(egg cracks)
(egg frying)
- Hello and welcome back to Sorted Food.
- Now, summer has finally arrived in the UK,
so it's ice cream time.
And we thought, let's scour the internet
for some home ice cream or gelato machines.
We found one with pretty good reviews,
so we're gonna try it out.
Ready for the first one, J?
- I haven't melted yet.
- Recipe number one.
I thought we'd go for classic to start off with,
just a classic vanilla ice cream, custard base.
Heat up cream and milk in a pan
with the seeds of the vanilla pod.
- [Barry] So how would you make this ice cream
without an ice cream maker?
- So the beauty of ice cream and an ice cream machine
is it is constantly mixing and churning as it freezes.
For you to do this at home,
you just need to take it out the freezer
every 15, 20 minutes and kind of whisk it and stir it.
- Okay.
- To stop those ice crystals forming too large.
- Right. - So you get
a nice smooth ice cream.
It's a bit of a faff.
It can absolutely be done.
So this isn't a hashtag ad.
Let's be clear about that.
There's lots of ice cream machines you can buy.
This particular one has got the cooling function in it.
So it is self-contained,
and basically it will churn and freeze at the same time.
And it's got a few functions.
Function for gelato, function for ice cream,
and function for kind of granita and ice.
So ice cream is not just 'iced' cream.
- Mmm hmm.
- It is basically iced custard.
You have to make a custard base and then freeze that.
So, this is essentially frozen custard.
You make a creme anglaise,
and then you chill it in the fridge,
and once it's chilled you then churn and freeze it.
So our classic ice cream recipe
is four large egg yolks,
and 125 grammes of caster sugar, whisked up,
and then half and half, double cream and whole milk,
to the volume of 500 mil, mixed in.
So we've infused the milk and cream with vanilla today.
But if you didn't want that,
you could just add in little essences or extracts
that you can buy.
Peppermint, lemon, rosewater, those kind of things.
If the pan hasn't caught,
you can put it back in the same pan.
- I don't think it's caught, Ebbers.
- Excellent, if you've scorched it
and burnt a little bit of milk to the bottom,
then definitely a clean pan.
Keep that over gentle heat, keep it stirring,
and you want it to go until it thickens
and coats the back of the spoon.
You don't want it to scramble.
Once you're happy, you've got your creme anglaise,
you're gonna pour it into a clean bowl,
through a sieve,
and that will scoop out your vanilla pod.
- [Barry] Looking good.
- Right, J, that now needs to cool
before we put it into our machine.
So in the fridge there is a jug that I made yesterday.
- What the (beep)?
- So the great thing about an ice cream mix
is you want it cold,
should take a couple of hours in the fridge.
But if you leave it overnight,
even more of that flavour of vanilla
begins to infuse and do wonderful things.
It's like a lot of curries and things
are better the next day.
Now, our machine has been pre-chilling for a while.
Take the lid off, pour your custard base in
and set it to go on the gelato setting.
So it's like a soft serve.
- So just to be clear, that's just creme anglaise now.
We could put that over a pudding.
- Hot or cold,
or we freeze it as it's churning for ice cream.
Because the last ingredient in ice cream is air.
- Right, that's going,
but we've pressed the gelato button.
And I thought we were making ice cream
and I don't know what the difference is.
And I've been running a food channel for more than 10 years.
- So there are a number of differences.
One is the churn rate,
which will put a different amount of air into it.
So a gelato hasn't got as much air,
so it's denser and therefore melts slower,
but it also has slightly different fat content
and buttermilk content.
Now we haven't changed the recipe,
but we're just changing the churning.
So if you did the ice cream function,
more air into it,
gelato less.
And you can kind of serve it with like a spatula.
It's dense, it's kinda,
you know when they serve it with a spatula or a spoon
as opposed to a scoop,
more like that.
Now that mixture is going to freeze as it churns.
It'll take about 45 minutes or so,
but when it's ready it will stop
and it will hold it at the perfect temperature
to continue to be servable until you need it
up to about two hours.
But we'll come back to that,
and we can move on to number two.
Number two, savoury ice creams.
- Oh, I've made the cheese ice cream before.
- [Ben] You have.
- [Jamie] Won a battle.
- It did win a battle.
I made a batch yesterday.
Same method you've just done,
but I swapped out the sugar for honey.
You still need, even in a savoury ice cream, sugar.
Instead of infusing with vanilla,
I added herbs, thyme and rosemary.
And then once it was thickened,
I whisked into it goat's cheese and black pepper.
