Troubleshooting homemade ice cream
- August 15, 2008
- Cooking, Sweet Stuff
- 17 comments
Making homemade ice creams and frozen yogurts is fun, but even when you have a good quality ice cream maker, there can be some difficulties with the process. The top two concerns that people have are (1) the ice cream is too soft and (2) the ice cream is too hard.
Ice cream made in a machine designed for home use often doesn’t freeze ice cream to the consistency of store-bought ice cream, and while it is still scoopable right out of the machine, the fact that it is a bit softer can put some people off. My ice cream maker has a frozen “core” that chills the ice cream as it churns. It also becomes less cold the longer that the machine is on, so there is a point at which my ice cream mixture simply will not get any firmer. The reason for this lack of firmness compared to commercial ice cream largely has to do with the fact that commercial ice creams have spent lots of time in extremely cold freezers (even at the grocery store), while a fresh homemade ice cream has not. Almost all recipes will direct you to further chill your finished product to firm it up even more after it comes out of the ice cream maker.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the problem of homemade ice cream being too firm, especially after it has been stored in the freezer for a while. Some say that fat content will keep ice cream creamy and soft. This is true (especially when it comes to keeping the ice cream creamy) but one of the keys to a scoopable ice cream is actually the amount of air in the mixture. The more air that is distributed into the mix, the easier it will be to soften the ice cream and to scoop it. Home ice cream makers don’t work at the speed of commercial machines, and often less air gets incorporated into the mix overall. Adding a bit of vodka or other alcohol (as I did here) can lower the freezing point of the ice cream and help to keep it from hardening too much, but really the only way to beat this problem entirely is to have patience and thaw your ice cream for half an hour or so before indulging.
17 Comments
Ohhh, very helpful post. I did kind of wonder why my homemade fro yo needs to be hacked to pieces with a chisel to pry off enough for a small bowl after it’s been sitting in my freezer for a day or two. I thought it was the fat-content problem, but this makes much more sense!
My problem is not the hardness as much as the fact that if I churn my ice cream for 20 minutes, like the manual says, it always ends up grainy. I pull mine out somewhere between 12-16 minutes. But for many years, I just thought homemade ice cream was grainy. I never hear anyone else discuss this. Am I the only one or am I doing something wrong? I have tried several machines and many recipes. I don’t have a problem taking it out earlier, I just don’t understand why they tell us 20 mins when that’s too long in my opinion.
kittymama – I’m not sure what you mean by grainy, so I’ll assume that it is one of two things. (a) The sugar in your ice cream mixture is not fully dissolved before it goes into the mixer or (b) the graininess that you’re referring to is from ice crystals.
Far more ice crystals form in homemade ice cream than commercial because the at-home machines don’t freeze a mixture as quickly or efficiently as big commercial machines. This gives ice crystals more time to form and, yes, can contribute to a texture that is less than perfectly smooth. You’re right that churning for less time can help the problem. It doesn’t really matter what the manual says; churn your ice cream until it is as close to the consistency you like as you can get it, then enjoy!
I had a problem with ice crystals, too. After doing some research, I learned that water in the ice cream mixture will separate after the ice cream has been mixed, then freeze to form crystals. Commercial ice cream makers use a quick “flash freeze” process to prevent this. So I tried placing the ice cream bucket in an ice chest with dry ice and regular ice to freeze the mixture quickly and found that this minimized the presence of ice crystals. I used a small amount of dry ice from Smart & Final.
Does it make a difference in the freezing process if you use snow or ice for freezing ? Ours never reached a mashed potatoe consistancy even after an hr of freesing
I had a problem with “grainy” ice cream also. I let the machine churn the ice cream for 30 minutes. I guess this is too long. Any other tips besides more cream will be useful.
I just made some ice cream for the first time and could use a little advice. The finished product tasted like frozen ice crystals and frozen butter. The ice cream wasn’t very sweet, but the main issue is the texture, could this be due to the over mixing mentioned earlier in this post? I was wondering if chilling the cooked custard overnight could have caused it to seperate? Any advice anyone?
