Simon Food Favourites: GraysOutlet Cooking Challenge: Cuisinart ...

I scream for ice cream

Admittedly if given the choice between buying a tub of ice cream or making it from scratch I'd choose the lazy way but when Sarah Cichy from Polkadot PR invited me to participate in the GraysOutlet Cooking Challenge to make ice cream using a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker?provided I thought I might learn a thing or two ? and indeed I did. I chose to attempt the?Matt Moran?s Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream?which sounded pretty straight forward on paper although for a cooking novice like myself it wasn't as simple as I had hoped. Making custard was the first challenge. Measuring, pouring and mixing was fine but knowing how to cook the custard to the right consistency before it turned into scrambled eggs was the tricky bit. I think in hindsight I might have undercooked it a bit because my custard was still a bit runny which in turn I think affected how thick my ice cream ended up after being churned.?

Blending frozen raspberries was the next challenge. My blender didn't handle it well. In fact it didn't want to blend it at all so I had to squash it all up and add water to make it more runny so it could blend. My blender wasn't up for the task or perhaps I should have used a food processor instead. Passing the blended raspberry through a sieve should have been easy but not when you discover you only have a coarse metal sieve which allowed all the seeds to go through ? ahh! I could?only?find a small tea sieve to do the job which was frustrating and tedious at best. I'll certainly know better next time what I actually need to do the job right. Anyway after 30 minutes I finally had my custard and raspberry sauce to make some ice cream.

The next day I took my chilled custard and raspberry sauce into work to churn in the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. The churning bowl had been in the freezer for 24 hours and was ready to use. There was anticipated excitement in the air from work colleagues hearing the machine churning away. After 20 minutes it looked like the mixture wasn't going to get any firmer so I took it out and folded through just a fraction of the raspberry sauce. The final consistency was still on the runny side but everyone enjoyed the flavour. There was no way I'd be able to make quenelles out of this batch. I placed the left over ice cream in the freezer to firm overnight plus also in a mould. The following day the ice cream texture was as hoped although it did have a more icy taste. It was certainly an interesting cooking exercise for me to partake in and I learnt how ice cream can be made. I was surprised to discover how many egg yolks it used and I definitely need to get a better sieve if I ever attempt this recipe again.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS:?When you make ice cream yourself you know exactly what's going into it, Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker was simple to use and very easy to clean after

CONS:?Takes a lot longer to make ice cream than simply going to the shop and buying some, My ice cream didn't turn out as firm as hoped

MUST TRY:?Making frozen yoghurt which doesn't involve cooking

VERDICT:?When I do have ice cream it's a bit of a spur-of-the-moment kind of treat so I'd rather buy it from a supermarket than try and plan ahead to make it myself

Source: http://simonfoodfavourites.blogspot.com/2012/12/graysoutlet-cooking-challenge-cuisinart.html

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