Austin Adventures

I found myself in Austin, Texas this past weekend. It was for a family get together, but as you all probably know, I can't travel anywhere for any reason without checking out the ice cream scene.

And I have to admit, there wasn't much of a scene. It seems that

Amy's Ice Cream, which is a small chain around the Austin (and now Houston and San Antonio) area, has the lock on the city's ice cream. In my search, I really couldn't even find any other pure ice cream shops. There are plenty of healthy yogurt type chains. And another popular thing in Austin are their snow cones or shaved ice or snow balls. It seems they go by a number of different names, but are essentially the same thing.

I was only able to sample one of these, but I drove by a number of stands touting Hawaiian Shaved Ice Cream or New Orleans Snow Cones. I can maybe understand the New Orleans influence, but the Hawaiian influence is a strange one for me. Maybe since Austin reminded me quite a bit of Los Angeles and that city has some proximity to the islands? Could that explain it?

Regardless, I ventured to Casey's New Orleans Snow Balls. It was certainly off the beaten path and you had to be looking for it. Judging by the crowd, people certainly know to look for it. The flavors were all over the place: traditional (cherry, coconut, chocolate), exotic (tamarind, hurricane, egg nog), and combinations (tiger's blood, strawberry banana). They also feature both regular flavors and cream flavors (boston cream pie, strawberry cheesecake). So right off the bat, the flavor options appealed to me.

But now what exactly was this stuff? Was it similar to Italian ice? I watched the guy make a few and I was a bit fascinated. He fills a paper cup with unflavored shaved ice and then uses a technique with a straw to poke a hole. Then out comes the syrups. For the cream ones, he usually uses a few different syrups to make the concoction. The Boston Cream Pie for example, was a Custard flavor, chocolate, and a bit of heavy cream. It tasted perfect. Pretty incredible.

They seem to make all their syrups from scratch and I'm gathering that they use real fruit or fruit extracts. The fruit flavors weren't quite as successful for me. The pineapple was a bit too sweet and the watermelon tasted slightly artificial. The biggest turn-off for me however was how much syrup he seemed to pour on each snow ball. It really became comical when he was still pouring it on. But later on, I realized that in order for it to bleed down into all the ice, he had to have a heavy hand. But I still think it went on a little too long.

So I ordered two junior sizes (which were only a dollar each and plenty of ice for me). I got the Cafe Au Lait. I'm a sucker for coffee flavor. It seemed like this was an easy flavor to perfect since it's

probably just cream and iced coffee. It worked and it was delicious. It was slightly rich and I couldn't finish all of it. But this was far better than any frappucino.

The second order was a fruit flavor. And I discovered he could put up to three flavors in one order. So I had pineapple and kiwi side by side. Like I had said already, the fruit flavors didn't work quite as well. I always find fruit syrups and extracts to be cheap versions of the real stuff. But they both did the job and they were refreshing and cooling on a hot Texas day.

I can definitely see the appeal to this stuff and I think Casey's does a good job, but I think I prefer more authentic flavors and less syrup.

Next on the agenda was Amy's Ice Cream. I went to the original location on Guadalupe near the University of Texas. This place is sort of like Cold Stone Creamery meets Ben and Jerry's. There is a very hip and eclectic vibe in the store and they do a similar technique to Cold Stone where they use a stone slab to mix in mix-in's.

They're most known for their Mexican Vanilla flavor so I had to taste that. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was a deeper vanilla flavor, but I didn't get any sort of spice. Maybe I needed more than a taste. It was good as far as vanilla goes, but I didn't get anything very unique. I also tasted the Shiner Bock (which is one of the local beers) and Brittany's Parade (which was Sweet Cream Ice Cream with frosted animal crackers mixed in).

The ice cream was good - very rich and creamy. The flavors for the most part stood out. I settled on a small cup of the Shiner and Coffee (I told you, I'm a sucker for the coffee). I wasn't crazy about their coffee flavor - it was a little too rich. But I liked that Shiner quite a bit. It was much softer (probably because of the alcohol) and had a sweet and slightly bitter beer taste.

Amy's is definitely the favorite in Austin (is there a choice, really?) and for good reason. It's funky enough but also caters to the conservative ice cream fans. And it seems to be a great place for families and college kids alike.

Cinnamon Cherry Ice Cream

A friend of mine sent me a recipe a few weeks ago from Oprah's website. It seemed interesting enough - Cinnamon Cherry Ice Cream. Not a combo I would immediately think of, but why not?

I was in Whole Foods and saw some great cherries, so decided to try out this recipe. My big purchase was Harvey's Bristol Cream. The recipe called for the cherries to be soaked in the sherry overnight. I let them sit in there a little longer because life sort of caught up with me. But I liked the strong flavor the sherry brought out in the cherries.

The rest of the recipe was a pretty obvious cinnamon ice cream. I had made one very similar a few weeks earlier. I steeped the cinnamon sticks in the cream mixture and it brings out a great flavor.

The cherries were added after I froze the ice cream. The flavors work a lot better than I would have though. However, my big problem is the size of the cherries. I halved them (as the recipe called for), but I think I would have cut them smaller. The big pieces are harder to eat because they're frozen and you're eating the ice cream and then have to deal with this cold hard cherry.

Another friend suggested a peanut butter ice cream with apple chunks. So when I finally do get to that, I'll make sure to cut the apple pieces smaller.

Procrastinator Extraordinaire!

I seem to be the worst blogger around. Maybe it's because I haven't fully embraced the whole idea of writing about everything I do. I have yet to even look at that twitter website. It just strikes me as very self-indulgent and not too exciting. I was also never one to keep journals. In college, I would go back and write in my journal months after the events happened. Or I would fill in my planner after the week was out - just to document the happenings.

