As you will be using fresh ingredients, such as eggs and cream, it is essential that when you are making your custard base that all the ingredients are thoroughly cooked and then taken to freezing temperature as soon as possible. To help this process cook over a low to medium heat and chill all other ingredients, such as fruit or chocolate chips, you use.
If your ice-cream is too soft, decant it to a suitable container and put in the freezer. It may take up to an hour to set properly, so give yourself plenty of time before service to ensure your product is at its optimum condition.
Your ice-cream may be too hard and there are a variety of reasons for this:
- Some of your ingredients were not sufficiently chilled
- Ice crystals were too large after churning – the faster the churn, the smaller the crystals – the smaller the ice crystals the smoother the ice-cream
- You didn’t follow the recipe – especially with the quantity or quality of sugar you used
- You used alcohol in your recipe (rum and raisin or champagne sorbet for instance) – alcohol reduces the freezing point of the ice-cream mixture
Rippling
You can introduce a ripple effect to your ice-cream in two ways:
- As soon as the ice-cream is ready from your ice-cream maker you can decant the mixture to a suitable container and then pour over chilled syrup / sauce, then freeze immediately.
- You can tamp down the mixture, whilst still in the ice-cream maker, and using a spoon handle or drinking straw make holes in the mixture and then introduce the sauce / syrup using a kitchen syringe or small piping bag. Then decant the mixture to a suitable container and put in the freezer straight away.
Top 10 ice-cream flavours
www.ice-cream-recipes.com is an incredibly useful website and this is their top ten:
- Vanilla
- Chocolate
- Strawberry
- Banana
- Chocolate Chip
- Coconut
- Pecan
- Mint Chocolate
- Coffee
- Honey
Easy-Peasy Ice Cream Recipes – No Ice Cream Maker Required!
Yotam Ottolenghi’s Ice Cream Recipes
Dan Lepard’s Passion Fruit, Cashew Nut & Creme Fraiche Ice Cream
To get you started here is a brilliantly easy ice cream recipe …
Real Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe
Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s recipe – makes 1 litre of ice-cream
Ingredients
- 500ml/17fl oz double cream
- 1 vanilla pod, split
- 100g/3½oz caster sugar
- 150ml/5fl oz water
- 4 eggs, yolks only
Method
- Scald the cream (i.e. bring almost to boiling point, then remove from the heat) and add the vanilla pod. Leave to infuse until the cream is completely cool. Scrape out the tiny seeds from the pod and leave in the cream.
- Over a low heat dissolve the sugar in the water, then turn up the heat and boil rapidly to get a light syrup (it’s ready when a little dropped on to a cold plate forms a thread when stretched between finger and thumb. Leave the mixture to cool for just 1 minute.
- Place the egg yolks in a basin and begin whisking (ideally with an electric whisk), trickling in the hot syrup as you go. Continue whisking until the mixture is thick and mousse-like. Whisk in the cream. Then pour into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen.
Top Tip – “artisan” ice-cream is a premium product and you can charge accordingly – it can also form part of your pub’s USP – so make sure that if you are going to go the effort and expense of 
producing your own ice-cream then advertise the fact wherever you can – menus, chalk-boards, table talkers, website…
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