Even though it wrapped up my week, I’ll begin with a shoutout to a new friend (a friend of my roommate) who generously opened up their yard and fruit trees to invited pickers. My roommate and I went this afternoon, just before some light rain, and came away with literally pounds of apples, plums and pears. I have a few ice cream ideas, including plum crumble and apple pie, but for now I’m just glad we have the big freezer and I’ll be able to stow away all the fruit we can’t eat or process this week. I’m really stoked on the plums, which I’ve never really used in quantity. I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about next weekend, and some treats for our gracious host this afternoon. Thanks again!
This was a pretty solid week for Ice Creams, even though I only made and churned one mix. The mix in question was a much more successful version of the Ruby Chocolate ice cream. The previous mixes, while tasty, were kind of a latte-esque beige, rather than the robust pink promised by the chocolate bars. The solution? Double the amount of bars used. 4 instead of 2.
More pink this time, though still not the in-your-face pink of the chocolate itself. I’m not sure that’s really achievable, unless a scary amount of the mix is the Ruby chocolate. Which starts to stray from being ice cream and becomes like a sweet frozen wax. I think I have a compromise solution, though it wasn’t what I’d hoped from the Ruby chocolate. I’m going to make a simple vanilla mix and blend in some healthy chunks of the Ruby. That way the pink colour will not only be undisturbed, it will have a backdrop of white to look snazzy on. The Ruby chocolate is unique, and while expensive, is worth trying. This ice cream scooped beautifully straight from the freezer which always makes me happy.
Here’s that same Ruby Chocolate ice cream with some fresh macerated local peaches. Peaches are where I’m going next with ice creams. These are chopped up and mixed with sugar and some splashes each of lemon juice and some limoncello liqueur that lives in our fridge. Then they get to sit there and think about what they did. The various sugars and acids will help break them down and make them softer. Plus the sugary mix will help tame what are kinda tart peaches.
I have a couple of peachy plans. First, I’m going to do what is probably a boring Peaches’n’Cream, with peach chunks in a vanilla mix. I’ll probably lightly caramelize the peach chunks, both to make them sweeter and to reduce their water content a bit so they don’t ice up too much in the freezer. I suppose I could combine them with the Ruby chocolate chunks, and I think I have more than enough fruit to do just that.
The more pressing plan involves the macerated peaches. I’m going to puree a bunch of them with some water and basil, and make sorbet. I walked home from the grocer yesterday with the basil at the top of my bag, and I could smell it the whole way. It was dreamy. It boggles my mind why basil isn’t a perfume option. Probably because the wearers could easily manipulate drooling idiots like me.
Years ago, friends of mine had an appetizer (salad?) course at their wedding that was the talk of the group for awhile. It was a peach and basil popsicle. I never saw one, or a picture, so my mind has created some pretty bizarre images over the years, including them using those DIY plastic stick and mold sets many of of us have as kids, a shocking peach and green edifice rising from an egg cup, and servers standing behind everybody at the head table, holding their popsicles while the revelers licked. I’m sure it was much simpler than any of those, and involved some clever plating mechanism like those things that hold ice cream cones, and was very nice. I mean, you probably don’t arrive on something like that for your wedding feast at random. Sure it made for great conversation among the extended friends, but in the moment, that thing has to taste amazing. I’ve never had the combination, that I can think of, so now’s the time.
Making ice cream has all sorts of bizarre side effects, mostly making friends and finding myself in interesting situations I’d never conceived of. A strange side effect that I’m particularly fond of is Angel Food Cakes. How are they a side effect of making ice creams? Well, my recipe essentially takes a 2L of milk, a 1L of cream and a dozen eggs, along with sugar and vanilla which I just buy in the largest quantity available to make it cheaper, and makes 4 batches. But when it comes to the eggs, I actually only use the yolks. The whites add nothing but unwanted water content to your ice cream, and should be removed for best results. So every 4 batches means I have a dozen egg whites saved up, and that’s eggsactly enough for an Angel Food Cake. The one above looks pretty good, though there are some small chunks of unmixed, par-baked flour that I need to solve next time. The cake is a finicky mix to make, because you have to combine heavy dry ingredients with light, airy beaten egg whites while keeping them light and airy. I did not use a sifter or sieve when I added my dry, and now I know better.
This is a great time for produce overall. I’ve made a lot of interesting food this week, including some pulled pork, some fried shrimp, and a nice romesco sauce. Tomorrow night I’m making a smoky seafood soup. Having extra time to cook during the pandemic has really inspired me to do a lot of these things. I love turning ultra-cheap ingredients into great food, which I’ve long considered turning into a business.
When I first started making ice creams, it seemed natural that I’d end up selling them. The volume of premium dessert vs cost was amazing. I could fit more than enough ice cream ingredients into my regular food budget to be able to give it away liberally. And my food budget is pretty low. With that in mind, I marched out and got my Foodsafe certification, as a first step towards being a business, and also to make sure I wasn’t poisoning friends accidentally.
Foodsafe is something that should be taught annually to teens. Food management is going to be critical in coming years, and a huge component of that is food safety. It’s also a bunch of easy, common sense stuff that makes a ton of sense when you’ve worked around food for a while. The course I took was excellent, and I mentioned my ideas for ice cream businesses to the instructor. While they were very helpful, informative and clearly passionate about doing a tough, thankless job, they outlined the uphill climb I’d need to take as an entrepreneur.
To sell ice cream where I live would require a business license, a vendor’s license if selling direct to the public, and a dairy license if I don’t go vegetarian/vegan. In addition, all ice creams and other foodstuffs would have to be produced in a commissary kitchen, to meet professional hygiene standards. Sooooo, I’d need capital, which is doable. But to secure that capital, it’s likely I’d have to think bigger, with a storefront, or something like that. I’ve struggled over and over with that business model because it’s the opposite of what I’d like to do. I don’t want to produce in large volumes, and I definitely don’t want to charge premium prices for tiny quantities. I don’t know if there’s room for a teeny tiny ice cream producer in the marketplace. Maybe the farmer’s marketplace.
I haven’t reached any conclusions other than that I enjoy making the small batches and giving them out to the people in my spheres. So I’m going to keep doing that, and keeping an eye out for an opportunity to find my way into the marketplace, if I even can. I’d love to give away ice cream, but I also need to make a living. Maybe the two can somehow still come together. Until then, that’s another week in Ice Cream Club. I wish I could reach through the computer screen and plunk some ice cream down in front of you, reader. You’re awesome! Have a great week!
The Ice Cream Club 