Chocoholic's gelato

I may need an intervention. This may be getting out of hand. We may be in trouble. This is, lemme think... the 5th batch of gelato in a little over a month. But heck, we are loving it! The inventory in the freezer is replenished as soon as we see gelato levels dipping dangerously low. it's so obvious we are tripping on gelatos. But this I.N.S.A.N.E.L.Y good chocolate gelato leaves us asking for more. and hence: The ultimate chocolate gelato a.k.a Chocoholic's dream come true. Tadaa!!

What puts this gelato in a whole different sphere of legitimate and awesome gelatos is its texture and the richness. The texture is to die for, creamy and dense. The chocolate is rich and so right. So you have to make sure you use the best quality chocolate that you can lay your hands on. The hint of the gianduja can  induce a tad bit of a happy-high. But hey, who's complaining?

The recipe has been adapted from here with changes. Mr. Lebovitz, i owe you. Big.

What you will need to make the ultimate scoop of chocolate gelato:
2 1/2 cups of milk

¼ cup condensed milk

¼ cup fresh cream

3 1/2 tablespoons corn flour

1/3 cup Cocoa powder

80 g dark chocolate, chopped.

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons of Chocolate liqueur (I used gianduja)

How you go about it:

Take ¼ cup of the milk mentioned in the ingredients above and whisk in the corn flour. Keep aside till called for.

Heat the milk and sugar in a saucepan and bring it to a boil, add the condensed milk and stir it in. Bring the temperature to a simmer and add the cream. Keep stirring till it is all dissolved.

Add the cocoa powder and whisk gently to blend it all in. (Gently because it may fly around a bit otherwise!)

Once it is all blended in, cook for a minute. Add the corn flour+milk mix (make sure there are no sediments of corn flour at the bottom before pouring, so whisk again before pouring) to the saucepan and mix well. Keep stirring for three to four minutes on a very low flame to ensure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan and it cooks uniformly.

Take off the heat and add the chopped chocolate to the mix. Stir occasionally to make sure the heat from the milk mix melts the chocolate.

Once melted, stir in the liqueur and the chocolate gelato is ready to be frozen. Pour into a flat bottomed, freezer friendly container and freeze till set. You wont have to blitz it with the blender to break up any ice crystals that may form. I didn’t have to. If you do think your gelato is not as creamy as it should be, do the drill of blend-freeze-blend-freeze. Mine was completely, most superbly creamy without it! A dream I tell you, a dream!

Stracciatella Gelato

So the rate at which i am modestly churning and we are unabashedly polishing off gelatos, we are giving the local ice cream guys serious business trouble. honestly. Mr Arun Ice cream, Mr Baskin Robbins and Mr Mövenpick, i mean no ill. I am just a budding gelatier (i hope that' a word!) and i luuuve gelatos. Especially the ones i make. Ooh also, it helps greatly that the people around me encourage me by finishing off the gelato boxes in the freezer compartment. I take it as a 'let' make more!' cue. Can u blame me?

The next in the series is the Stracciatella. Have you tried the Mövenpick version of Stracciatelli? Non stick is an ardent fan. That is reason enough for me to try it. and quite easy it was. Just follow the Vanilla ice cream recipe here and pipe melted dark chocolate after the last time you blend the gelato. You will notice that the chocolate sets as soon as you drizzle it because of temperature of the ice cream and that's simply how amazing chocolate is! Break the chocolate strands into bits with a fork so that you get chocolate shards in every mouthful. As can be expected, i freaked out a bit and drizzled quite a bit of chocolate.

Let the gelato set and viola! you are good to make your gelato and eat it too!

Nuts about nuts : Pistachio Gelato

know what, i think i know why green and its various hues have always been my favorite color. Ever since i can remember. i mean, i have had fancies for leaf green, parrot green, turquoise green, bottle green, aqua green, teal green, charteuse and pista green to name a few (You know how gorgeous these colors look in the staedtler color pencils array right - its fabulous!). To expound on the last point: Ah, the color of good (read middle eastern) pistachios! The taste is synonymous with growing up in Dubai where nuts are a staple. It was a permanent fixture at home, in its raw unshelled glory or otherwise. My brother's favorite flavor of ice cream was the Pista. All to say, this recipe was waiting to happen! and i'm loving every lick of it. :D

A note about the gelato: It is more creamy than the previous attempt and i attribute it to the creaminess of this fabulous nut. Also, it makes you want to have more and more. So there, you are warned!

The recipe has been adapted from Mr. Lebovitz's and Aparna' recipe.

