Lately, one of my friends pointed out that it is very peculiar that for someone like me who doesn't like to drink wine or liquor, would enjoy food with wine and liquor. Come to think of it, rum & raisin ice cream has always been my favourite, then I also like tiramisu and liquor chocolates. And since I had some leftover rum essence so I decided to attempt to make the rum & raisin ice cream at home. Did a bit of researching but couldn't settle on a recipe, therefore, I decided to just come up with my own.
Soaked a bunch of golden raisins with about 20ml rum essence and about one teaspoon of vanilla extract for two days beforehand. Then I did the usual of whisking the whipping cream while incorporating about 90g of fine sugar in three batches. But what I did differently this time was that I also heated up a tablespoon of honey to mix into the whipped cream before putting the mixture into the freezer.
After about two hours, the mixture wasn't firm at all so I quickly did a search on the Internet to find a solution. I read about "The Science of Ice Cream" by Ice Cream Nation and figured out that perhaps I should add in some milk. So I actually added about 100-200ml of Meiji milk to the mixture, whisked till well combined before putting it back into the freezer for another two hours.
Took the mixture out to check and it seemed to have firmed up much better. Folded the pre-soaked raisins into the mixture, added some of the soaking liquid of rum essence and vanilla extract into the mixture and chucked it back into the freezer for another two hours. Took it out to check after two hours, instead of becoming more solidify, it became soft again.
Quickly consulted Mr Google and found out that alcohol lowers the freezing point of ice cream. Recalled what I read earlier, I came up with the idea of adding in more milk of about 100ml. My theory was that milk contains moisture and by adding into the mixture, the mixture would be able to form more ice crystals and hence be able to solidify. Chucked the mixture into the freezer after I was done mixing and this time round, I left it inside for another three hours.
Took it out again to check and I was so glad that my theory was correct. The mixture became more solid though not as solid as I hope it would be like the commercial ice cream. Still it was firmer than before and not sure if it was due to the addition of honey, the texture was slightly gooey and creamy. Going to leave it in the freezer for a couple more nights, hopefully it will firm up more before bringing some to the office.
.jpg)
---------------- Edited on 21 January 2015 ----------------
It was a bad time to bring ice cream to office because two of my usual taste testers were down with cough so they were not allowed to eat. Fortunately, CC was around to give me comments and her first comment was "Yum! It's your best ice cream yet. Everything just right." Then she elaborated that the taste was just nice, however, the ice cream was slightly on the soft side. Hahaha... My first DIY rum & raisin ice cream for the first cooking in the year 2015 didn't turn out too bad afterall.
No comments:
Post a Comment