My second batch of dulce de leche ice cream was more sucessful. This time I used 1 cup of cream, 1 cup of 2% milk, 1 cup of dulce de leche and 4 egg yolks, milk/cream and eggs were cooked separately and then all mixed together, strained, allowed to cool and frozen. I still don't understand what the purpose of cooking is, however.
The taste of this batch was stronger (it had a greater proportion of dulce de leche) and I thought it was just as smooth. Kathy liked the first batch better, but Mike and I preferred this one.
I'm now making my 3rd batch. I used 1 cup cream, 1 1/2 cup nonfat milk (all left at home), and probably 1 1/2 cup dulce de leche. The truth is I didn't measure it, I just keep adding it until it was very sweet. I wanted to add eggs as well, but I overcooked them so I'm not sure how much egg were left in the mix after I strained it. We'll see how it turns out. I've also runned out of chocolate, so this will be plained dulce de leche, not dulce de leche granizado like my last two batches.
Comments (1)
Marga:
Cooking milk (cream, half-and-half, etc.) and eggs together creates a cream base for your ice cream. Creams are sort of a second cousin of custards; the distinction is almost academic these days, but traditionally custards (such as crème brulée, quiche, or flans) are thick, set gels while creams (such ast pastry cream or crème anglaise) are soupy, thick but pourable mixtures.
Both creams and custards are usually about 4 parts liquid to 1 part egg (or about 1 cup milk to 1 or 2 eggs). Cooking them together denatures the proteins in the mixture and then, through continued application of heat, coagulates them.
In other words, cooking the base for an ice cream gives you a creamy, custardy ice cream that is thick on its own. You could just pour the liquid ingredients into your ice cream freezer, but then you would have an ice milk, not an ice cream. Ice milk is typically described as taasting "flat" relative to ice cream. The difference is not because one is made with milk and the other with cream; rather, one is cooked first and the other is not.
Posted by Anonymous | May 23, 2005 9:03 AM
Posted on May 23, 2005 09:03