Ice Cream 101: Make Rich, Indulgent Frozen Treats at Home

1. Introduction: Hey there, I'm Nicole Gaffney, also known as Kohli Atma chef, a recipe developer and a food blogger over holy cooks dot com. Cooking is an essential skill that I think everyone should have, and it's my mission to teach you to become a better cook. Now, in this class, we're gonna be learning how to make one of my favorite foods of all time ice cream. I'll be teaching you the two basic techniques for two different types of ice cream as well lots of different ways to customize them and make unique flavors all your own. Now there's lots of different ways out there to make different types of frozen treats such a Z, gelato and sorbet and even vegan ice creams. But in this class, we're going to be focusing on the traditional techniques of making dairy based ice cream, using simple ingredients at home. You don't need any prior experience. Take this class just a love for ice cream and a little bit of curiosity 2. Project Overview: the project for this class will be to create a batch of ice cream in the flavor of her choice. Now I highly encourage you to try making both types of ice cream that we cover in this course, but you can opt to do either one for your project. Now, when it comes to choosing your flavor, be creative. You can maybe do something that's reminiscent of your childhood or just go totally out of the box and make something that's completely unique. Either way, Just be sure to remember to snap some photographs before you got a little up. That way you can upload it to the project section below and share it with all of us here. 3. The Basics: There's a lot of different ways to make ice cream utilizing a myriad of techniques and ingredients. But in this fast, we're just gonna focus on the two basic and classic types, the 1st 1 being Philadelphia style, also referred to as American style ice cream in the 2nd 1 Being a custard style, which is also known as French ice cream. Now Philadelphia style is definitely the easier of the two, being that it uses just simple ingredients like milk, cream, sugar and flavorings. On the other hand, custard style ice cream is exactly like the name implies as it uses an egg custard as in space and requires just a little bit more TLC to get it right. Philadelphia style ice cream doesn't actually require any cooking, so it's a lot faster and easier to make, which is what makes it preferable to most home cooks. But it can't really hold a candle to that rich, luxurious mouth feel that you get from a custard style ice cream. Either way, both techniques will produce delicious, rich and creamy ice cream that you're gonna love now without getting too technical. It's important to understand just a little bit of the science behind how ice cream gets a smooth and creamy texture. If you were to take one of these ice cream bases and just poured into a bowl and pop it into the freezer, you would wind up with this rock hard. I see crystallized Mass. It's just totally unappealing. This is because the ingredients that make up ice cream, like milk and egg yolks contain a good amount of water, and his water freezes. It forms big ice crystals, and his big ice crystals are the enemy of ice cream. So to avoid this, ice cream has to be churned in order to get that nice, smooth texture. Freezing the ice cream while it's in motion is gonna prevent those big ice crystals from forming. It's also gonna help incorporate a little bit of air into the mix, which is gonna help produce a smooth, creamy, velvety texture. And that's exactly what we want. Breathing the ice cream as quickly as possible is also gonna help to prevent some of those large ice crystals from forming. This is why it's super duper important to get your ice cream base as cold as possible before transferring it to the ice cream maker. If your ice cream base for warm or even room temperature, you're gonna wind up with a grainy, crystalized ice cream and not something that's smooth and silky. 4. Ice Cream Makers: Is it possible to make ice cream without an ice cream maker? Well, sure, but I don't necessarily recommend it. You can research the different methods that are out there for making ice cream without an ice cream maker, using anything from liquid nitrogen to just a bowl set over an ice bath in a whisk. But if you're really serious about making ice cream at home, I highly recommend that you get an ice cream maker to help you get the job done. There's lots of different models out there on the market, ranging in both price and convenience. So, yes, while there are methods out there to make ice cream without an ice cream maker, if you have the space in your kitchen to store one, I really recommend you make that investment. It's gonna make your life a whole lot easier, which will in turn make your ice cream taste a whole lot better. So the first type of ice cream maker has this removable insert that gets frozen in your freezer prior to use. There's lots of different models out there. I've seen ones that are hand crank, were motorized, and they can run anywhere from about $30 to $100 a pop, and they make a great ice cream. The biggest downside is this removable freezer insert. It has to be totally frozen solid before you can use it, which can take 48 hours and sometimes even longer. Now, that can be a real problem if you have a sudden creating for ice cream and you haven't kept this in your freezer, or if you're trying to make different kinds of ice cream back to back, because this will need to get re frozen in between. And I cannot stress enough how much this needs to be totally frozen solid prior to use. If you want, you can give it a shake, and if you hear anything swishing around, it means that they're still unfrozen liquid in there. So you want to put it back in the freezer and let it wait a little bit longer. Otherwise, you're gonna wind up with this soupy kind of crystallized mess, and it's gonna be a big old waste of your time. This is the type of model that I use, and I'm really happy with it. I always keep this insert in my freezer for whatever that last minute ice cream craving strikes. So the other option is a machine that has a built in freezing element to it already. These make great ice cream, and they're fantastic for when you have a craving for ice cream and need to make some on the fly or if you want to make different batches back to back. But that convenience is gonna cost you. These models start at $200 go up from there. 