I’m making a pint of mint choc chip ice cream for a friend, and have McCormick’s ‘mint’ extract. I see it’s a mix of spearmint and peppermint. I personally hate mint so have no idea how either tastes! Can I use this or will it taste like toothpaste with the spearmint in it? Most recipes seem to mention only peppermint. Also, are 2-3 drops enough for a pint (it’s a custard recipe with 2:1 cream to milk)? I want it to be sufficient without being overwhelming.

Does anyone know? I suppose I could just go there and ask, but its raining and I'm lazy.

Hi,

I have a soft serve machine and I've been making my icecream with the following recipe:

1 gallon of whole milk 1 gallon of 1/2 and 1/2 645g of heavy cream 245g of vanilla paste 1620g of sugar 16g of ice cream salt 26g of xanthan gum 450g of non fat powder milk

The taste is 10/10 but the texture needs to be firmer. Any tips?

Last year when I was searching for information regarding Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course and/or Desserts 101, everything I saw had the experiences highly recommended but I could not find any specific details about the experience.  Having just wrapped the Dessert 101 course this weekend, I wanted to share my feedback while the experience was fresh in the hopes that it will assist others in the future.

tldr:  Absolutely worth the time and money for the Dessert 101 Course if you:

• Have made attempts at 8-10+ different homemade ice cream recipes so you know what success and failure looks like - (Cuisinart ICE or an old rock salt machine is perfectly fine or borrow something don’t buy anything big for this).
• Do some textbook reading beforehand so technical lectures won’t be over your head.
• Engage with the vendors and grab their contact info, even if still forming a concept.

Prior to Attending:

I have been fairly active in the kitchen for the last three years, first attending and later volunteering to assist as sous chef for classes at a local culinary center, covering cuisines all over the world - altogether about 500 hours of experience as an understudy for very experienced executive chefs in said commercial kitchen.  Additionally most every Saturday for the last two years I have challenged myself to create either dish completely foreign to me or something familiar using a new cooking technique.  This includes about a dozen reasonably successful ice creams starting from a French vanilla base, a couple of sub-par attempts at sorbet and gelato.  Everything I’ve attempted I’ve captured the recipes along with complete notes and alterations so I know what to do (and not do) next time.

I read chapters 1-4 and 7-9 of ‘Ice Cream’, Goff, 7th edition, from a PDF online.  In retrospect chapters 5 and 10 would have been helpful, but I ran out of time.  My reading helped me significantly because the class was not the first time I was seeing these words and hearing these concepts; they had been previously introduced to me and Dr. Roberts and others were able to put the textbook information in context of what I as a small batch processor would actually use in the United States at present.  I would consider those chapters required reading for anyone wanting to maximize their experience.

Registration and Travel:

Sign ups for the course opened up the morning of July 18th, 2024. I had checked the page *at least* every day since the first of June.  The 7-day course was already full so I immediately signed up for the Ice Cream 101 course. 

The Monday of the week of the event, I received an email with the agenda attached.

On Thursday I flew in from KC to Pittsburgh, got a rental car and did the 2.5 hr drive to State College, PA without incident, arriving about 3:30pm local time.  I stayed at the Hyatt off of Beaver Ave, but pretty much any hotel in the area is going to be within 10 minutes of the venue. There are also flight options to State College, PA itself (really!), Philadelphia, or Baltimore.  Get your hotel early, college events scheduled that weekend may cause rooms to fill up closer to the date and prices may skyrocket.

Event Experience:

Registration was Friday, 11am at the Penn Stater.  It’s handled like any small conference event in a hotel, signed in at the registration table, got my swag and box lunch (sandwich, cookie, chips, fruit, drink) and headed to the assigned conference room.  All class materials and slides, probably around 150 pages, are given out in a large 3-ring binder.

The room held 100 people, there were a little over 75 attendees on the contact info sheet with 7-8 staff members/presenters and 7-8 speakers and vendors in attendance.  Of those 75 people, 17 states were represented and several countries including Japan, China, Mexica, Singapore.  Most of the US attendees  were within 300 miles of PA.  Everyone gave a brief 45-60 second introduction, while there were some people that were new to ice cream making and there to learn, most either owned or had stated plans to own a restaurant, coffee shop, or ice cream shop and were looking to gain skills.  Several had been in business for quite a few years and were looking to hone their skills in the interest of continuing education.  There were a few dairy farm owners that were seeking to make the jump to ice cream manufacture.

The first day’s reception event was reasonably well attended, I met a few contacts and am glad I stayed.   Also, there were three ice creams available to sample - Peachy Paterno, Raspberry Torte, Death by Chocolate.  I didn’t have any official Berkey Creamery after that, but had about 10-14 other flavor samples during labs, not counting the 10-12 vanilla and chocolate samples in the tasting lab.

Course Content:

(not including lunch/breaks)

First day was 5 hrs of lecture. 

Second day contained 4.5 hrs of lecture, 3 hours of lab.

Third day contained 4.5 hrs of lecture, 3 hours of lab. 

For labs, the class was split up into three groups of approximately  25 people each.

