We had a Christmas party at work last year. And whenever there is a gathering or party, I immediately go into ice cream mode. Even if it is catered by Blue Smoke BBQ and I'd be competing with Shake Shack ice cream. I still made some ice cream.
Champagne sorbet was a no brainer. I've made it the last two years for New Year's and since I wasn't able to carry it with me to my 2009 destination, I decided to bring it in to the party. Even though I work at a nice restaurant with a great wine list, my champagne knowledge isn't the best. I didn't want to spend too much money on a bottle of champagne (or sparkling wine, to be technical) so I bought a bottle of Korbel, mainly because I saw them pour it a few weeks ago on Top Chef. It was between that and a bottle of cava, which I think might have been a better choice in the long run.
The Korbel wasn't as dry or bready as I would have liked. But I just added a little lemon juice and there's nothing better than frozen sparkling wine. It was refreshing and a little too easy to eat.
I also wanted to bring something festive and since this is a group that likes to drink, I thought about some alcohol ice creams. I made margarita a while back and wanted to maybe try that again.
The big problem, of course, is that alcohol doesn't freeze. You can get away with a small amount of alcohol in each quart, but you have to be very careful. What I've done in the past is boil the tequila to burn off most of the alcohol, but retain the flavor. And then I added a small amount more tequila later on.
I think all margaritas need salt, so I added a fair amount of kosher salt to the creme anglaise, which was perfect this time, by the way. I thought the flavor came out pretty well. It might be a little too light on the tequila, but again that will take more experimenting to get the right balance between a good texture and an alcohol taste.
There were a handful of people who really liked the ice cream, but the overall consensus was that it was too much lime or the cream aspect with the margarita flavor was strange. I still think it is a flavor that certain palates could go for and I think I'll continue to develop it.
The champagne sorbet went over huge, however. By the end of the night, at the after party, people were just chugging the melted down sorbet. If my ice cream can instill drunken debauchery and good times, then I think my work here is done.
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