[Sca-cooks] OOP: Ice cream question

[Robert Downie]

Tara Sersen Boroson wrote:

> I have been trying to make low-carb ice cream to indulge my addiction.
>
> I borrowed my mother's countertop electric ice cream maker - the kind
> where you freeze the bowl, pour in the custard and the machine just
> churns it.  Now, I made ice cream using a traditional hand churned
> bucket many times as a child and teenager - and even at Pennsic
> occasionally.  I remember that when it comes out of the bucket, it's
> very thick and goopy and doesn't firm up until you put it in the
> freezer.  But, what I've been getting out of this electric toy is not as
> thick as I remember it ought to be, and it's freezing up much too hard
> for scooping.  I have to microwave it for 30 seconds before I can scoop
> it, and my freezer usually keeps ice cream at a great scooping
> hardness.  For all that, it tastes fantastic and I want to keep trying.

I tried making a low cal version once too, with similar results.  I saw an episode of Good Eats
where Alton Brown maintained that a specific ratio of sugar is required to achieve the proper
texture.  Here is an exerpt from the transcript of "Churn Baby Churn" found at
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/GEFP/index.htm :

"Look, the sugar in frozen desserts is more than just a sweetener. See, once dissolved in the
liquid, the sugar molecules actually get in the way of ice crystals forming. Now, as more water does
freeze the remaining liquid becomes more and more concentrated with sugar which continually lowers
the freezing point. That means that an ice or sorbet is little more than tiny ice crystals suspended
in a supersaturated sugar solution that's basically never really going to freeze, not all the way.
Now, too little sugar and you'll need an ice pick to serve your dessert. Too much, and you'll have a
syrupy mess.  Low Sugar = Rock Hard   High Sugar = Syrupy Mess"

The only other thing I could sugest to avoid a too hard an ice cream is to churn it on the fastest
speed (to hpoefully keep those ice crystals from glooping together.  If it is very low fat, that may
also be interfering with separation of crystals.  Don't take this as Gospel, I am no ice cream
expert, nor do I play one on TV - but if anyone has a true fix, I'd like to hear it too!

Faerisa