The Art of Making Gelato

Ice cream’s Italian counterpart, gelato, is just one more delicious frozen dessert to enjoy during the summer. While gelato shops – with their large display cases stocked with dozens of flavors – are fun to visit, you can learn to make all your favorite flavors without having top hop in the car, so you can eat like an Italian any time. In The Art of Making Gelato: 50 Flavors to Make at Home, you’ll get an excellent walkthrough into the tips and techinques used to make gelato, as well as plenty of recipes to stock your freezer with.

The book opens with a story about how the author fell in love with gelato. And as anyone who has sampled the creamy, flavorful treat will tell you – it’s not difficult to fall in love with! The book walks you through the ingredients and tools that you need to make gelato, including an overview of home gelato machines. One of the things that separates gelato from ice cream is that it tends to be denser, which means that it is churned at a slower speed than your average ice cream. The recommendations include a brand of machine that comes with a gelato churning attachment and the Italian-made Lello machines. From there, you get into the recipes, which are divided into Basic flavors, Classic flavors, Nuts and Nontraditional flavors. There is also a chapter on fruity sorbetto recipes, for any time your kitchen is full of fresh fruit just waiting to be made into gelato.

The recipes are very clearly written and easy to follow, breaking down each recipe into steps: prepare, cook, freeze and serve. Breaking down the recipes this way makes everything seem very approachable, and allows you to time your cooking easily. There are some step-by-step photos into the introductory chapters of the book that give you an overview of the techniques used, but most of the photos show off delicious finished gelatos and will tempt you into ordering a gelato maker before you even know what hit you.