First of all, I have to say thank you again to my husband for giving me the Vitamix for my birthday. Lovin’ it.
Some of the recipes in the accompanying book, however, do not appear to be well tested. For example, frothy tomato soup didn’t work (it got tossed mostly uneaten). And the homemade ice cream recipes yield cold confections that are too icy and/or… missing something. The best one I tried was the basic “put dairy and sugar and frozen fruit in your Vitamix, blend, and tamp until four mounds form.” It tasted quite good. But it wasn’t ice cream. You know, real ice cream.
I don’t have an ice cream maker. And the thing is, I don’t really want one. More to store, more to clean, probably have to figure out how to fit a canister in my already-crowded freezer. Doesn’t seem worth it to me. But the Vitamix seemed so… promising.
So I’ve been obsessing for the last couple of weeks about making a good custard-style ice cream with my Vitamix. Looked around a lot online for ideas, mumbled to myself a lot while driving and walking the dog, that sort of thing. This past weekend I finalized my plan and implemented it. Success! It smells like ice cream and it feels like ice cream in my mouth and it tastes like ice cream. I might not ever need to buy ice cream again!
It is a two-phase process, but so worth the time!
Looking around the web at various ice cream recipes, a typical ratio seems to be 2 egg yolks, 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar, and 6 oz fruit for each cup of dairy… with a little salt and vanilla thrown in for better flavor. I opted for partial substitutions of corn syrup (replacing some of the sugar) and evaporated milk (replacing half of the fresh dairy in the recipe) to help avoid iciness.
For the custard in Phase I, I used a method I found for making creme brulee with a Vitamix. It turned out quite well with the substitutions, except that I tried the ice cube tray trick (theoretically to freeze the custard more quickly, thereby reducing iciness), but it was an incredible pain in the neck to get the frozen custard out of the ice cube tray. Next time: a chilled rimmed metal baking dish.
Once the custard was frozen and ready to go, I decided to split up the custard and try Phase II three ways: skim milk only, half milk and half cream, and cream only. Made the mistake of trying these with portions almost too small to tamp down in the blender, so the fruit wasn’t broken up very well. But the flavor was really good. I started with the milk-only version and I was surprised with how tasty it was out of the blender (and how much it smelled like ice cream–yum!), although it was way too hard to scoop after freezing for four hours. Next I tried the half and half version, and was even more excited about the flavor and mouth feel out of the blender, but it was still a little too hard to scoop after freezing. Last I made the cream-only version and of course it had the best taste, but I thought it felt a bit too fatty in my mouth right out of the blender. Although still a bit too hard, it was the easiest of the three to scoop after freezing and –as a nice surprise– the freezing took away the overly creamy/fatty feeling. Nice!
I held a little unscientific taste test with my husband, our daughter, a neighbor, and her daughter. Results were mixed, with two of us preferring the half and half version, two vocally preferring the cream-only version, and one undecided between the two. No one picked the milk-only version as a favorite, but all agreed it was still good. My initial conclusion: ice milk is out, but the vote was close enough between the other two that it would be worth it to save the calories and go with the half and half.
So, figuring it would average out well, I threw all three versions into the blender with a little more custard and a little more dairy, whirled, tamped, transferred to a metal bowl, and put it in the freezer. The larger portions allowed the tamper to do its job better, allowing the blender to pulverize the fruit for better texture. And taking a cue from The Kitchn, I set the timer for 45 minutes, after which I pulled the ice cream out of the freezer and hit it with my hand mixer for a few minutes. A couple of hours later: a significant improvement in texture and scoopability! Ta-da!
But then more bad news: after a day in the freezer, the texture was a little grainy, I’m guessing from very small ice crystals forming due to the high water content in the fresh milk. My revised conclusion: no fresh milk (evaporated milk yes, cream yes, milk no). From now on, in Phase II, I’ll use only cream when the calories just don’t matter, or I’ll use half evaporated milk and half cream if I want a lower fat version.
Now my recipe for custard-style ice cream (in my Vitamix) is on my list of regulars.
For the remainder of the dough (after we returned home), I decided to make smaller menorahs using a small cookie cutter for the face and back of the menorah and a manually cutting single small wedge piece for the middle. There’s not enough room along the top of the small cookie for any sort of “candles” though, so they get only icing for the candles and flames.