Shuksan Love
One of the major perks of living in Oregon is U-Pluck strawberries. The Shuksan variety, prized for its sweet flavor and diminutive stature, is above and beyond the overblown, hollow-cored variety you get shipped from California.
We went berry picking last week on Thursday and this week on Wednesday… it’s a lot of work to process all that fruit but it’s sure worth it. Our freezer is stuffed with bags of frozen lovelies – the Shuksan’s shape makes it easy to slice off the top and then arrange on a tray – once they’re frozen you can store them in a bag to keep on hand for smoothies.
I made two different batches of fresh-strawberry ice cream. Sounds like heaven, right? The second batch was delicious, but both had texture issues. For the first one, I figured because I was adding sugar I would use the less-ripe berries. I also threw in some over-ripe ones that wouldn’t last the night. I chopped some and pureed some and chilled them with sugar and lemon juice. I strained out the juice and added that to the whole milk + half-n-half mixture that I was using, plus vanilla and a bit more sugar. I added the chopped berries near the end of the mix/chill process in the ice cream maker, and I think that was a mistake – the ice cream was very soft. I transferred it to a tub in the freezer and took it out and stirred it periodically… but it didn’t end up all that great. A bit too tart, the chopped berries were little frozen rocks, and not creamy enough. The next day what was left had frozen into a solid mass and we had to chip away at it. For my second attempt, I decided to just puree all the berries and add them at the beginning of the mix. I also used more sugar (and a higher proportion of half-n-half) and BN sorted out the ripest berries for the puree. But, the ice cream never really thickened up. I’m not sure what happened here – perhaps the freezer bowl wasn’t frozen all the way or maybe the batch was too big. It tasted great, but was too soft at first and too hard after being in the freezer overnight.
Now you are going to have to bring some of those with you when you come down to visit (next month?) – they sound too good!
I never made ice cream with my ice cream maker because my hubby refers frozen yogurt. So I only make frozen yogurt, two batches every week with different flavors.
I have read a lot of reviews on ice cream makers and many people complained the ice cream came out watery even after frozen overnight. But yours was soft at the beginning and ice solid after frozen. So I am thinking may be there is too much liquid in your mixture.
First, try to drain the strawberries well, make sure they are dry. Also, you may want to try use combination of light corn syrup and sugar instead of just sugar. Add a tiny pinch of salt. Since you are not using egg yolks, which is a very common ingredient to make ice cream, try to add some whipping cream or some plain yogurt. To me, your mixture needs some kind of binding ingredients to thicken/smoothen the texture…
Sorry for the long comment. Hope this helps.
Wow, those are some great tips! It’s definitely possible I have too much liquid in my batches… I added 2 cups of strawberry puree! It didn’t occur to me that this would ruin the consistency. When I made coconut ice cream in April, I made a cooked custard base with egg. I should try that again… and frozen yogurt? That sounds good! You should post your recipe on your blog… or did you already?
Another great thing for ice cream texture is using a small amount of preserves. The pectin helps smooth things out a lot. I usually use 1 cup of sugar, minus 2 tbsp. You can sub in the preserves 1-for-1 with the sugar, so put back in 2 tbsp of preserves. You can use some other flavor for depth (I love my marionberry preserves in just about anything I’ve made), or use the same type of fruit preserves to blend in.
I also cook my fruit in the cream/milk (no egg, tho, because tempering is too much work for what you get from it). I bring the whole thing up to 170 degrees and then pull it, blend it, strain seeds and skins out depending on the fruit I’m using, and let it chill overnight in the fridge.