- Mmm
- Cause I really wanna make that kind of black pepper
and honey flavour pairing work.
Would you like to try some?
- Yes.
Ice cream and salad, the perfect combination.
(men laughing)
- And what you have in front of you
is a gorgeous beetroot, chicory and orange salad.
Roasted beets with some shaved beet, as well.
There's some toasted hazelnuts,
all dressed in a salad and a dollop of your ice cream.
- It looks spectacular. Nice.
It's silky.
- Cheers.
- Okay, you know what the strongest flavour there is?
The rosemary and the thyme,
first of all. - The herbs.
- That comes to me first,
and that as the ice cream starts to melt,
you then start getting the goat's cheese.
- I really like that.
It's so familiar in terms of the flavour combinations,
but the biggest difference is temperature.
But it does work,
and it is slowly starting to melt and becomes a dressing.
So like the one that we've just made,
this was made using the gelato setting on the machine.
It's very, very smooth.
- I made this yesterday.
So obviously the machine keeps it perfect temperature
for a couple of hours,
but then you can scoop it all out
and put it into a container,
make sure it's covered, and you can keep it in the freezer.
And then 10, 15 minutes out of the freezer
just to come back up
to a nice spoonable, scoopable consistency.
We're still waiting on Jamie's churn.
So Barry, number three, sorbet.
- Yes. I adore a sorbet.
What flavour am I making?
- Peach and elderflower.
- [Barry] Ooh - [Jamie] Ooh
- Ooh, that's the reaction I wanted.
- I was expecting a mango.
- So essentially,
a frozen dessert that hasn't got any fat in it.
- Okay.
- [Ben] So it's a really easy ratio.
One part sugar, four part fruit purée.
You need to make the fruit purée
about the consistency of double cream.
And therefore, depending on the ripeness in the fruit,
let it down with elderflower squash.
Now.
- Yes, chef.
- [Ben] One volume of castor sugar into your bowl
and four volumes of fruit puree.
Now give that a little whisk up to dissolve the sugar.
That is literally it.
- [Jamie] It's just fruit purée and sugar.
- Yes.
And what you need is about 20 to 30% sugar concentration.
So we've put in,
if you think one part four part,
but there's also natural sugars in the peaches.
So that should be fine.
- [Barry] Ridiculously simple.
- Put it into machine and it will churn as it goes.
So, while your peach and elderflower sorbet churns
here are three that I made a couple of days ago.
- [Barry] Okay.
- [Ben] Number one, pear and pinot grigio.
- Ooh
- [Barry] Pear and pinot?
- Number two, rhubarb and vanilla.
And I actually stewed the rhubarb and cooked it ourselves,
rather than using tinned.
- Very nice.
- And the final one, pineapple and ginger.
And the ginger was ginger syrup
that came from a jar of the crystallised stem ginger.
- Ginger ice cream is my favourite.
Why are you put it in with pineapple?
- And I put in a special white rum.
- Ahh.
- [Jamie] That's his favourite.
- I'm trying it, don't care.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Ooh, that is delightful.
- Whoa. - [Ben] Is that not more
pear-y than pear?
- Yeah, that really is.
So how does the alcohol and the wine change?
Does it change anything?
- You'll notice it's slightly softer.
It will change it a little bit,
but you're only using a very little bit.
It's mostly pear purée,
a little bit of wine just to thin it out.
It's the consistency of double cream.
- It finishes with wine, again.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- The aftertaste is there.
- And I deliberately chose something like a pinot grigio,
which has got the green fruit,
like the green apple, green pear
kind of flavours to pair with pear.
- Have you done a wine course?
- But you, shut up, what is this?
I'm just trying to give you logic behind my thinking.
Move on to the pink one.
- Rhubarb. Big, big rhubarb.
- And there's no dairy in that one?
Cause it tastes creamy. - [Jamie] Really creamy.
- About 25% sugar.
But that, as it churns, is what keeps it so soft.
And the final one.
- That ginger and rum, ignore the pineapple, it'll be fine.
- [Jamie] Oh spicy. Oh that is lovely.
- Which plays with that sensation of it is cold,
but it's got a warmth of ginger.
- Mmm.
- I've missed pineapple, that's amazing.
A good sorbet needs to be soft
like right through to its core.
Sometimes they can be like rock solid in the middle,
can't they?
- So some sorbets will have other stabilised in it.
So you might have egg white in it,
you might have xanthan gum,
you might have locus bean gum.
Lots of different things that can stabilise it
if you're going to store it for a long, long time.
When you're doing this at home,
because the machine will churn it and then hold it,
you don't need the stabiliser.
