If you were to peek through our kitchen window while I was working at my new hobby ― making ice cream ― you may be surprised at how many dishes and utensils I am using. Of course, you would need a 20-foot ladder to stand on, since the kitchen is on the second level. But if you were to keep yourself steady and patient, your gaze into the window would allow you to see that making the best ice cream takes a little extra care. But you don’t have to peek from outside. Come on in.
There are often three to five bowls and two sauce pans, a thermometer, spoons, spatulas, measuring cups, and, of course paper towels on the counter. I could easily go through a quire of paper towels making a couple batches of ice cream. When I rinse, I always dry my spatulas and spoons with a paper towel because water is the enemy of ice cream. Water turns to ice. While the word ice is in ice cream, what we really want is frozen “other stuff.” So I dry utensils and bowls with paper towels and use an abundance of them (cotton towels hold germs and moisture) because I run a meticulously clean and sanitary ice cream operation – not to mention fresh.
I prefer organic whole milk purchased the same day I use it. The same with cream, but organic cream is harder to find. My standards call for large, brown eggs from cage-free, vegetarian-fed chickens. Since they are cage free, I cannot vouch for the fact that, as they strut the breadth and width of their field, they do not occasionally peck at a spider or beetle.
While each vanilla bean costs $11, it is worth it. I found some less expensive beans at Trader Joe’s, but the quality was poor, so I consistently use the $11 bean at Raley’s. I feel good about it because the same bean at Bel Air is $15. I feel like I am getting a deal.
Only the freshest flavors will do. No artificial flavors or colors for me. I steep the flavor out of coconut, pistachios, mint, and anise seeds. Everything tastes better that way. Last night, I pulled each individual leaf off a big batch of mint, washed it, and made sure each leaf was dry before letting it steep in my primordial broth of milk, cream and sugar. The result was a true, pungent taste, with a “wild” flavor that you would never get from a store-bought mint ice cream.
My sugar is fine baking sugar or caster from canes, not beets. Salt is kosher. Almonds are California grown, roasted by Blue Diamond, vacuum sealed until it’s just time to enter into the mix. There’s nothing worse that stale nuts – except maybe stale marshmallows, which is why I will not use an open bag of marshmallows for my Rocky Road. It must be a new bag. Just minutes of extra air will harden the candy nougat, so I insist on a fresh bag for every fresh batch of Rocky Road (eventually I will make my own marshmallows). My Rocky Road, by the way, uses chocolate with high concentrations of cocoa, a minimum of 70 percent, and alkalized chocolate power only from Europe (sorry Hershey’s). Belgium powered chocolate has been delivering great results.
Fruit is best when it is truly ripe, so I have sought Bing cherries from farms in the Salinas valley and chosen only the darkest, ripest of the fruits for my cherry ice cream and my rendition of Cherry Garcia, made famous by my competitor, Ben and Jerry. Peaches have come from our orchard in the backyard (yes, three fruit trees constitute an orchard). I swear, the peach tree delivered 80 pounds of fruit this year, about four or five large paper grocery bags full of lush peaches – so much that the weight of the peaches broke the truck of the tree. So my peach ice cream this year was truly organic, with backyard peaches ripened under the Folsom sun.
Needless to say my ice cream is possibly the world’s most expensive. Last night I went to Raley’s and bought ice cream ingredients and left $83 behind for the Man. I have calculated some batches at $36 a gallon, but have been afraid to calculate some of the more exotic flavors, knowing that the cost could easily exceed $50. Remember, that vanilla bean costs $11 each by itself, and often the vanilla bean is used in other flavors besides vanilla. Eggs can be as high as $5 a dozen. The chocolate-chip mint recipe calls for five egg yolks in just a quart of product; then add in the exclusive imported dark chocolate at $5 a bar, and all of a sudden a gallon has $20 worth of chocolate in it.
With the Internet and six ice cream recipe books at my right hand, I have studied the techniques of numerous pros and have now incorporated the best of techniques into what is now christened as Teddy T’s Terrific Ice Cream. Interestingly, my earthy competitors, Ben and Jerry of Vermont, produce an ice cream that concentrates less on the cream base than on their chucky ingredients. This, they claim, is on purpose because they don’t want the cream overwhelming the flavor of the fruit or candy. So using their recipes, I can create a batch of ice cream fairly quickly. However, for the finest bases I am using and adapting recipes from the work of a British chef named David Lebovitz, and that takes much more time.
His book is where I learned how to extrude flavors from raw product, such as the licorice flavor from anise seeds, mint from fresh leaves, and pistachio from nuts. Using all the bowls, pans and utensils with patience, I can produce a custard whose flavors are so subtle and delightful that my body wilts with sensory overload.
My alcohol infusions have come out fairly well. If I use small amounts, I can achieve the flavoring I want and no longer worry about under-freezing. In fact, my straight (alcohol free) ice creams, after they ripen, are too hard to scoop right out the freezer. They have to thaw a little to get a good scoop. With the right alcohol mix, the ice cream is sufficiently frozen to enjoy, but soft enough to scoop right out of the freezer without thawing.
I have been very good about not eating my product. One spoonful immediately after it comes out of the machine is enough for me to tell whether I have had success. I take another spoonful after it “ripens” (that’s the Teddy T trade word for “hardening”). That tells me how it will store. That’s how I learned that my fresh strawberry sour cream ice cream should be eaten immediately. If stored and hardened, the sour cream gives the dessert a slightly chalky taste. So no more sour cream strawberry for give-aways. Likewise, Starbucks coffee ice cream turns icy, so it should also be eaten soft immediately after leaving the machine.
Before a batch comes out of the machine, I place my spatula and receptacles into the freezer so they will be very cold. Anything that is room temperature immediately begins to melt the product. I remove the dasher, placing it in the container that is about to receive the ice cream and pour one pint of the dessert into a round container that I use to give away to people. The rest goes into the slightly larger tub for family and guests. They have been pleased.
Why am I doing this? I am sure it is only a fleeting hobby, and I will go back to creating iTunes playlists any day now. But I have enjoyed making people happy, and I have enjoyed the art of creating the product. If we are created in God’s image, then art and creation are certainly part of his personality traits. In this sense, making a good ice cream is like writing a song, or painting a picture. Perhaps making ice cream this summer has been a metaphorical experience for what I believe about life. Out of a diversity of ingredients, we have created something new that is great in itself. Each ingredient — in its purest, freshest state — creates a foundation, unleashes a flavor or delivers a finish that, together, is greater as a whole. This is a metaphor for communities. And each little flavor is a miracle in itself. When I was pulling off those mint leaves last night, I considered the unwieldy mint plant. This rebellious little plant has teen-age qualities, wanting to wander off like a weed and spread in an undisciplined fashioned. It shares the same water, soil and air as its neighbors, but from its tiny seed, it develops something no other plant has: a beautiful aroma and taste so unique there is no other word besides its own name to describe it – like us as people. So each fruit, nut and seed I have used this summer – the cherry, the peach, the cocoa bean, the vanilla bean, the anise seed – is to be revered as a miracle, offering a gift of flavors, each proprietary to itself, unique, and unspoiled.
Take a spoonful now of my latest bowl of delight, then, please put the ladder away.