Session topics included: Ice Cream Overview, Composition, Ice Cream Operation, Ingredients, Fresh Fruit, Mix Processing, Make Your Own Mix?, Flavors and Inclusions, Self Serve and Fresh Serve, Gelato, Entrepreneurial Topic, Freezing and Hardening, Post Freezing and Customer Engagement, Non-Dairy Desserts, Equipment Choices, Choosing Mix Suppliers, and Food Regulations.

Lab Exercises/Demonstration topics included: Soft Serve/Direct Draw machine maintenance and use, alcohol freezing, handheld treats, and Batch Freezers types and use with ice creams, gelatos and custards, ice cream formulations (taste testing 10-11 different samples and judging respective quality, defects, etc.)

I am sure the above is subject to change based on need and speaker availability.  Class flow was excellent and modules built on each other with little to no overlap on topics.  Dr. Roberts ran a tight ship, this entire event was on time to the minute.  Class attendees asked great questions, no one got off topic or meandered into any side discussions. 

Personal Notes:

I'm glad I did the 101 course, it was stated during the sessions that the primary difference between the 101 and the 7-day short course was days of additional content (and presumably labs) on each individual ingredient and mix formulation.  While the labs would have been fun, the lecture would have not been useful to me as someone not employed by a large-scale manufacturer.

I was not at the point where I had a defined concept and business plan, so I was not quite ready to establish formal relationships with vendors and suppliers.  But I took down everyone’s information, am sending thank you emails now and will follow up when my plans have ‘hardened,’ pun intended. 

However, this course did accomplish all of my personal goals: I will be digging deeper into the regulations around starting my own small business, reaching out to local commissaries to inquire about capabilities in hosting me as a startup, getting my own at-home blast freezer, developing relationships with my restaurant contacts to get placement in their venues, and putting together an ice cream class that I myself will teach where I’ve previously been volunteering. So very successful all around.

Hope the above write-up was helpful; best of luck to future classes and attendees.

Can i use date syrup instead of corn syrup with my ice cream maker? what’s a healthy alternative to corn syrup

Does anybody know what is the PAC value of rice? If there are any differences between types - specifically, I am curious about Basmati rice. Thank you!

I just purchased a used whynter 201SB. I wanted to know if anybody has any advice or tips about using it. It will be my first compressor maker I have used. I am looking forward to being able to make large batches at one.

I've tried a few different ratios of water/milk/powdered milk/cream, but haven't had much luck finding one that doesn't turn into a solid and difficult to eat brick in the freezer afterwards.

I'm was trying to make sea salt ice cream but it proved to be harder than I expected, then I had the idea to just buy a vanilla ice cream from the store and just mix food coloring and sea salt with it but I want to know will it work or not so I know not to waste anymore money.

Hey everyone!

I'm looking to buy my first-ever ice cream maker and could use some advice!

I’m a college student and planning to buy it this summer. After that, I’ll bring it to my dorm for my final month of school before I graduate.

What I’m Looking For

• I want to make classic ice cream with mix-ins like melted chocolate chips and cookie dough.
• I also want to make protein ice cream that actually tastes good and has a great texture.
• Frozen custard is my top priority—I’m obsessed with Connie’s Frozen Custard in Houston, TX. They use machines from Leon’s Frozen Custard in Milwaukee. My go-to order is their vanilla custard with melted chocolate chips, where they pour hot chocolate syrup over the custard and blend it with an agitator, leaving solid chocolate chunks throughout. I’d love to recreate that experience.
• I also want to make gelato, especially stracciatella.
• My favorite ice cream flavors are cake batter/birthday cake.

Machines I’m Considering

• Lello 4080 Musso Lussino – I like that it’s compressor-based, so I don’t have to pre-freeze anything, making it more convenient for spontaneous use.
• Ninja Creami Pro (from Costco) – I’ve heard good things about it and want to know if it’s a solid option.

If you have experience with these machines (or any other recommendations), I’d love to hear your thoughts! Also, if you know of great resources for recipes—especially for frozen custard, protein ice cream, and gelato—please drop them below.

A few months ago a user posted that they were giving away Lello Musso's. Did anyone who wrote to them, as they asked, get theirs?

the recipe for my ninja creamie (gelato) said to cook the egg yolk (with the other ingresients) for 5 minutes... I just mixed them in. my question is: what does the cooking do? is it necessary? the egg yolk is an emulsifier but if it gets mixed anyway was the cooking necessary?

1 egg, 3/4 cups of caster sugar, 1 cup milk, 2 cups double cream, bubblegum flavouring and blue food colouring 💙

I always like to make unconventional food, like curry chocolate or experiment with different dairy to see what happens.

I feel like this cottage cheese ice cream is low fat, does not smell gamey but it has an interesting texture.

I thought I share the recipe and see what you think.

For cherry sauce

Cherry sauce : 500 g cherry puree 100 g sugar 8 g Agar

Combine sugar and agar agar well. Whisk into liquid in small pot Bring boil, whisking occasionally. Pour liquid into shallow container; chill to set. Blend smooth in blender NOTE: adjust sugar/agar for acid or pre sweetened liquids. Add liquid to adjust texture.

