Tag: gelato

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Freshly pressed olive oil gelato

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)
water60452
sucrose1288
cashews1073
olive oil860
vegetable fibers (acacia/inulin)644
dextrose324
vegetable fibers (citrus)0.74.9
salt0.42.6
guar/xanthan 7/30.11
total 100750
Calculated freezing temperature-2°C, serving temperature around -9°C

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
water60602
sucrose16157
cashews1098
olive oil880
dextrose552,2
vegetable fibers (citrus)0,77
salt0,44
guar/xanthan 7/30.131.3
total1001000

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Carrot and Coriander

A friend asked me to make this flavour after watching a TV program where the presenter made this gelato on a trip to Italy. It’s an unusual flavour – I love it in soups, we make it regularly during Winter, but I did not think of it in a sweet version.

Anyway, here it is. I cooked the carrots in the recipe coconut oil – I used a ‘microwave pressure cooking’ method using Weck jars secured with 4 clips. In order to use this method, you first need to find the correct power to use in your microwave – you will need to select the power at which water boils in about 3′ (https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/how-do-you-determine-the-wattage-of-your-microwave-oven). If you are not familiar with this method, please use your favourite cooking method.

The recipe is water-based, and I used cashews to increase solids and fats.

Ingredient%
Water56
Carrots (raw weight)11
Sucrose10
Cashew butter7
Coconut oil6
Dextrose5
Vegetable fibers (inulin for example)4%
Stabilisers of your choice – I generally use a mix of tara/guar and xanthan gums at 3g/Kg of mix

I weighed all the solids (sugars, fibers and stabilisers), mixed them, added warm water (ca 50°C, blended well, and finally the cashew butter and the oil-cooked carrots. I blended well, then left the mix to rest in the fridge overnight before churning.

I used ca 1g of ground coriander seeds per Kg of mix – this amount will depend on the quality and age of the coriander you use, so the amount is just an indication. Keep in mind that its flavour will continue to develop and that it will not be muted by the cold temperature.

I apologise for the poor picture quality – but the gelato was beautiful!

Note – my ice creams are designed to be consumed immediately or kept in a somewhat warmer freezer (-10°C). If you wish to store them at the normal -18°C freezer temperature, they will become harder than usual (most ice creams will go hard in a deep freezer, it’s normal, nothing wrong with it!). To limit this inconvenience, you can bring the percentage of sugars (sucrose and dextrose) up to a total of approximately 22% keeping the same sucrose/dextrose ratio and decrease the liquid or the fibers to keep the same mixture total weight.