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Home Made Ice Cream
Cook or Not |
Most recipes call for cooking the mixture before cooling it in the refrigerator and freezing it. There are several reasons for cooking: 1. Infuse the flavor of things like vanilla beans or mint leaves into the mixture. It can be done in a microwave. 2. Help dissolve the sugar. 3. To kill the starch digesting enzyme called alpha-amylase in egg yokes which allows the custard mixture to thicken. 4. Destroy salmonella in eggs Vanilla Ice Cream II Recipe - Allrecipes.com has a recipe with uncooked eggs. This used to be common before eggs started having salmonella. They warn "We recommend that pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and the infirm do not consume raw eggs." At "Making safe homemade ice cream" they recommend using pasteurized shell eggs or egg substitute if you're not going to cook.
But there are all kinds of thing that can go wrong with the cooking.
You can make it without cooking (sometimes called Philadelphia-style), eliminating the eggs. At Serious Eats they say, "The truth is, unless you're steeping something to infuse its flavor into the dairy, like vanilla beans or mint leaves, the only thing scalding dairy on your stovetop gets you is the risk of a boil-over. It's a great step in a recipe when you have someone else to clean your kitchen. Yes, scalding impacts dairy's composition, altering proteins and milk sugars. But take a look at the word "pasteurized" on your carton of cream. In the U.S., virtually all dairy we buy is pasteurized, which means it's already been heated (you could even say scalded!) to between 145 and 280°F. Bringing your dairy to a simmer at home does nothing that hasn't already happened at the manufacturing plant. Some recipes call for heating the ingredients to help the sugar disolve, but others do not. If you're not steeping some flavor in your dairy, you can go ahead and combine your eggs, sugar, and dairy all in one pot, then slowly bring the whole thing to a simmer. Faster, easier, and way less fussy.
Tempering:
Philadelphia Ice Cream: See also Homemade Ice Cream, Without All the Heat - The New York Times
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