Thursday, July 11, 2013

Mint Fudge Ripple

I'm in Maine, so I'm using our trusty old Il Gelataio, a Chanuka gift from Grandpa about 30 years ago.  It still works perfectly!  It has a built in compressor, and it freezes the ice cream much faster and more reliably than my KitchenAid attachment.  It also spins the beater faster and produces a very silky-looking result.

I decided to try some fresh mint ice cream with the mint in the back yard here.  Last time I did this, I didn't like the big frozen chocolate chips, so I decided to try using a fudge ripple instead.  I also wanted to play around with different thickeners.

The flavor is good, very minty, although it could actually use a little more sugar.  That's the first time I've felt that way in any of my ice creams.  The texture came out a little funny.  Sort of too soft.  After reading a bit, I think I need to increase the amount of guar gum and reduce the amount of xanthan gum.  Some people suggest as much as a 10:1 ratio, but I will probably start out with 3:1 and see how it goes.

We had some trouble getting the freezer cold enough initially, so that might have harmed the texture as well.  That's all fixed for next time.

Mint Fudge Ripple Recipe

NOTES: This recipe needs some tweaking on the thickener amounts.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups low fat half-and-half
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup corn syrup
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
  • 1/4 tsp guar gum
  • big bunch of mint leaves, washed and torn into pieces
  • fudge ripple recipe

Instructions

  1. Mix half-and-half, sugar, salt, and corn syrup in saucepan.  Bring to a boil and boil for four minutes.
  2. Pour into blender, add gums and blend to combine.  (Be careful about blending hot liquids!)
  3. Pour into a container, stir in mint leaves, and transfer to the refrigerator to sit overnight.
  4. Strain mint leaves out, freeze in an ice cream maker.
  5. When transferring to container from ice cream maker, layer in fudge ripple.  Try not to stir, just layer.