- And without the machine,
is it exactly the same process
as the ice cream you're making,
where you stir it every few minutes?
- It is, but without the fat, even more difficult.
You're more likely to end up with like a granita,
more like a shaved ice.
Cause you get more of the crunch.
The constant churning as it freezes,
is what stops the sugar
from basically crystallising too big.
- Sorbet setting compared to the gelato setting.
Is it just turning faster?
- Yes, and more consistently.
It's gonna put more air into it,
but also slightly colder.
- There's no denying it,
these are fantastic quality sorbets.
That's something that I would never even attempt
to make at home without that machine.
- One thing to always bear in mind
is the quality of the sorbet
will depend on the quality of the fruit.
So use really seasonal fresh fruit or,
two of those were made with tinned fruit, and our peach one.
So actually, you know the consistency
of they being tinned and canned when they were ripe.
Right, we have tried my three sorbets.
Try your peach and elderflower.
Tinned peach, elderflower cordial.
(Jamie laughs)
- This is a brain freeze episode, it is.
Oh God, that's gone, that's really hit the spot, that one.
Whoa, that's really sweet.
Cause the peaches are already
like packing a punch of sweetness.
And with that much sugar,
absolutely delicious though.
- Those peaches, don't forget, were in syrup.
They were really sweet.
The other thing you can do,
if you haven't got peaches in juice, is add citric acid.
It can just give you a bit more of a tang,
if you want to.
- I'm surprised it doesn't have dairy in it
cause it's so creamy.
- Your classic custard is now set.
The machine is flashing.
It's gonna hold it like that for a couple of hours.
Occasionally churns to make sure it doesn't freeze.
Whenever you're ready you can add in all of your texture,
if you want to.
And it will do that final churn
by pushing the manual button. - [Jamie] Nice.
- And obviously personalise it,
put in whatever you want.
Once you have this all mixed in unscrew the top,
and you can lift the whole thing out to serve.
What's really nice is if you're doing lots of ice cream,
they give you a second spindle, which is slightly bigger.
And that can go straight back in,
screw on the lid, and you've got a second bowl.
Now the second bowl is much more difficult to wash out,
cause you have to do it by cloth,
but it means you can
interchange between ice cream really quickly.
- [Barry] Nice.
- [Ben] So you can take the spindle out
to make it easier to serve.
See, there we go.
- [Barry] Nice. Job done.
- Cheers.
- Cheers. - [Jamie] Cheers.
- [Barry] Oh my god. - It's soft serve
classic vanilla that just makes you go wobbly at the knees.
- You couldn't get that out of a tub of a freezer.
You have to either have to make it yourself,
in that machine, or go to a restaurant.
- [Jamie] Once you've made the custard,
you literally press two buttons.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And you get that.
- And I'm gonna put it out there,
you can buy pretty good ready-made custard now.
It's definitely the thinner stuff you want,
as opposed to the more Devonshire thick.
But you can buy cartons of excellent custard
in the chiller cabinet.
(Barry moans)
(audience cheering)
Number four, let's get some booze involved
with cocktail granitas.
- I like, I quite liked this.
It's mega sweet melon wine.
- [Ben] And we're going to freeze it.
So you remember the craze of like frose?
- Mmm-hmm.
- Excellent for this.
We can freeze anything that has a lot of sugar in it.
So a simple sugar syrup, one part of that.
And then three times as much bone dry wine.
Because this is a slightly sweet wine,
we're actually gonna add three and a half.
So again, this is all about playing.
Basically you can freeze into a slushie,
or all the way into a granita,
anything that you've mixed as a cocktail
providing it has enough sugar in it.
Even a gin and tonic sorbet is wonderful,
but it's not sweet enough.
You need to add sugar syrup into it,
with enough of the gin and the tonic
to get that consistency.
Three to one sugar to liquid.
- What about cocktails with egg white in it?
- So on this particular setting,
it is designed purely for fruit,
alcohol and sugar combination.
So no fat, no dairy, no egg white, no stabilisers.
Doesn't need it.
And remember that alcohol lowers the freezing point.
So you can't freeze something with 40% ABV.
So you kind of need to pick cocktails
that are already diluting that to a point that works.
That wine's 11 1/2%, ideal.
That goes into machine, number three,
and churn it until you get a wonderful granita slushie.
So whilst your Melonie freezes,
I thought we could try a sgroppino.
So using, (champagne cork pops)
- Bloody hell.
(Jamie laughs)
- So yesterday I made, on the same setting,
Aperol straight out of the bottle.
