Two Ice Cream Books

[bryant]

I got two books on making ice cream. I’m very pleased with one; I am not so pleased with the other.

Perfect Scoop is really good. David Lebovitz was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse and he cares a lot about good ice cream; his cookbook gives a nice solid grounding in ice cream theory and then rolls into a ton of recipes. There are also sections on granitas, toppings, and things to serve ice cream in. It’s a very foodie cookbook but it’s also very practical — there are not a lot of super-weird ingredients and he’s not snotty about using just the right thing.

His blog has a lot of recipes, not limited to ice cream, but you can get a feel for his techniques and style with this one. Which sounds great, but I do like white chocolate. You may note that his recipes tend towards using less sugar than the average, which is a plus for me. Not that I don’t like sweet ice cream; however, a guide to less sweet ice creams is good.

Finally, it’s a really pretty book. Lots of nice ice cream photography. Ice cream isn’t the most interesting subject in the world (look, another scoop of frozen dairy in a glass bowl!). On the other hand it gives me a good idea of desired textures.

So that’s the good. Bad: Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. The history of the company is kind of interesting but the recipes, OK. They mostly have eggs, and there is no cooking of the eggs. It’s an entire cookbook full of raw eggs. Grrr. This tells me there’s not much thought given to the recipes, and it also tells me they weren’t that concerned with really giving away how their commercial ice creams are made, because I’m also pretty sure we’d figured out salmonella by 1987. Don’t buy this one, it’s not worth it.

Mirrored from Population: One.

Comments

Raw eggs

[sben.livejournal.com]

If you were actually into the Ben & Jerry’s recipes, you might look for these pasteurized-in-the-shell eggs (http://www.safeeggs.com/) in your area. I saw some in a good grocery store here near Seattle, but haven't tried them myself, and don't know if there are any side-effects of the pasteurization that might (say) change their texture or something.

[flit.livejournal.com]

David Leibowitz has a recipe for caramelized white chocolate which sounds pretty amazing. He was doing it for a ribbon/swirl in ice cream but I think it would make a good topping, too.

As far as pastuerized eggs go, you can get whole in shell pasteurized eggs at some stores, which can safely be used in raw preparations. They may not be exactly the same texture but they ought to be a lot better than egg replacers; the fat and emulsifiers in the yolk are crucial there and egg replacers are made out of egg whites, not yolk.

Also if you are thinking of trying a raw egg recipe without pasteurized eggs, size and care of the flock makes a big difference on salmonella contamination. Big enclosed flocks have the worst rates of infection (1/4th of them were contaminated in a British study), and small pastured flocks have a significantly lower risk (with small pastured flocks having a 6.5% risk... still significant.) Since the salmonella is carried on the outside of the shell, get in the habit of washing the shells off before cracking them, and treat unsterilized egg shells like raw chicken: they're a cross contamination risk, so touching them and then touching other food can be risky. Also, store eggs on a shelf in the fridge rather than in the door; it keeps them colder which makes the salmonella less likely to develop if it's present.

I've been comfortable eating the occasional raw or lightly cooked egg from my local farmers, but I'm also not immuno-compromised: salmonella for me or Brad is a lot more likely to mean a bad few days than any risk of death. I also eat more risky eggs than Brad does, partially because my immune system is cranked up to the point where infectious disease is just not a big worry for me, partially because he doesn't like runny eggs. I'd be comfortable eating Amish eggs raw, but I would probably not eat them raw if I were pregnant.

[kodi]

his cookbook gives a nice solid grounding in ice cream theory and then rolls into a ton of recipes.

I wish these sorts of books were described by a different word than books that merely collect recipes. I didn't consider the latter useful at all before the internet; now they're almost wholly irrelevant.