Peach Ice Cream
I have mixed feelings about writing this post, people. For a very specific reason, this ice cream didn't quite meet my expectations—but then I brought it into work and everyone loved it and said I was being a crazy perfectionist. Why didn't it meet my expectations? Well, the little pieces of peach froze harder than I expected them too. I've had professionally-made peach ice cream before and the peaches always seemed soft, even in the frozen ice cream. After making up my own recipe and discovering the little frozen chunks, I realized that the high water content of the fresh peaches was the obvious culprit. So what, do you suppose, professional ice cream makers do to avoid this problem? Any ideas?
At any rate, my co-workers loved this ice cream so I decided to share the recipe. Peaches are on their way out of season here in DC. But if you can get your hands on some before they're gone, give this recipe a try and let me know what you think. Cheers.
For the ice cream:
- 1 peach peeled and pureed*
- 1 peach peeled and cut into small pieces
- juice of 1/2 of a lime or some ascorbic acid
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 5 egg yolks
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- To peel the peaches, first cut an "X" in the bottom of the peaches; then prepare an ice water bath and a pot of boiling water. Place the peaches in boiling water for 30-60 seconds (the riper the peaches, the less blanching time needed) and then transfer to the ice bath with a slotted spoon. Allow them to cool for about a minute, then slip the skins off the peaches using your fingers or a knife.
- Remove the stones from the peaches. Puree one of them and place the other one in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. I sprinkled some lime juice both into the pureed peach and onto the whole, peeled peach before storing, to prevent browning. Ascorbic acid is the chemical agent that actually prevents browning, so if you have some on hand, you can use that.
- Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow. Then beat the milk into the eggs and sugar. Then beat the peach puree into the mixture.
- Put the sugar / egg /milk mixture into a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stir continuously until the custard thickens slightly (around 160°F) and just coats the back of a spoon. Beware, the eggs will scramble around 168°F!
- Immediately remove the custard from the heat when it reaches 160 and transfer it to a bowl, then cover it and refrigerate until cool (40°F).
- Once the custard is chilled (2-3 hours in the refrigerator), Whip the cream to soft peaks and then fold it into the chilled custard.
- Follow the instructions for your ice cream machine from this point forward, freezing the custard / cream mixture in the machine, then giving it some time in your freezer to harden a bit more. While the mixture is freezing in your ice cream machine, cut up the whole peeled peach into small pieces and add it to the ice cream machine about half-way through the freezing process (about 15 minutes with my machine).
You've got three options:
1) Remove moisture from the peaches prior to adding them to your ice cream. This could be accomplished by, for instance, sprinkling them with sugar or salt and waiting for liquid to leach out, partially dehydrating them (or fully dehydrating them) in a low oven for a couple hours, cooking them in a pan until they give off some of their moisture and it evaporates, etc.
2) Holding your ice cream at a lower temperature. In general, typical consumer freezers are too cold for proper ice cream holding. You could put a gelato freezer in your garage or something, and keep it just below freezing, as opposed to the 26 or 27 degrees of most home freezers.
3) You could control the water in the peaches, preventing it from freezing. This could be done by cooking them in a sugar, honey, glucose, etc. (higher sugar content means lower freeze point and softer peaches), or compressing the peaches with a bit of, say, xanthan gum.
My guess for what commercial ice cream makers do to keep a fruit like peach soft: dehydrate the peaches, then rehydrate them in a glucose syrup (like corn syrup) before adding to the custard.
Was the ice cream texture good?
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Thanks for the ideas. Number 2 is out because I live in a single room that I rent . . . no space for a designated ice cream freezer. So I'll probably try number 1 or 3 next time. The texture of the ice cream wasn't perfect, in my opinion, because I think the peaches imparted some water to it . . . it was a tiny bit crystallized. My co-workers thought the texture was fine . . . but I've made deliciously-textured ice cream before and this wasn't it. But I think dealing with the peach moisture in one of the ways you've suggested will remedy the ice cream texture issues.
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Ice cream bases that start with fruit purees always turn out icy, in my experience, unless you take pains to remedy the situation. Same options as 1 and 3 above.
First, for the more classical solution, cook the peach puree down to evaporate as much moisture from it as possible before adding it to the base. Basically, reduce it to a syrupy puree.
Second option, stabilize the water in the system with chems. Carrageenan, guar gum, locust bean gum, xanthan gum, etc. All are [extremely] commonly used by ice cream makers, both huge commercial operations and pastry chefs. They allow you to control the moisture in the ice cream base, potentially inhibiting crystallization, and improving storability and mouthfeel.
Maybe your co-workers liked the texture because the temperature might have raised a few degrees in the transportation from home to work, softening it up and possibly helping alleviate some crystallization?
Also, why bother peeling the peaches? Just press the puree through a fine-mesh sieve after pureeing.
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Again, great insight. Thanks. Regarding the peeling of the peaches, I mainly did it for the one that would end up in chunks but figured I'd throw the one for pureeing into the pot as well.
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I can't believe we ate every course and skipped the peach ice cream! It sounds yummy, even if the peaches are cold. Next time...
Question for readers: Has anyone ever just used freezer bags to make ice cream? I read about it somewhere and can't find the reference..
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I guess four courses were enough! I just Googled "making ice cream in a ziploc" and found this: https://crafts.kaboose.com/ice-cream-in-a-bag.html and https://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/a/aa020404a.htm. Try it and let me know how it goes!
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Sorry to pose as the guru in this thread, but I have made ice cream using a pan in my freezer. It works alright, and turns (not churns) out ice cream that is edible. Even bad ice cream is still delicious. It just comes out more icy. But if you have a good recipe for your base, you can make pretty decent ice cream.
The reason you use an ice cream maker instead of just putting the base into a tupperware and sticking into the fridge until frozen is that it would freeze into a completely solid cube. You want your ice cream to contain the smallest ice crystals possible. Larger ice crystals lead to an icy texture. The way you get small ice crystals is by freezing the base as quickly as possible. If you put a custard base into a tupperware and leave it in the freezer, it'll take hours and hours to freeze, and will do so from the outside in. The ice crystals will be HUGE.
So what you want to do when making ice cream with no ice cream maker is to simulate the ice cream maker: churn it. The ice cream in a zip-loc works well because you can squish it around (churning it) every ten minutes or so. You can accomplish the same thing (though perhaps not quite as well) by putting it into the tupperware and giving it a really vigorous stir every ten minutes or so. Three pointers, if you're going to do this:
1) Make sure you use a good ice cream recipe with plenty of sugar, some of which should come from a glucose source (corn syrup or honey will do the trick), which inhibits ice crystal formation. Ice cream stabilizer (Cremodan or Stabi) will help, if you want to bother with it.
2) Don't fill the zip-loc too much. Remember that the ice cream base will expand as it freezes and potentially burst the bag.
3) Don't churn it with your bare hands or you'll warm it up too much. Use potholders.
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Another possibility is to cook the peach chunks down and then get them to reabsorb some alcohol. The alcohol (say, brandy or cointreau) would lower the freezing temperature of the chunks and thus prevent icing. This is what I did with prunes for a prune armagnac ice cream. But I bet your co-workers were correct.
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We just made some homemade peach ice cream at our house! We loved it! We added it to our favorite flavors list! Chilling the peach puree with sugar and lemon juice helps to intensify the peach flavor as well!
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homemade peach ice cream is my favorite!! so if you have any leftover that you dont want to eat!! you know who you can call! xoxo
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I think any homemade peach ice cream that I have had has had the hard chunks of peaches, but I still love it!! This looks delicious!
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