5. Philadelphia Style: So first up, I'm gonna teach you how to make the Philadelphia style or American style ice cream. Now, because this doesn't utilize any eggs, it has a really light texture and a milky flavor. This one is super simple to make. It doesn't require any cooking. And just a few basic ingredients later in the series will talk about how to adjust the ingredients in order to customize it to suit your own tastes. But right now we're gonna focus primarily on the technique. So start by adding the ingredients to a bowl, I'm gonna use three cups of heavy cream. I think I'm gonna add in one cup of whole milk. It's very important that you use whole milk. We do need the fat here. Don't try and substitute skin. It won't work on 3/4 of a cup of plain old white sugar and then just a little bit of vanilla extract. You want about a teaspoon, but I always eyeball it, and then we also want to add a pinch of salt. So next, all you have to do is just with this together until the sugar is totally dissolved. Now, this is gonna take a few minutes, so you might want a wicket and then walk away. Wait a few minutes, come back, let's get again and then repeat that process until there's no remaining Granules of sugar. So after that, we need to chill this mixture. We want it to be completely cold before we move to the next step in turn in our ice cream maker. So I'm just gonna cover it with some plastic wrap and then pop this into the refrigerator for at least a few hours. I like to let it go overnight. It's already cold to begin with because my ingredients were cold. But we still want that extra insurance so that it turns up really nicely once we're ready to freeze. So this is a batch that I had previously made and kept in the refrigerator overnight. So it's nice and cold just gonna give it a quick stir to make sure everything is nice and fully incorporated, and then I'm gonna dump it right into my ice cream maker. I've already put the insert from the freezer inside, and this is really it. At this point, you're gonna want to follow your manufacturer's instructions because all ice cream machines operate a little bit differently, but for mine. Just gonna make sure I have all that in there. Pop this little guy in, stick this on top and turn it on. Now, this is gonna turn for about 20 or 30 minutes, so we'll come back and check on it in a few. So this ice cream has been turning for about 25 minutes. Shut it off and then transfer it. Teoh, a container that you want to do this process as quickly as possible in order to prevent this beautiful ice cream we just made from melting. Because anything that melts is gonna wind up turning to those horrible large ice crystals that we talked about so much in the beginning of this Siri's. Now, I also prefer to use a glass dish for this portion because I can stick this in the freezer ahead of time and get the dish nice and cold. So it's gonna help give us extra insurance to keep this all really, really, really chilly. So we get the smoothest, most awesome ice cream possible. So we're gonna work quickly. Quickly, quickly. All right. So just smooth out the top and the bubbles in the bottom. You can kind of tap that down to get those out, so just smooth it out and then pop the lid on and get this into the freezer as quickly as possible. You want to make sure this isn't all the way in the back of the freezer and make sure your freezer is set to the lowest temperature possible so that this can freeze as quickly as possible to get nice, smooth ice cream. So I have a batch of ice cream that's been freezing for about six hours, and it's nice and firm, so I'm just gonna scoop some out. I have my ice cream scoop sitting in some hot water that's gonna make this a little bit easier. Oh, my gosh, it's perfect. Nice big scoop for May. Um, it's light, and it's creamy. Everything ice cream should be in them just a little bit more. So congratulations. You just learned how to make your first kind of ice cream. Now get into the kitchen and start cooking 6. Custard Style: Now we'll move on to the custard style ice cream or French style ice cream. Now this one requires a little bit more effort, but the results are totally worth it. This style introduces egg yolks into the equation, so that's going to give us a much richer and more velvety mouth feel. Now this style of ice cream is a little bit more sophisticated and indulgent, and I find it works best with flavors like chocolate or caramel or anything else that's really rich. However, it's also still good with fruit, or even just on its own. Now, making it custard isn't hard. It just takes a little bit of effort and patience and attention, I promise. If you just take it slow and are very careful, you're gonna be just fine. OK, so we'll start by measuring 3/4 of a cup of sugar into a medium size saucepan. Into that, we're gonna add one cup of whole milk. Once again, don't skimp on the fat here. We need that so we'll give that a little stir and turn that over medium heat. We just really want the sugar to dissolve so well that's warming through. Let's crack some eggs and separate. Hm. So we want just the egg yolks for this recipe. We're not looking for the white. So to separate the eggs, just give him a crack on a few sides and then very gently pull it apart and let the white just fall out and move it back and forth a few times until you let all of the white out of there. So you just are left with the yolk, and then we'll pop that