good quality organic balsamic vinegar for a strong, clean flavour
4. Concentrating the Strawberries
Once you have left the strawberries to marinate, add the strawberries and syrup to a large 23cm diameter pan and heat over a medium heat. Once the water in the mix starts evaporating, continue heating over a medium heat for 13 minutes. This will significantly concentrate the strawberries by evaporating the water.
Reducing the strawberries is very important for creamy texture. Strawberries contain a lot of water. Adding whole strawberries to an ice cream mix would significantly increase the water content, creating a cold and sandy ice cream.
Reducing the strawberries will concentrate the flavour and reduce the water content, thereby improving texture.
After 13 minutes, take the pan off the heat, transfer the strawberry pulp to a bowl, and allow to cool. Once the mix has cooled, add 4 teaspoons of the balsamic vinegar, cover, and leave to infuse in the fridge overnight.
5. Preparing an ice bath
Take a large pan and fill it with enough ice to make an ice bath. Have a large zip-lock freezer bag ready next to the bowl, along with some table salt. The purpose of using a zip lock bag and water bath is to ensure that the mix is cooled as quickly as possible, minimising the time the mix spends in the ‘danger zone’; between 5 and 65°C. In this temperature range, bacteria in your mix is likely to multiply, imparting a very undesirable smell and taste. Allowing bacteria to multiply is also not the best thing for your health.
6. Size of pan
As strange as it sounds, the size of the pan in which you heat your mix is very important. The larger the diameter of your pan, the more water will evaporate during heating. This is important because the fundamental reason for heating your mix for 60 minutes is to concentrate the milk solids non fat, more specifically the protein. By concentrating the mix, you increase the percentage of protein. Protein plays a significant role in limiting the size of ice crystals, thereby improving texture, so the higher the percentage of protein in your mix the better.
I recommend using a large pan with a 23cm diameter. This will allow you to concentrate your mix by about 32%. If you use a pan with a small diameter, you won’t be able to reduce the mix by the same amount in 60 minutes. The texture won’t be as smooth and creamy as a that prepared in pan with a larger diameter.
Use a large pan with a 23cm diameter, similar to that on the left
7. Heating your mix
Once you have prepared an ice bath, add the sugar and the egg yolks to the large heavy pan. Mix the eggs and sugar together until both ingredients have combined. The sugar mixed with the yolks will help prevent the yolks from curdling. Add the cream, milk and salt and gently stir the mix before you switch the heat on.
Over a medium heat, heat the mixture until the temperature reaches 70°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.
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 aggregating the proteins, which is detrimental to texture, and developing the unpleasant and eggy hydrogen sulphide taste if you heat the mixture above71.4°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. Holding the mix at 71.4°C for 60 minutes will mean that you will concentrate the mix by about 32%. Concentrating the mix will increase the percentage of protein, which contributes significantly to a smooth and creamy texture. 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.
8. Cooling the mix
After 60 minutes, take the pan off the heat and add carefully pour the mix into the zip lock bag.
Seal the zip lock bag and add about 3 tablespoons of salt to the ice in your ice bath. This will significantly lower the temperature of the ice, thereby cooling your mix faster.
Once the mix has cooled to about 10°C, place it in the fridge and leave overnight. It is important to allow enough time for the ice cream mix to age. Remember that crystallisation of fat during the ageing process helps maintain the shape of ice cream when it is served and also helps minimise the rate at which the ice cream melts.
9. Churning the mix
Once you have allowed the mix to chill and the bowl, dasher, and 1 litre containter to freeze overnight, place the freezer bowl in the machine and add the dasher. Put the lid on and, with the machine switched on, pour in the mix followed by the strawberry pulp.
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 will prevent any 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 (sore thumbs is an additional price to pay for smooth creamy ice cream).
Use a spoon to push along any static lumps of ice cream. Any static lumps will start to melt, increasing the size of ice crystals, causing a sandy texture.
After about 20 minutes (or about 15 minutes if your freezer was set to around -27°C), 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 the ice cream is placed in the freezer. Therefore, the longer the ice cream spends at room temperature, the sandier the texture will be. Be as quick as you can when emptying the ice cream into the plastic container.
Ice crystals will continue to grow until the temperature drops to below -18°C. It is therefore critical to get the your ice cream into the freezer and down to below -18°C as quickly as possible to prevent a sandy and coarse texture from developing. I recommend leaving your ice cream to harden in the freezer.
10. Freezing the mix
At -18°C, it is recommended that homemade ice cream be kept for about a week. This is because some bacteria are still able to multiply at -18°C. Below -18°C, it becomes too cold for bacteria to multiply and so ice cream can be kept for longer.
11. Serving the ice cream
The next day, take the ice cream out of the freezer and let sit to thaw for between 5 to 10 minutes, or until it is soft enough to scoop. Serve the ice cream at below -12°C. As the serving temperature is increased from -14.4 to -7.8°C, flavour and sweetness become more pronounced.
Enjoy your ice cream!
hi
you have a certain knowledge of ice cream technology but tell me why
1/you tell facts 3 or 4 times in a same post
2/some of your posts are non sense: if a mix need evaporation of water it’s because it was too much water when you start!!!
3/few things you say are actually without any serious scientific proofs
so as chemist by formation i just want to tell you that even if you learned a few things by reading and surfing through the web you should be cautious when you advance some theory and ascertain your posts before publish it.
It is i think the minimum respect to have to people working hard on new technology in food and diary products
regards
Hi there Niko,
Thanks for your e-mail. I will try my best to answer each of your points.
