Help with getting the correct consistency in dairy-free ice cream
I'm lactose intolerant and have been experimenting with homemade ice cream recipes. I've been making my ice cream using a vanilla custard recipe - substituting the milk/cream with almond milk and adding guar gum to it. I make a recipe that yields a 2 quart batch of ice cream. However, I cannot get the guar gum amount right. Too little and the ice cream becomes as hard as a brick when freezing. Too much and it is so slimy, I might as well add vanilla to raw egg whites and slurp it down.
Is there an additive or method to make my non-dairy ice cream that will give it as close a consistency to normal ice cream (scoopable after freezing, but not soft serve) as possible?
I want to make some for my daughter's birthday party coming up and would rather make it ahead of time to save myself some stress. I want to be able to freeze it and bring it out when guests arrive, rather than letting it thaw out for hours previous and it be half-melted and the consistency off. BTW, I use an ice cream machine, if that helps any.
Best Answer
You can't do kitchen chemistry without measuring. Most "US measures" include a 1/4 teaspoon measure, and some include a 1/8 teaspoon.
At the roughest quick look from your list, I'd say that 1/2 gallon of almond milk plus 17-25 fl ounces of eggs (depends on the size of the eggs) would call for more like 3 cups of sugar for a reliable frozen dessert texture.
I prefer text to video; the video is easy to find if you prefer that. Alton Brown's "Churn, Baby, Churn" episodes of Good Eats are a frozen dessert experimentation primer.
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season1/churn/churntranscript.htm
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season9/ice_cream/churn_baby_churn_ii.htm
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How do you thicken non-dairy ice cream?
Cornstarch. A little cornstarch helps to thicken the ice cream to get the right smooth texture. Liquid sweetener. Using a liquid sweetener in combination with a granulated one helps to make the texture perfectly creamy.Why is my vegan ice cream hard?
This is because, says Cyrus, "non-dairy milks generally have high water content and low fat content, which creates hard, icy crystals when frozen." The more water that is present as ice, the faster the product will melt, and those changes in melting affect the "creamy" perception.How do you make ice cream soft and fluffy?
Adding a liqueur or wine to an ice-cream mixture will make it softer because alcohol, like sugar, lowers the freezing point of a liquid. If you like the firmness of a particular recipe but want to add a liqueur for flavor, you might counter the addition of alcohol by cutting back on the sugar.How do you make ice cream creamier?
At the very least, chilling your base ensures it'll churn into ice cream as fast as possible, which translates into small ice crystals for creamier ice cream. Chilling your base also gives you the added advantage of tasting it in close-to-final form, so you can make final flavor adjustments.Dairy-Free Ice-Cream Recipe (No Ice-cream Machine Required)
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