For cottage cheese milk ice cream:

500 g cottage cheese 500 g cow milk 500 g cow cream 200 g sugar 100 g inverted sugar 100 g dextrose 5 g locust bean gum or other stabilizer

Combine milk, cream and invert sugar bring to boil. Add the sugar, dextrose and stabilizer, mix well and heat to 85°c while continuously mixing. Strain and cool in ice bath, add the cottage cheese and mix to homogenize. Store in fridge for 8-12 hours. Once ready stir well and pour into ice cream machine and churn. Once ready, you can enjoy it with cherry sauce, honey or maple syrup. Store in freezer.

Used Piloncillo in a vanilla base then steeped toasted applewood sticks from my backyard tree. Topped with applewood bacon tossed in barrel-aged balsamic. Unbelievable

I'm using a Whynter ICM-15LS, with a standard vanilla base recipe like this and about 0.1% xanthan. I've been repeating this recipe but with different results from the machine itself and how it churns.

I first tried to pre-chill the machine by letting it run about 10 minutes and then adding the fridge-cold base into the machine. It got to about -8c before the bottom was pretty frozen and the paddle was almost stuck so i stopped the machine.

The next time I made it I only pre-chilled the machine for about 5 minutes and the mix struggled to get to -5c before the bottom again too frozen and I stopped.

Today I tried no pre-chill and the mix was sitting at -1c after 30 minutes so I just froze it.

I'm not liking how the bottom freezes and the top is more soft, I don't like the inconsistent temps. I don't know where I'm going wrong or if its the limitation of such a machine? The paddle doesn't seem to be scraping the bottom stuff much at all, there's about 5mm clearance at the lowest point so it's not scraping.

- Does the machine just suck?

- Do I not pre-chill? Do I pre-chill more?

- Is a frozen bottom just part of the process?

I blended and then reduced fresh cherries and I have maraschino cherries to toss in but I'm wondering how I can make my cherry garcia deliver. I'm making it for someone's birthday and they loOoOove cherry.

I’ve made coffee ice cream with basic bitch instant coffee and espresso powder and going to be making quite a few batches with some of the different beans I got from local roasters as I recently entered into the coffee world because just ice cream even though it is still one of my favorite ways to enjoy it.

Any who I’m going to end up doing a few batches to see what friends and I like more but curious what you all prefer. I have noticed darker roasts do tend to be a bit better in milkshakes from my very limited testing and will be interesting if that holds true after this.

Celebrating the weekend the only way I know how.

Added a touch of refined coconut oil to both the peanut butter and chocolate chips to get the hardening effect.

Happy weekend to you all! I hope you make and enjoy some delicious ice cream!

Does anyone know the POD and PAC of Monk Fruit?

Hi everyone,

I have a question about whether solid toppings or mix-ins should be included in the ice cream calculator when determining freezing point and POD. To clarify my question, here are two examples based on my understanding:

1. Chocolate-flavored chocolate chip ice cream: My understanding is that I should account for the chocolate flavor added to the base in the ice cream calculator, but not the solid chocolate chips that are added during the final stage of churning.

2. Stracciatella flavor: My understanding is that the melted chocolate added at the final stage of churning should not be included in the ice cream calculator.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this! I'm attempting Stracciatella for the first time, and my concern is that if I include the chocolate in the calculator, the ice cream base might turn out either too runny or hard to freeze.

I know there's a reason it's called iceCREAM lol But I live in a country where cream is not commonly available. What are the best substitutes for cream or with how little cream can one still successfully make good ice cream?

This might be an old question but I’ve been wanting to try some homemade ice cream sandwiches with the soft chocolate cakey cookie ones that are store bought.

But every time I try to search for it they’re all just “use chocolate chip cookies” or “it’s close to a brownie” but I know from experience the end result is either to hard to bite or turns soggy and falls apart.

So, now with context, does anyone know a good ice cream sandwich recipe?

Im only make slight modifications. The base recipe is 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, 4.5 oz semisweet Chocolate,1 cup peanut butter, 3/4 cup of sugar. Would this work if I replaced the sugar with 1 cup of light corn syrup (roughly double the weight of the dry sugar to account for sweetness)?

3 cups of heavy cream

1.5 cups of milk

1 cup of sugar

3-4 peeled mangoes ( I was really baked and don’t remember lol)

Chamoy and tajin as much or little as you like

Gave it out to a few people and they liked it

Does anybody know TZS First Austria Ice Cream Maker? I am considering buying an ice cream-making machine soon and would like to know your suggestions.

Okay, you had a dinner party and made a few different ice creams for your guests. You've got plenty to send home. What are your favorite solutions for take-home ice cream or as gifts?!

Hi all! I'm very new to ice cream making. I've wanted to try something akin to Haagen Daaz "Rasberry Ehite chocolate truffle" or Baskin Robins "Love Potion"

Has anyone seen a recipe similar to either of these?

Thank you!