What you will need:

1/4 cup shelled pistachios
2 cups milk
1/2 cup cream
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons corn flour
a (big) handful of roasted and chopped (unsalted) pistachios to garnish

First we will need to make the pistachio paste which may sound complicated but is the coolest thing eva! Boil some water in a saucepan and add the pistachios in. Once it boils, switch off the flame and drain the water. Run under regular water to cool them and once cool to touch, remove the skin with hand.
Dry them best way you can on a paper towel and blitz these nuts in the grinder till you get as powdery as possible. Add a couple of tablespoons of milk from the milk required and continue to blitz till you get a smooth paste. Add the lemon juice, mix and keep aside.

Take another quarter cup of milk (also from the milk in the ingredients list) and dissolve the corn starch in it. Whisk to ensure none of it sediments in the bottom.

Bring the milk and sugar to a boil. Once it has, reduce the flame and add milk+corn flour mix and whisk in. Make sure it becomes a homogeneous mix. Continue to whisk till it reaches the custard like consistency (coat-the-back-of-your-spoon stage) and a minute after. Make sure you keep whisking it and that flame is on low, else you may potentially end up with burnt custard coating the bottom of your vessel. and you do NOT want that! (experience talking)

Take it off the flame and add the cream in and whisk. Allow to cool to room temperature before adding the pistachio paste. Whisk till smooth. Pour into a freezable flat bottomed container and pop into the freezer till it freezes. Once it has, blend the gelato using the blender to break up the ice crystals and pop back into the freezer to set. Repeat this process thrice. After the last time you blend it, add the chopped roasted pistachios and distribute evenly. Dig in!

P.S it is physically impossible to restrict the tasting to a few (ahem ahem!) spoonfuls of the gelato when blending it the various times that you have to. Really! Go on, try it for your self.  and say goodbye to those icky looking cardboard boxes (Eeww!!) of ice cream or the not-so-bad-looking ice cream tubs for good! :)

On another note, Happy and safe Diwali all! Spare a thought for the ozone, your carbon footprint, your finances and the poor hapless animals that are subjected to your torture of pyrotechnics before you burst the next deafening cracker (!!*#@$^&!!). The true spirit of Diwali i would like to think is in lighting diyas and eating loads of papdi chaat and gaajar ka halwa :D. Happy Diwali!

Vanilla Gelato and a triumphant beginning

Whoever said you need an ice cream maker to make a gelato? hogwash! Who said u need egg to make creamy ice cream?  Baloney! and you cant make delish ice cream yourself? Nonsense! If that does not motivate you enough, i do not know what will. My mom used to make ice creams when we were growing up and we used to love it, crystallized in parts as it was. We used to badger her to make more. And somehow that taste lay in a corner of my mind amidst so many other childhood memories that i associate to smells and tastes till i chanced upon this. and i knew i had to try it. Thanks Aparna for rekindling these old fires! :)

I decided to go simple and do the ultra basic stuff as it was my first time. Now that i know this is a winner, i have already concocted various sinful combinations in my head.

What you will need to make a box of Vanilla Gelato that will feed 3 very passionate gelato lovers or 6 regular mortals (you may just hop over to the other side after this, mind it!):

3 cups milk (i used toned to justify the name 'gelato' but you could use regular full cream milk and still call it one)
100 ml cream
3 scant tablespoons corn flour
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
1 average length vanilla bean

How you go about it:

-Keep aside a quarter cup of the milk and keep aside till further use.
-Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan, add the sugar and and bring it to the boil. Add the split and chopped vanilla bean along with the scraped out vanilla goodness from the bean. Lower the flame and let the milk simmer for about 7 minutes or so. Cover with lid and keep aside for an hour while the vanilla is infused into the milk.
-Strain the milk to remove the bits of the vanilla bean and pour the milk back into the saucepan. Bring it to the boil and let it simmer.

-Add the corn flour to the quarter of milk that was kept aside and whisk to ensure there are no lumps.
-Add this mix to the saucepan of milk and stir continuously to ensure no lumps form. Whisk over the flame till it reaches a custard like consistency and when the spoon is lifted, it coats the back of your spoon.
- Take it off the flame and allow it too cool and make sure you stir it to prevent a skin from forming.
-Add the cream to this mix and whisk by hand to ensure it becomes a homogeneous mix.
-Pour into a sufficiently large and flat bottomed box that can be kept in the freezer and freeze till set.
-Once set, beat the ice cream till its mushy. This is so that we break down the crystals. Return back to the freezer to set. Once set, blend/beat it again till mushy. Repeat this process thrice and you get the creamiest, best home made ice cream made without an ice cream churner!

-Once set, you may drizzle chocolate sauce and dulce de leche or any other sauce of your fancy. That's the beauty of a vanilla gelato, it complements almost anything.
and there my bellissime people is your Gelato  :) This is only the beginning of many more to come!