It's already got the syrupy consistency.
A little spoon for that.
Top it up with Prosecco. (lips smacking) Lovely.
- [Ben] Cheers. - [Jamie] Cheers.
- Cheers.
- Oh yes. - Look at the face he made.
- Oh yes.
I like the texture that the granita brings to it,
because it's melting, it's a little bit mushy.
But then it gets into your mouth
and it just all melts and you get the flavour.
- Two things I don't like.
One, Aperol. Yuck.
Two, eating a drink.
Never, not a fan. You're like.
(Jamie laughs)
My Melonie's looking beautifully pink and fluffy.
Skip out, into a glass, put a straw in it.
And this is gonna hurt. Brain freeze.
- [Jamie] It looks very cotton candy.
(straw bubbling)
- Oh, I know you guys weren't massive fans
of Melonie straight,
but as a granita, that's absolutely delicious.
So yummy.
- [Ben] The consistency is like snow.
- Mmm (gurgling)
- [Ben] There goes the brain freeze.
- It's like a really posh snow cone, isn't it?
- The last thing I thought it was worth trying
was some fro-yo, frozen yoghurt.
So if you're gonna do frozen yoghurt,
then you need to make sure it's got plenty of sugar in it.
It's usually got a fair amount of fat already.
We're going for a dairy-free option, as well.
And a vegan option.
So you can add in your coconut yoghurt and birch syrup.
You wanna mix your syrup into your yoghurt first,
so that you get the right even mix.
And then it can go in,
and when it's finished you can throw through the berries.
We're gonna do it again in the scoop setting.
Now every yoghurt is gonna be slightly different
cause it will rely on the fat content.
And it might be different again if you're using,
like we are, a coconut yoghurt.
- Yeah. - So you kinda need
to get your ratios right.
Have a play around with it.
It's never gonna be wrong.
But if you haven't got the right sugar and fat ratios
it might not be as smooth.
But then sometimes fro-yo isn't.
- Well that was easy.
(upbeat music)
Spinning everything around.
It's breaking a few of the berries up.
- And hopefully stop it while there's a few broken,
a few rippled, and a few possibly even still whole.
And we should stress,
if you're adding in fruit
do that last minute just before you serve it.
If you then put it in the freezer,
you'd have beautifully smooth fro-yo
but the berries will freeze solid and they become crunchy.
So only add them in if you're about to serve it.
Cheers.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
Wow, that birch syrup.
That is a whole new texture and flavour, again.
- Delicious. It's a lot cleaner.
It hasn't got as much structure
as the custard based ice cream,
but really refreshing.
- Depending on which sugar syrup,
in our case the birch syrup,
we use, and the viscosity of it,
will give the fro-yo a different kind of chew.
- Mmm-hmm.
- So something like corn syrup or golden syrup
would actually make it even chewier,
than like a honey or a simple sugar syrup.
- But, like the custard base one, it's ridiculously smooth.
- This is the first time you guys have used it.
What'd you think?
- In usability,
really, really simple.
You just need to know the ratios of the ingredients
that you're putting into it.
- It does come with 30 recipes.
Like QR code, cookbook, online.
You can just follow those, job done.
Or you can do what I've done and try and break it down
and understand the science of ice cream.
And then you can get creative.
And that's the part I've liked.
- For me, it's like 10 times better than tub ice cream.
But it all depends on the cost.
- [Ben] You've got to imagine spreading this cost
over several years.
And therefore, at 499 pounds,
you make up your mind.
- 500 pounds?
- I wonder, in the long haul,
how long of a haul does it have to be to save you money?
(laughs)
- I mean it's a lot of money,
but if you're into your ice cream,
or you want to get into your ice cream,
that becomes a hobby.
And you're probably prepared to spend
a decent amount of investment on a hobby.
- It's easy saying like, we can make it worth its while.
But genuinely, I still don't think I would have one at home.
- You can buy much cheaper ice cream machines,
but they don't have the freezing element.
You have to put them in the freezer
for 12, 24 hours before you want it.
And then it just does the churning.
- So this is the higher end?
- This is the higher end.
It's doing it all for you.
And well, you saw the quality you can make from it.
Over to you guys, what do you think?
Would you get enough use out of a machine like this?
And comment down below
what other high-end kitchen gadgets
would you love us to try?
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And now for the blooper.
(screen beeping)
- I can see it now, can't you?
Spaff's ice cream truck comin' round the corner.
You've got the outfit for it already.
- Considering you didn't know what we were doing today,
I love the fact you've rocked up in your ice cream shirt.