November is the month where Tuscany olive trees are harvested for olives, then pressed communally to give the new extra virgin olive oil, green and peppery and fruity. Depending on the amount of olives, you may obtain ‘your’ oil or, like in my case, you combine your olives with those of a few friends to reach the minimum amount required by the mill for a single press batch.
So, I decided to make gelato (or better, my ‘something in between gelato and ice cream’ given that I use more fat than people normally use for gelato) with the new olive oil.
As you will learn if you take my course 😉 vegetable oils are not considered ideal as the mono-/poly-unsaturated fatty acids do not behave properly in the churning/freezing process. But as we have seen already in a previous post, this issue can be overcome through the use of some natural additives, forming so-called oleogels. I have used beeswax, carnauba wax, and for this recipe I used citrus fiber, which has a more neutral odour profile – I did not want to cover the flavour of the amazing oil.
I mixed all the powders and dissolved them in water bringing them to 42°C. I then added the cashew butter blending well, and finally the olive oil. Chilled for 4 hours in the fridge then churned.
Really nice! Especially when served with some freshly ground black pepper.
| % | QTY (grams) | |
| water | 60 | 452 |
| sucrose | 12 | 88 |
| cashews | 10 | 73 |
| olive oil | 8 | 60 |
| vegetable fibers (acacia/inulin) | 6 | 44 |
| dextrose | 3 | 24 |
| vegetable fibers (citrus) | 0.7 | 4.9 |
| salt | 0.4 | 2.6 |
| guar/xanthan 7/3 | 0.1 | 1 |
| total | 100 | 750 |
My ice creams are designed to be served at -9°C so they will become very hard in a normal home freezer. You can reduce/remove some of the fibers – not the citrus fiber in this case!, but I bet some lemon zest would do the trick 😉 – and increase the sugar/s content, as in the following version, for example
| % | QTY for 1 Kg | |
| water | 60 | 602 |
| sucrose | 16 | 157 |
| cashews | 10 | 98 |
| olive oil | 8 | 80 |
| dextrose | 5 | 52,2 |
| vegetable fibers (citrus) | 0,7 | 7 |
| salt | 0,4 | 4 |
| guar/xanthan 7/3 | 0.13 | 1.3 |
| total | 100 | 1000 |