My ambitious flavor, and ride board Sunday note?

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Ice cream crew? I'd like to make bananas foster ice cream, and am looking for some kinda advanced advice, on swirls, made-ahead banana and alcohol wisdom, syrups, etc. Somehow, my email (yes, altered correctly) didn't get a response. I have great, even amusing, recipes, am doing test runs tomorrow and Thursday.

Also my ride board note wasn't noticed-- is anyone leaving Sunday for Boston around 1-2pm? I have an important evening commitment, much to my woe!

Comments

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

I think only one member of the ice cream crew reads this so I pinged them for you as I saw you don't have an answer about your recipe questions yet - sorry about that.

I can see your rideboard notice - hopefully you'll find someone in the next few days!

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Re: bananas, freeze them before you take the skin off them. Just throw them in the freezer for a couple days, skin and all, until they turn brown/black. Then defrost them in a bowl, when defrosted, pop off one end and squeeze the banana mash out. Freezing them will make them mushier and sweeter for making ice cream and give the ice cream a smoother texture.

Remember any alcohol you add will make the ice cream softer as it doesn't freeze well (even with liquid nitrogen.) So it's better to use a little alcohol and some non/minimal-alcohol based flavoring. (if you are using rum, rum flavoring is far more flavorful than rum itself, Use a couple teaspoons of flavoring and a couple teaspoons of rum.) The alcohol will give it a decent texture, as it wont freeze into the ice rocks that some flavors do. But in my experience, using just alcohol and no other flavoring doesn't work for good flavor. And adding more alcohol will just make for softer ice cream.

Swirls are usually done as the ice cream is being packed into a tub after it is frozen. I sometimes swirl Nutella in my chocolate hazelnut ice cream. The swirl should be soft enough to pour but thick enough that it's not going to run all over when you pour it in. Something the consistancy of hershey syrup is too thin, but when I use nutella, I warm it slightly in the microwave then stir it up so it's thicker and more thee consistancy of thick honey. Do you know what I mean?

What do you mean by syrups? the sugar syrups used in sorbets? or commercially available syrups like Torani for use in coffee as flavoring?

Sugar syrups are easy to make, boil sugar and water until the water is clear then boil one minute longer and let it cool. The sugar water ratio I use is 2 lbs. superfine sugar and 4 cups water.

If you mean Torani coffe flavoring syrups, what do you want to know? If you use syrups, you have to take into account that they are already mostly sugar and adjust the amount of sugar in your recipe to reflect that. Too much sugar and the ice cream will not freeze and it'll be way too sweet.

Feel free to email me with specific questions or grab me at baitcon and ask. I'm more than happy to help. Bananas Foster sound like it'll be quite interesting and tasty. (donnad@lj.) or ask just about anyone hanging around the kitchen area to point me out. I'll be sitting around alot this year since I (the Dr. thinks I may) have a broken foot (x-ray is currently inconclusive.)

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Thank you and thanks for pinging! I only meant to note that I did email, to head off receiving that advice-- I understand how busy we all are!

[kissoflife.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and my sympathies! These are a start (and some suprises!) and I'll definitely email.
Now I'm more worried about the eggs aspect of my recipes... and I had no idea of the freezing or let-bananas-blacken side of this.
Definitely not Torani, and now I wonder how brown sugar behaves re: fineness, and how I will negotiate flambe'ing vs the (new)water component of making sugar syrup. !!
So much to learn; these are even more reason to make my batch small as newb to LN2, definitely.