The ingredients
This article will describe all the ingredients that you can use to make a sorbet or an ice cream. To facilitate reading, only the term of ice cream will be used. And when you see the name "mix", it will be the product obtained by the mix of all the ingredients.
Do not worry, the online balancing tool of Ice Ice Daddy .com will make the work easier.
Water
Whether added directly to the mix or stemming from other elements (milk, fruits, vegetable, ...), water is the main component of an ice cream. The proportion of water is between 60% and 70% depending on the type of recipe. The other components will be called dry extract . Too much water will produce hard and crystallized ice cream. On the opposite side, a lack of water will give an ice cream with a sandy texture.
When adding water in your recipe, it is obviously necessary to use drinking water. If your tap water has a particular taste (chlorine for example), do not hesitate to use bottled water with a neutral taste (spring water).
Air
What, when I buy an ice cream I buy air ? In fact yes, it is essential to integrate air into an ice cream otherwise we would eat ice cubes. And air, we will buy more or less depending on the ice cream brands.
This technique of incorporating air is called overrun. Learn more .
Dairy products and similar products
With cow's milk or cream, dairy products will be the main source of fat in ice cream. Fat will give to ice cream smoothness and will help to fix the flavors.
Dairy products contain lactose which has the interesting property to absorb 10 times its weith in water. But too much lactose will give to the ice cream a sandy texture ; reason why it will be necessary to control the lactose content.
In ice-cream recipes, powdered milk will be used beacause it is the product with the highest lactose content.
Coconut milk, coconut cream, almond milk ... are products that will be assimilated to dairy products in the context of ice cream making. Their purpose will be to bring fat and allow to make vegan or lactose-free ice creams.
Sugars
Sugars will be used to bring substance and softness to the ice cream, to develop flavors and control texture.
It is the most important ingredient in ice-cream making. To improve your ice creams, it will be essential to use and combine several types of sugar. Use only classic sugar (sucrose) ? Forget it ! In most of the recipes you will find in books or on internet websites, it is made only with classic sugar. We will stop that now.
It is not really complicated but it is the main point to make a great step toward improvement.
Buying a few different varieties of sugars is the main investment you will have to do. Price is not very expensvie and no chemical products ! It is actually just sugar with different refining methods.
And on sugars, it will be obligatory to learn more going into detail. Not insurmountable but essential to understand the basic concepts. To read obligatory.
Emulsifier / Stabilizer
When the ice-cream mix is composed with water and fat, we will face a problem with two incompatible ingredients that will tend to return to their initial state after mixing. To obtain a high quality ice cream, we must have these two components well mixed and not separated.
Using emulsifier will facilitate the dispersion of the fat, improve the overrun (incorporation of air), have a finer and more flexible texture and good retention by delaying melting.
Stabilizer will improve improve the consistency, overrun, conservation and good retention by delaying melting. Stabilizer needs to be heaten and let a couple of hours to start its effect.
These two products will sometimes have to be combined according to the recipes while respecting a precise dosage. In excessive quantity, it may produce a "chewing gum" effect. In insufficient quantity, it is a "dry" effect which is likely to dominate.
It will be quite simple. You just have to buy one or two specialized product and no more things to buy. Some different sugar types, some stabilizer and let us go !
For sorbets, you can buy products containing only stabilizer.
For ice creams, you can buy a mix emulsifier/stabilizer.
Buy these two products in small quantities (100 g allow to make about twenty ice creams). If you wish to limit your purchases, only buy the product for ice cream with the mix emulsifier/stabilizer.
It is really easy to find these products in France as "Super neutrose" or "Stab 2000". If you have difficulties to find them in your contry, feel free to contact me. I will try to help you.
Egg Yolks
Thanks to lecithins, egg yolk is an excellent emulsifier. A few years ago, it was the only known emulsifier, hence its important use in ice-cream recipes. Modern emulsifier products have reduced the use of yolks. Yolks give a special taste and colour to the ice cream. However, it remains a must for vanilla ice creams in particular.
From a health point of view, the use of egg yolk does not pose any particular problems as it will be pasteurized.
Egg whites
The subject is much more sensitive. You will find a lot of recipes, even in books written by profesionnnal ice-cream maker, using whites. On the opposite side, other professionals like Angelo CORVITTO formally advise against the use of whites because of the health risk. What should we do ?
Egg whites are often used to give a more airy texture to the ice cream. When preparing the ice cream, the mix will be pasteurized but the whites can not withstand this cycle of "homemade" pasteurization, they will then be added raw to the pasteurized mixture. So effectively not a good idea in health point of view.
As a conclusion, it seems better to avoid using egg whites. If you really want to use this ingredient, it is rather recommended to buy pasteurized white in specialized store.
Fruits and vegetables
Only one rule : use fruits and vegetables from the current season. You will be able to make super tasty ice creams with a fruit or vegetable content that no store-bought ice cream can ever offer you.
Out of season, you can use frozen fruits or mashed fruits sold in pastry shops. Attention, in that case, you must check the composition ; mashed fruits contain sometimes added sugars and you must think of it when balancing your recipe in the online balancing tool.
Chocolate
Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate. Coating chocolate or cocoa powder. All combinations will be possible on the basis of chocolate. The only point to remember is that chocolate ice cream tends to be hard.
Alcohol
Well known for its anti-freeze properties, alcohol will have to be controlled very precisely. Otherwise, either the ice cream will not have the alcohol flavor, or it will never transform to ice cream. The free online balancing tool of Ice Ice Daddy .com will provide help on this subject