into this bowl. We're gonna repeat with the remaining six egg yolks so we don't need to use these egg whites for anything. But hold on to them. Make yourself a nice, healthy egg white omelet because, you know, we have a lot of ice cream to eat. So all I want to do is whisk up these egg yolks to sort of get them all combined and homogenized. You don't really wanna with any air into this, so be careful not to over west. Next, I'm going to remove this milk mixture from the heat. Let's just make sure that the sugar is fully dissolved. Great. And then, as I'm whisking, I'm gonna slowly pour this into the egg yolks. Now, this is a technique called tempering on What this does is just gently warms up the egg yolks, which is gonna help them when we put them back into the saucepan. Gonna help them to keep from scrambling. Do not want scrambled eggs here. We want a nice, silky smooth custody. So now I'm gonna pour these back into the saucepan nice and warm through. They know what's about to happen. So from here, we're gonna turn the heat back on, and we're gonna use a spatula, not a whisk. Because, like I said, we don't want any air bubbles in there. You see, we already have a little bit of them as we stir. We're gonna help get rid of them, so keep the heat over medium low. This is going to take a little bit of time. Be patient. We're just waiting for this to thicken up a little bit, but it's gonna take a few minutes. Don't be tempted to turn your heat higher or you're gonna wind up with scrambled eggs and you're gonna have to start all over again. And I don't want to see that happen to you, So just be patient. Take your time. Take a deep breath. Don't go anywhere and just baby sit it until it starts to thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. So, as you, sir, you'll start to see the mixture thicken up just a little bit. And if you like to use a thermometer, we're looking for this to get around 170 degrees. But the way I like to tell is to dip a spoon in and draw a line in the back with your finger, and if it doesn't drip down, you know it's ready. So I turned the heat off because we're done cooking this and I'm gonna set a fine mesh sieve over top of the bowl and pour this in the city is just gonna help to catch any little pieces of egg that might have coagulated that's going to keep our ice cream really nice and silky smooth. You can see their catches, you know, just a few little pieces that I missed. So at this point, we're ready to add in the rest of our ingredients. So I'm gonna measure out two cups of heavy cream. You can totally add the cream and in the beginning of the process, where we warm the milk and the sugar in the saucepan. But I like to add it at this point because it helps to cool down this mixture even faster. So then we'll add in a little bit of vanilla extract about a teaspoon. I always eyeball it a little extra won't hurt and a good pinch of salt. So just mix this all together, and then we're gonna transfer it to the refrigerator to get it nice and cold. And because this was cooked, it's gonna take a lot longer than the Philadelphia style ice cream did. So we'll just get this into the fridge and in about eight hours will be ready to turn. So I have a custard style base that I've already made in advance and has been refrigerated overnight. So it's nice and cold, and I'm just gonna pour this into the ice cream maker. I have the insert in there that is also nice and frozen solid. I'm just gonna scrape up every last bit. We put a lot of hard work into this ice cream, so we want to make sure that we get it all in there and then it was popped the top on and follow your manufacturer's instructions to turn. I'm gonna turn this on and let it go for about 20 to 30 minutes. Theo ice cream has been turning for about 25 minutes. It's nice and thick, so I'm just gonna turn it off, top the lid off and look at this. So thick. So I'm just gonna work as quickly as I can and get it into this container. It's a glass container that I had stuck in the freezer so it can help chill this ice cream down as quickly as possible, and then we're just gonna smooth it out, and I can see it's already starting to melt around the edges. So I just want to pop this lid right on and then get into the freezer and let it freeze for at least six hours. Even more is better, so our ice cream has been freezing overnight, and I'm ready to try it. So I have this ice cream scoop that's been sitting in some warm water that's gonna help this come out really easily. Get a nice, big scoop. Let's dig in. Ah, now the Philadelphia style ice cream is really delicious, but this one has so much more of a richer texture. It's almost chewy when you bite into it. It's just awesome. So now you know how to make two different styles of ice cream. The next step is to customize. 7. Customize: Now that you've mastered the basic techniques for making ice cream, you get to customize, you can change up the different proportions of ingredients in order to create a flavor and texture that totally suits your preference. Now there isn't a ton of wiggle room with the Philadelphia style ice cream, because if you take away some of that cream and replace it with milk, you're gonna wind up with a texture that's a little more on the icy side. And it's not as desirable. I mean, it's called ice cream for a reason, but by all means, feel free to play around and see if you can come up with something that you like. Custard style Ice creams do have a little bit more room to play, and you can change up the different ingredients in order to achieve a desired mouth feel. So if you like your ice cream a little bit on the heavier or richer side, you can up the amount of egg yolks up to eight or even 10 per batch of ice cream and even at a little bit extra cream and then decrease the milk. On the other hand, if you like a lighter ice cream. You can decrease thes egg yolks down to as little as two and then up the amount of milk. Because the Egg