No-Cook Blackberry-Lemon Ice Cream Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

How to make homemade ice cream soft and fluffy? ›

Sugar, corn syrup or honey, as well as gelatin and commercial stabilizers, can all keep your ice cream at a softer consistency. Ice cream also stays softer when you store it in a shallow container, rather than a deep tub, and cover the surface of the ice cream with plastic wrap to keep ice crystals from forming.

More fat means a smoother texture. Cook the base - Heating the ice cream base deactivates enzymes that can make ice cream icy. Bring the base to 170-180°F. Chill thoroughly - Let the base chill in the fridge 4-12 hours before churning.

Adding thickening agents, such as egg yolks, cornstarch, gelatin, tapioca starch, or even Junket tablets, enhances the texture and elevates the overall ice cream experience. Remember, making homemade ice cream is as much an art as it is a science.

In Lebovitz's book, he states that adding just a bit of alcohol to your ice cream base results in a better texture when it's churned because alcohol doesn't freeze. The alcohol prevents some of the ice crystals from forming, which makes the ice cream softer and therefore more scoopable.

When it comes to great ice cream, cold temperatures and speed are your friends: the faster you bring your base from liquid to solid, the creamier it'll be. In a 2-quart unit, a typical batch of ice cream will take between 18 and 25 minutes to churn.

Combine the cream, milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Warm for 5 minutes, whisking often, until the sugar is fully dissolved and the mixture is warmed through. Then, chill the ice cream base. Transfer it to a heatproof bowl, cover, and chill for 2 hours or overnight.

Combine milk, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl. Stir till sugar is dissolved. If using Ice Cream Machine: Add milk mixture to an ice cream machine and process 20 minutes or until mixture thickens. Pour into tupperware and freeze 8 hours or overnight.

Why is my homemade ice cream not creamy? ›

Like everyone else has already pointed out, it could be multiple things: Not enough fat, i.e. if you use milk in your recipe, you used too much milk and not enough cream. The more milk you use the more icy texture you get. Especially if you use skim milk.

Eggs leverage the fat already present in the ice cream base (the butterfat in cream and milk) and make it work even further for a creamier texture. But wait, there's more! Egg yolks also improve the stability of an ice cream, reducing its tendency to melt before you can get it from freezer to cone to mouth.

During churning, the dasher (or blade) of the machine scrapes tiny ice crystals off the walls of the freezer (or canister/bowl). Those ice crystals—interspersed with air—make up the body of your ice cream, which means the faster the ice cream freezes, the smaller the crystals and creamier the product.

Similarly, too little sugar in ice cream can make it rock hard. Because sugar lowers the freezing point of the water in ice cream, the right amount will keep your ice cream from freezing completely – which is to say, leaves it scoopable instead of turning it into a brick of ice.

For firmer ice cream, transfer to an airtight container and freeze for 2 to 4 hours before serving. Store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to a month. If the ice cream is too firm to scoop straight from the freezer, let sit at room temperature for a few minutes to soften.

Homemade ice cream usually contains much less air than the stuff you buy in the store. Air keeps ice cream soft. So the less there is, the harder your ice cream. It can also be caused by low fat or sugar content.

So if stabilizers handle the creaminess of an ice cream then what handles the scoop-ability? There are two things that play part in making an ice cream perfectly scoop-able. It's the sugar content and the fat content.