My ice cream issue is similar to Lisa’s in that I seem to have tiny globules of butter in my ice cream. It tastes good and is plenty sweet, but there’s definitely something wrong with the fat. My (butternut squash ice cream) recipe called for 2 yolks, a cup of heavy cream, and 1/2 cup of milk. It felt like tiny chunks of butter and left a film of buttery ick in my mouth. I chilled the mix for a couple hours before churning. Anyone have any suggestions? Should I use a lighter cream or maybe half and half instead of cream? Thanks!
Deborah…I have made ice cream and have tried figuring out what the commercial ice cream makers do different compared to homemade ice cream.
I found out that Breyers actually mixes liquid nitrogen into their mix to aerate it and almost instantly cool it. This way they get around using preservatives and the butterfat gets dispersed evenly in the mix. Obviously liquid nitrogen is out of the question for us…
But I have seen that a lot of them use lecithin ( a soy based emulsifier you can buy by the quart in health food area of groceries) . They use this to suspend the butterfat in the mix without it separating out. It also preserves the fat longer in the mix by coating each particle and keeping oxygen from it.
Try adding at least a tablespoon of lecithin to your batch next time. You might need more (it has no taste) since you need more based on cream content. Work your way up on it (2-3 tbls) to find a good balance
To get rid of the ice crystals in the ice cream try putting the mix in the refridgerator for half an hour or so before freezing it. That worked for us. I forget what needs to be cooled slowing, but it works. Goodluck.
Could any one tell me that what is the liquid found inside the freezer bowl of ice cream makers. Mine has leaked so i wish to fill it up as i have found an opening.
MAIRAJ
I have alarm bells ringing at the thought of the fluid leaking….I’m really not sure but I THINK it may be bad news if consumed, so I personally would want professional advice before trying to refill and continue using your machine. Sorry to sound pessimistic but I suspect you may have to discard your machine. Do seek proper advice as I’d hate for you or your friends or family to be hurt in any way. I hope I prove to be wrong!
I just made a batch of ice cream, loosely based on Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. I say loosely because I used Montmorellancy cherries from my tree, and cream and milk from my goats. I sweetened the cherries and kept them soft in the ice cream by poaching them in sugar and cherry brandy. Yum! I chopped up a bagful of Lindt extra dark chocolate truffles, figuring they’d stay softer than most chocolate bits would. It tastes fantastic! I usually have problems with too much fat making the ice cream coat my tongue unpleasantly, but not this time.
Problem is I can’t scoop up a ball of the ice cream to eat in a cone. It didn’t freeze too hard, but it kind of crumbles and falls apart when I try to scoop some up. It doesn’t have the tendency to stick to itself that mos ice cream does. I’ve never seen anything like this. Was it the brandy? I drained it off the cherries before adding them. I’m stumped. Any suggestions?
My problem is that the mix clumps up on top of the paddle aand stays there. Obviously it’s too thick, but what can I do to fix it?
Ironic, I am about to purchase a new ice cream machine. My other was hand churn. Found this site when I entered ‘grainy’ ice cream, because I absolutely love the texture and I’m concerned an electric ice cream maker will cause it to be too smooth for my tastes. I am not an ice cream lover except for homemade vanilla, so my opinion isn’t real relevant – other than some of us love the grainy texture, which brings back my child hood memories.
Jerusha and others:
You may resolve your dilemma if you post it over at chowhound.com. Some of the smartest and most responsive cooks congregate there. (You have to sign in to post.)
And no, I’m not affiliated with the site. ‘Just speaking from help I’ve received there w/my own kitchen calamities.
We’ve made home made ice cream for years but recently when you get to the bottom of the container, the ice cream seems to have separated and the bottom of the container is thick, creamy and not as good. My recipe calls for half and half, whipping cream and whole milk. We fill to the line marked but could the container be over filled? Also we wrap the container in several brown paper bags and keep in freezer above the fridge; this keeps the ice cream from crystalizing.