I got Ice Cream Bliss and I’m a bit surprised by how heavily Rose leaned into super rich and egg-dominant ice cream recipes. Critical reviews point to this and the butterfat content being around 20%, which is very high. The photos are beautiful and I like Rose’s books, but I don’t know that this particular one will be getting much use from me.
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I checked it out on Amazon. It called for purchasing expensive ice cream stabilizers so I didn’t buy it.
I’m not the Rose Levy Beranbaum fan that may are. I bought The Cake Bible then gave it away. My taste in cake flavors doesn’t align with hers.
Ice cream news: We’re planning an ice cream social over here, probably for the week after Labor Day. Buncha Mom’s friends over for homemade ice cream and some toppings. I’ve never done this before, so i’m excited, and already have several things made and in the freezer.
I’ll be offering the following:
- strawberry (this favorite recipe)
- black raspberry from RLB’s “Ice Cream Bliss” - this is a particular favorite of many of the attendees so I’m stoked to be able to serve it
- peach frozen yogurt
- david l’s tremendous chocolate sorbet
- brambleberry crisp, my first ice cream triumph
It’s heavy on the fruit flavors, but hell, it’s summertime and that’s how I roll.
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Yummmm! That sounds like a delicious combo.
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I was trying to think of what ice cream I wanted and realized I really wanted some creamy white chocolate ice cream with raspberry swirl. I love this combo, and white chocolate ice cream in general provided the sweetness is on point, and here it definitely is. Made with some xanthan gum and no eggs, plus much more milk than cream, the richness is kept in check, too. I used the swirl recipe from Serious Eats and went with 224° and worried it was too thick and 220° would have been better, but once you swirl it’s good to have that consistency. I had some of the hot fudge still so I threw it in tiny coffee spoonfuls as I was layering it.
If I do a strawberry swirl I really want to try out a method from CI where they make a strawberry sauce with just sugar and ground freeze-dried strawberries to thicken the puréed fresh berries. I was really curious about possibly doing a sauce that would be barely heated and thickened with a starch or gum or maybe pectin NH, but I couldn’t find anything on it and I was also wanting to try the very simple method I used here instead.
There’s also a method from RLB that I’ve used to make sauce where frozen berries are strained and pureed and the liquid is reduced with sugar so the berries themselves stay fresh-tasting.
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I made David Lebovitz’s Maple Walnut Ice Cream.
Wow, it’s delicious. I’m a huge fan of maple syrup. If you are too you should make it.
Make sue to use a strongly flavored maple syrup. I used Shady Maple Farms Very Dark.
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did you include the walnuts? sorry for the dumb q.
The only dumb question is the unasked one.
Yes, I made the walnuts and folded them into the ice cream. For me, the sweetness of maple syrup calls for contrast , which the bitterness of walnuts provide.
In The Perfect Scoop, Lebovitz recommends making the walnuts close to when one will use them. He says this ensures a crisp texture.
I made the base in the evening and refrigerated it overnight. In the morning I made the walnut. When the walnuts had cooled I churned the ice cream.
i think the crispness question was in the back of my mind when i asked! thank you.
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For adding nuts to ice cream I like making something like the peanuts and sesame seed crunch I make for the Peanut Crunch Cake I love so much. They get coated in egg white, sugar, and salt, and baked until brown and very crunchy. This crunch remains in ice cream.
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I made RLB’s coconut ice cream because I just happened to have a small can of cream of coconut that was no doubt bought in error. I adjusted the recipe to 93% accommodate the 268 g rather than 288 g called for.
The ice cream is super smooth and creamy, and I am further convinced there is no need for so many yolks. I don’t even mind yolks in coconut ice cream, but they do get in the way of flavor and for me that happens here. 6 yolks are not needed. It’s a touch on the sweet side, which surprised me since the only sugar comes from cream of coconut and a bit of glucose (or reduced corn syrup). Overall it’s pretty good, but the sweetness combined with the flavor delay from yolks means the coconut ends up a bit muted. Also the cream of coconut adds to the texture as there are stabilizers in it like guar gum, but I’d like to shift the proportion so the sweetness could be reduced. Flavor-wise I much prefer coconut ice cream that is made only with steeped coconut as the flavor has been stronger. I maintain that coconut milk makes for really weak coconut flavor in things like ice cream or cakes, but the cream of coconut is stronger and still ended up pretty mild here even with coconut having been infused into this base as well. It could also be because Rose only calls for 1-1.5 hours of infusion.
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Also coconut is one of my mom’s favorite ice cream flavors and I suspected she wasn’t crazy about this one when she didn’t say anything on it. Then I mentioned some of my issues and she agreed that yes, she thought it’s on the sweet side and a bit eggy and lacking coconut flavor overall.
I brought several types of homemade ice cream to my niece’s birthday party last summer and David Lebovitz’s Toasted Coconut was the clear fan favorite.
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Yeah, that’s a really good flavor, though sometimes I prefer the flavor of coconut that isn’t toasted, and like Claudia Fleming’s recipe for that but with fewer yolks.
I was mostly curious about the cream of coconut in RLB’s. At some point I’m going to work on a version with some stabilizers and no yolks or only a couple of yolks.
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The first coconut ice cream recipe I ever made had un-toasted coconut mixed in and I don’t know if it was that or just the recipe in general but I didn’t like the “chewy” texture. The toasted coconut recipe appealed to me as it reminded me of those Good Humor ice cream bars. Even when I make the insane coconut cake recipe that everyone loves I top it with toasted coconut. It ruins the all white appearance but improves the flavor/texture IMO.
Oh I never leave coconut in ice cream as being Dominican we tend to hate that. Coconut ice cream is one of our most beloved flavors and it wasn’t until leaving DR that I witnessed coconut ice cream with shredded coconut. I can’t think of any Dominicans who enjoy coconut ice cream that isn’t perfectly smooth. If shredded coconut is used in DR it’s fresh, but not in our coconut ice cream! 
However I do think dried shredded coconut steeped in dairy produces a better coconut flavor than coconut milk (whether freshly made or the best quality canned) so that’s my preference for making anything coconut-flavored. I just strain it out.
FTR I actually do like dried shredded coconut in a lot of things, including these paletas, which taste much more coconutty because of its presence than another paleta recipe from Gerson that has you make fresh coconut milk. Even my mom rather reluctantly (being the number one dried coconut hater) had to accept they were good when I made them.
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T minus two days to the Ice Cream Social I am hosting here at Mom’s house for ten (!) of her closest friends.
Made so far:
2 Peach
2 Strawberry
1 Chocolate sorbet
1 Blueberry
In progress:
Black raspberry (base chilling)
Second choc sorbet (base chilling)
Next:
Brambleberry crisp (granola layer and berry swirl made and ready)
To do:
Gather some various cones (sugar, wafer, possibly pretzel cones.)
I don’t know what to do about “toppings.” I don’t ever want toppings on fruit ice cream, nor on chocolate. But I kind of want to offer them just for fun’s sake. OTOH, the audience here is a gaggle of ladies in their mid-70s; not sure they’d get any kicks from crappy sprinkles or canned whipped cream.
On peach ice cream I like a berry sauce. Not sure it’s worth making it just for the one flavor, though.
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I’m not much for toppings either outside of maybe a chocolate shell once in a while. I do like mochi bits, though. That’s my boring go-to at places that offer toppings.
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Too many choices can get confusing so I’d offer 2 cones, not a pretzel one and offer no toppings.
What a wonderful treat for these ladies!
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