(no subject)

[camwyn]

I bought an ice cream maker company cookbook a while ago on Amazon. It's a very old one, a cheap little paper pamphlet with the sort of type on the front that makes one think it may have been printed in the 1930s, or at least that it's a reprint of a 1930s pamphlet. I'd looked it up after seeing one of its recipes on Mid-Century Menus- there was a main courses section, you see, and since this was an ice cream maker company cookbook, everything had to involve the ice cream maker, even if it was based around chicken...

Anyway, last night I tried one of the actual dessert recipes. The first recipe in the book is for 'apple mint ice cream'. This sounds appealing, but it's a bit misleading. The first ingredient in the recipe is two ounces of bitter chocolate (plain ol' unsweetened or baking chocolate, basically), and the mint is about three drops' worth. Essentially it's a chocolate mint ice cream recipe that gets all its sweetness from 3/4 cup of apple jelly. I, alas, was unable to find apple jelly when I was at the store buying ingredients. I knew I could get it elsewhere, but a, I was lazy, and b, when more light passes through the jelly than would through the side of a bottle of beer, I start wondering if it actually ever had anything to do with the fruit in the first place. I used 3/4 cup apple butter instead and then used two ounces of chocolate chips, as Smuckers apple jelly has four times the sugar of the equivalent volume of apple butter.

I won't say it wasn't tasty when I got it out of the freezer last night, but it was a bit weak in the flavor department- the chocolate didn't seem much (the recipe involved melting the chocolate and mixing it with milk, not leaving the chips whole) and the mint was almost impossible to perceive. Maybe old school mint flavoring was more like oil of peppermint rather than just extract. Also, the stuff fell apart much too easily when I scooped it out. This may have been the fault of a recipe that used jelly no longer having quite so much pectin to work with. If I make this stuff again I will see about trying it with actual apple jelly, and I will use cocoa powder and butter instead of chocolate chips (cocoa powder tends to deliver a more intense flavor), and either get peppermint oil or use more peppermint extract.

Comments

[neotoma]

How much mint flavor do you want? I've found that twenty fresh leaves added to the custard, brought to a simmer for 5 minutes, and then left to steep off the heat for 30 minutes works great.

I wonder what properties of apple jelly are the desired ones for this recipe -- pectin and sugar, maybe?

[camwyn]

The recipe doesn't actually involve a custard. 2 ounces bitter chocolate, one and a half cups 'sweet milk' (according to the Wisconsin dairy board, this means regular whole milk, as opposed to buttermilk), one egg white, 3/4 cup apple jelly, three drops peppermint flavoring (I assumed they meant extract, but perhaps they mean oil), one cup whipping cream. Melt the chocolate in the milk and stir until blended, then let it cool. Beat the egg white with the jelly 'until stiff', then stir it into the chocolate milk. Add the peppermint flavor, fold in the cream (I guessed they wanted me to whip it first if they were calling for folding it), then freeze- I put it in my machine with the intention of putting it in the freezer after twenty-five minutes of churning, but the machine started sounding odd twenty minutes in. Turned out it'd reached Proper Ice Cream texture at that point, so into the freezer it went.

I'm guessing the pectin and the sugar were the important thing in the original recipe. If I modify it, I'm thinking I'll see how much difference the pectin makes to the texture before I start futzing around with a custard replacing the mere egg white.

[neotoma]

So, more a Philadelphia style ice-cream with minimal egg then? I'd still add the mint to the milk before you melt the chocolate and then let it steep for a bit.

The recipe seems a bit odd to me, but maybe it was intended to minimize the time over a hot stove and eliminate the cooling step?

Normally I make a base (with or without egg) by heating milk and cream (and sugar or honey) together until the base has thickened somewhat, and so that whatever flavoring has a chance to steep. Then I let it cool in the fridge for several hours before churning -- otoh, I have a Donvier hand-crank, which works great but does require a some arm strength.

[camwyn]

I don't know what Philadelphia style means, unfortunately. I'll remember what you said about the mint and get some leaves, though. Nothing against the extract or the use of oils but the leaves give one a bit more control.

I'll admit, I wanted a hand crank originally. Kind of still do, as part of that whole 'I can totally do this thing if the electricity goes out/the supply line gets cut off/civilization goes away' delusion I harbor. (Yeah, where was I planning on getting rock salt and ice in that situation?) But the handcrank machines I was finding all cost $150 or else were just Tasteful Room Decorations, or maybe were up for sale on Craigslist, and God only knows how much bleach I'd have to use on them to get them clean. So I went with the most reasonably priced machine that scored well in Cook's Illustrated. (Their top reviewed machine that month was in the 'for that much money you are going to have ice cream coming out your ears, and yes, we ARE going to make the roast chicken ice cream recipe from the scary Thirties cookbook' category as far as I'm concerned, but the Cuisinart was #2.)