This weekend I made two batches of Ice Cream from scratch. I used a recipe from Alton Brown’s Good Eats.
The recipe at the Good Eats site isn’t quite the same as the transcript of the show. What I have here is my understanding of how it should be.
This weekend I made two batches, one lower calorie and one full on fat. Read on for more info.
a Kurps Ice Cream maker. You put the base in your freezer and pull it out when its cold to make your ice cream. It has to be in there at least 24 hours, but I leave it there all the time.
Low-Cal vs. High-Cal
In the past I’ve made this recipe using fat free half and half and Splenda, and it still tasted great. This time I decided to do a little test. I made it with full fat half and half and regular sugar, and I made it with the low-cal stuff. Then I took the two batches to my small group meeting at church to get other people’s opinion.
Personally I thought the high-cal version was much creamier and rich. Almost too rich for me. The low-cal version was great too. Everyone who tried both said they couldn’t tell a difference. So if you want to avoid some calories, go ahead and substitute.
Something to realize about fat free liquids, like the half and half. They substitute corn syrup for the fat. So it isn’t really low-cal, just lower cal. And fat and liquid carbohydrates react differently in recipes. In this case the low-cal version sets up much harder than the full fat version.
Pots make a difference
Just before thanksgiving I got a new set of pots and pans. Previously we had had a miss match of different types. Chantel is based in Houston and once a year they have a factory outlet sale. They make enameled cast iron pots and pans. I got a 5 piece set. When I went to make ice cream I needed two pots the mixture could heat in. I didn’t want to use the big 8 qt pan, so I grabbed an old stainless steel pot for batch number two. So I got to compare the new pots vs the old ones. The new is definitely better.
I’m a bad stirrer. Or at least I am when I’m doing something else at the same time and in this case while high-cal batch one was heating, I was measuring out batch two. So I never stirred batch one. Batch two went the stainless pot and didn’t get much stirring, but some because I realized it was cooking to the bottom of the pan. These pictures show the difference between the two pots.
vs. 
Chilling Hot Stuff In The Fridge
Since I was also making Pizza Dough, I was a little worried about putting two 175 degree containers of ice cream in my packed fridge. Remember if you put something hot in the fridge it raises the temperature of the whole fridge, and then the fridge starts lowering itself. Generally you can help in this if you let the hot liquid come to room temperature before putting it in the fridge.
What I did was pull a couple of containers of frozen stock out of the freezer and put them on the shelf above the ice cream. I hope they canceled things out.