1. The reason that I repeat facts in the same post it to stress the importance of certain points. Certain points are of far greater importance to the home ice cream maker than others and it is these that I attempt to stress.
2. I’m not quite sure what you mean in your second point. A high water content is detrimental to ice cream texture and it is for this reason that I reduce it in a mix through evaporation. Does this address your point?
3. If you let me know which of the points that I have discussed in my recipes you do not agree with, I am happy to go through the relevant paper or source with you.
Hope this helps.
All the best, Ruben
Hi
Sorry for the delay but abit busy at the time
I am french and actually with my family settle down in Goa, India and making ice cream there
So to go a little further in my views
What i was telling you last time still true
If you have to evaporate water in your mix to get it right it is simply because it was too much of water in it.
Proteins unfolding and agregation are far more complicate than what you explain
I mean what you say is correct but you simplify a lot.
I suggest you also to try to work without eggyolk and replace them by
1/ glycerol monostereates or GMS for the emulsifying properties
2/ cream or butter for the fat content
It work very well believe me.
You should also try to use different types of sugars like inverted sugar for chocolate when you need sweetness without too much dry solids and some like dextrose for lowering the freezing point;glucose can be very helpfull also.
All these type of sugars prevent from sugar cristallisation and the quality of your stuff will gain a lot.
I will go through your formulas little further and will let you know what i think
I don’t want you to take it bad but if i can help you in any sense it will be a pleasure
I like much passionate people like you seems to be
If you need any advice please mail me
All the best
Keep this power
Respect and regards
Niko
Hi Niko,
Thank you for your interesting e-mail and my apologies for the late reply. I do try to simplify my description of the effects of protein unfolding and aggregation on the quality of ice cream. This is because I want to keep my explanations simple for the home cook. I also do not fully understand when exactly proteins unfold or begin to aggregate and so I suspect that the simplicity of my definitions does, in part, stem from this lack of understanding.
Your suggestion of replacing egg yolks with glycerol monostereates or GMS does sound very interesting. I will try and get hold of these to see what effects they have on ice cream. I do want to keep my ice cream ‘all natural’ and so I try not to recommend ingredients that I wouldn’t eat myself.
I am interested in using alternatives to sucrose; I read that fructose works especially well in amplifying fruit flavours and so I want to give this a try.
Do you run an ice cream business in Goa or do you make it at home for friends and family?
Many thanks again for your advice. Do let me know if you try my recipes as it would be great to get your feedback.
All the best, Ruben
HI thanks also and sorry for the late reply i am actually running here a business and on the process of opening our 1st ice cream parlour in india our web site is on the way of creation i will let u know on the future opening i am chemist by formation and as french gourmet by birth so i join both and make a passion a living and listen with all the respect i owe you i cannot try your recipe for few reasons 1/ using only sucrose you are facing a cristallisation of sugar and by the way a coarse texture 2/ without stabilizer your ice cream has a shelf life too short for being sold 3/ without GMS *Glycerol monostearate overun will be too low for a good quality* *because a good ice cream need to be light enough to give time for the product to melt slowly( this due to isolant properties of air)* *like this the aroma spreads in your mouth* *But don’t take it bad because i really greet your efforts to make understandable a chemical process quite complicated* *I also would like to tell you that it is not because you use good ingredients than your finish product will be gooD* *If you don’t respect a minimum of basic rules you gonna miss your stuff* *MSNF and MILKFAT content are the 2 mains factors that you have to adjust to equilibrate tour formula* *On that the milk proteins are really very important and it is good than you notice that* *But again you have to diversify the sugars you are using think about glucose dextrose maltodextrine and so on* *Sorry to be critical and to don’t go too deep inside but i really busy here * *i will try to have a better look on your recipes and will come back to you* * * *And again please don’t take too bad my remarks because i think you are really doing something good for common people to make things more easy to understand* *Just try to work on the technologic side of the process* *I am open for any questions you can have* *If 1 time come to India ring me up it will be a pleasure to welcome you here* * * *Regards* *Niko * On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 5:09 PM, Ice Cream Science wrote:
> ** > Ice Cream Science commented: “Hi Niko, Thank you for your interesting > e-mail and my apologies for the late reply. I do try to simplify my > description of the effects of protein unfolding and aggregation on the > quality of ice cream. This is because I want to keep my explanations > simple”
Many thanks for your recommendations and your offer to help if I ever visit India. I hope your first parlour goes well. It would be great to have a look at your website so please do let me know once it is finished. I do need to invest in a professional ice cream machine so it will be interesting to see how this effects the overrun of my ice creams.
Good luck with your business venter and do keep in touch. All the best, Ruben
HI
Good point to invest in a professional machine;
Best i think is to go for an horizontal batch freezer
Overrun can be high and give you the chance to make very light and nice stuff
Continuous freezer is the best option but really expensive and compulsory in the case of big production unit
let me know when you get this machine
all the best
Niko
salut niko c alain contacte-moi qd tu seras en france , com ca on bouge ensemble , je suis dispo des debut mai @ + bise a sylvia et aux enfants.
SALUT
DONNE MOI UN NUMERO OU TE JOINDRE URGENT
MAIL niko.icecreams@gmail.com
High end Equipment would be needed you follow if as Niko suggestion of making ice cream with alternatives to eggs sugar and cream you’ll need a homogeniser and a rapid freezer etc.
I think the receipe you have here is excellent for the home ice cream maker.
It produces high quality ice cream from ingredients which are easily available from any supermarket.
I liken it to Haagen D style only with more delicate flavours and without the stickyness due to the additives use to extend shelf life.
Kiss principle . Keep it simple and straightforward .