Yolks Act is an emulsifier, you're not gonna wind up with that icy texture that you get when you make the Philadelphia ice cream. Not for both Philadelphia style and custard style ice cream. You can play around with both the type and the amount of sugar in order to get some different flavors. Now it must be noted that your ice cream base is always gonna taste a little bit sweeter than you want it. Teoh. This is because when foods freeze, the flavors and sweetness gets suppressed. So if it tastes a little bit too sweet at room temperature, it's gonna taste just right once it's frozen. On the contrary, if it tastes just right when it's at room temperature, it's gonna be a little bit too sweet or too overpowering. Once it's frozen, you can also switch up the kind of sugar that you use in order to give your ice cream a different flavor. You can try brown sugar or molasses or a Gavi, nectar, maple syrup or even honey to give your ice cream a really unique and different flavor. Just be mindful that these sweeteners Sweden a lot different from a plain old white sugar, so you're gonna have to adjust them accordingly. Do your research first. Now be sure you don't leave out the salt when you make these recipes. It might sound counterintuitive when you're making dessert, but it's really important to help bring out the natural flavors of milk and the sweetness. And it's super important when you're making ice cream or any kind of food and for the vanilla extract. I like to add it in because I think it complements most flavors really well. But it's totally optional, so if you want to leave it out, by all means do so. 8. Flavoring: Now it's time to have some fun and flavor, or I screen now flavoring. The ice cream can happen at a few different times, depending on what you're using. Now, if you want to infuse it with something like vanilla beans or cinnamon sticks or even fresh herbs like mint, the best time to do that is in the beginning of the cooking process. When you're heating the sugar with milk, even if you're making a Philadelphia style ice cream, you're still going to need to do it this way. So taking account the extra time that you'll need in order for that to cool down before you go to the churning process, depending on how strong of a flavor you want your ice cream to have, you can let the aromatics steep for anywhere from 30 minutes toe up to several hours. Just be sure to strain everything out before proceeding with the recipe. Alternatively, if you don't want to go through the process of steeping of in L. A being or cinnamon sticks, you can use extracts instead. Just know that you want to add these after you cook so you don't evaporate all of the flavor fruit pure A's like strawberry should be added in right before turning in order to retain all of that beautiful fresh fruit flavor. Now, because you're adding in fruit puree, which contains water, you want to make up for that by adding in some extra cream and maybe decreasing the milk a little bit. That's gonna add in the extra fat content and increase the richness to ensure that we have a nice, smooth and creamy ice cream. Nut butters, like peanut butter, work best with custard style ice creams, and they should always be added in after the cooking process so that it doesn't change the flavor or texture. You want the mixture to still be a little bit warm so that it incorporates really easily. Now a nut butter like peanut butter will be significantly increasing the fat percentage. Si won a really dial down on the egg yolks or the heavy cream and maybe increase the milk because you don't want to get this really fatty slick coating on your tongue when you go to eat it. Flavoring such as caramel or even chocolate could be added and during the cooking process, but you always want to be mindful when adding something like chocolate, especially caramel or even fruit. Pure A's because they're gonna increase the sugar content so you want to maybe dial back a bit on the sugar just to accommodate. You don't want it to be cloying. If you want to add in chunky ingredients like nuts or cookie or brownie pieces or candy bars, you want to add them in towards the very end of turning, and this is so they don't get too broken up in the process, and you're still left with really nice big chunks. So have fun. Some of the flavors that you make might turn out fantastic, but other flavors not so much. It's all part of the learning process, so just make sure you remember to enjoy it. 9. Closing: So, to recap, there's two basic types of ice cream we have your Philadelphia or American style, and then your custard or your French style. Now you don't need an ice cream maker to make great ice cream. However, it's gonna make your life a whole lot easier if you dio the'keeper's to. Making really fantastic, smooth and creamy ice cream is to keep everything nice and cold and tow work really quickly . Once you get to that freezing step, now it's your chance to get into the kitchen and give this your best shot. Making ice cream just like making any kind of food is all about trial and error. You're gonna have some successes, but you're also gonna wind up having some failures along the way, too. But it's important that you realize your failures are just as important, if not more so, than your successes. So if you don't make it perfect the first time, oh well, troubleshoot. Figure out what went wrong and then get back in there. Adjust your technique or your ingredients and get going again. The whole point here is to learn something in the process, and this isn't brain surgery. You guys were making ice cream. It's supposed to be fun, so don't ever lose sight of that. I hope you enjoy taking this class with me. Be sure to leave any questions or comments that you have in the section below. And don't forget to make some ice cream and upload it into the project section so you can share it with everyone else. I can't wait to see what amazing ice cream creations you all create.