But I like this idea of writing about ice cream. It will keep me motivated (God knows I need it) and will document my progress. So I keep trying to kick myself to keep up with this blog. I realize since I really don't have any readers out there, there's not a whole lot of risk if I don't write for a month or so. it's all for myself at the moment. Maybe I need to send out some emails or post something on facebook and then the pressure will begin. So if you've somehow managed to get to this half-assed blog, welcome and I promise to write again soon.

My Newest Project

Those that know me well know that I love to tackle big projects. For instance, I'm currently watching all the Oscar nominated films. It's going to take me years to get through them all, but it's all about the journey and less about the finish line. I'm also going to all of Time Out New York's 100 Best Things to Eat and Drink. So I like going through lists and finding new things (whether it be an interesting dish or a great old movie).

So my newest project has to involve ice cream, of course. I discovered this pretty popular book called The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. And I decided to follow all of his recipes and make all the different ice creams, sorbets, toppings, etc. that are listed. For the last year or two, I have been creating my own recipes. And I think going through a professional's recipes will be a huge learning experience for me. There's different ways of making all sorts of flavors and I'll take what I like and what I don't like from his ideas and then eventually make them my own.

I also realize there's this movie coming out called Julie and Julia which is based on the true story of this woman who decided to cook all of Julia Childs' recipes in her New York apartment. And then of course she wrote a book and then it became a huge hit and now a movie starring Meryl Streep. Well, my idea is completely unrelated (just a coincidence) and I certainly don't expect Meryl Streep to play me in a movie one day. She's a really good actress, but not quite that good.

Blue Marble

I finally made it out to Brooklyn to one of the most popular new ice cream shops - Blue Marble. Blue Marble is co-owned by Jennifer Dundas, a well-respected theater actress in New York. They've had much success in the last year or two and have opened a second location in Prospect Heights.  This sounded like the kind of ice cream shop I wanted to open.  They are very concerned with the neighborhood and the environment and all their ingredients are fresh from the farm.

I was in the neighborhood so finally stopped by the newest location in Prospect Heights.  It was almost dusk on a Saturday evening and the families were out for their ice cream.  This shop is pretty tiny with not a whole lot of room to sit.  But I did notice a back room for private parties for kids.  

The flavors consisted of maybe 10 and weren't terribly exotic.  There were a few interesting choices, but I decided to try the usual suspects.  I tasted the mint chip, hoping it would taste of actual fresh mint.  I was disappointed when it tasted more like a peppermint patty with some artificial mint flavors.  Alright, that's a crowd pleaser anyway.  Next I tried the rum raisin, again hoping for some strong real flavors.  I got some sad raisins and a very strong rum extract taste. It didn't feel like there was actual alcohol in it at all.

I finally ordered and chose a cup of cafe au lait.  I love coffee ice cream and think it's pretty much the perfect flavor.  Coffee, sugar, and cream.  What could be better?  

The flavor was decent, but not as strong as I had hoped.  But the weirdest thing was the texture. It reminded me of silly putty or taffy.  I could pull it up with my spoon and it stretched.  And I could literally chew the ice cream.  I guess some people like this style of ice cream, but it was a turn-off for me.  

I'm guessing that the problem is that the ice cream is over-churned.  It's overworked and so much air is added that it eventually becomes flat.  Companies add different amounts of what's called overrun to their ice cream.  Overrun is the amount of air added to the cream mixture so that it whips up into what we recognize as ice cream.  Breyer's, for instance, has 100% overrun which means that their ice cream is about half air.  

The strange thing is that Blue Marble advertises low overrun.  I don't know what to believe but the day I went, the ice cream wasn't pleasing to the mouth.  And I really thought the flavors were inauthentic.  But clearly I'm in the minority since this place has gotten so many accolades and high marks.  Maybe somebody goofed that day and left the ice cream maker on a little too long.  I'll have to give it a second try sometime this summer.

Donut Ice Creams

I took a break from going to chick-a-licious this week and decided to finally try out the new Momofuko Milk Bar.  Momofuko (for those of you who don't live in NY) is the newest restaurant empire in Gotham.  David Chang owns four establishments with different concepts: Momofuko Noodle Bar (um, noodles), Momofuko Ssam Bar (sort of like Asian sandwiches), Momofuko Ko (that's the fancy, expensive one with online reservations that are almost impossible to score), and now the Bakery and Milk Bar.  Chang has been embraced by critics and the public alike.  So I was eager to try his newest concept.

One of the draws of the Milk Bar, besides the interesting and kitschy pies (like crack pie), is their soft serve ice cream.  Since they opened, they had been touting the unusual flavors of cereal milk ice cream (you know that flavor after the cereal has been soaking in milk for a while?).  As of a few weeks ago, the theme has changed and now all the ice creams are modeled after donuts - old fashioned, jelly, bavarian cream, chocolate donut, etc.  Interesting idea.

I decided on the jelly and my friend got the old fashioned donut.  And we added some interesting toppings - I got the coffee crumbles (coffee grounds and sugar).  My jelly ice cream was surprisingly pretty cloying and almost inedible.  I was expecting the whole experience of a jelly donut and I basically just got the filling.  And I didn't find it to be exactly that either - it reminded me more of a very strong thick raspberry sorbet.  It wasn't at all what I wanted.  So I actually brought it back and asked for a different flavor.  That's something I never do, but I was not going to be able to get through the cup.

I ended up with bavarian cream, which was easier to eat.  But to be honest, it was nothing special.  It tasted creamy and it was very rich, but I had a hard time signifying the donut flavor. I almost didn't finish this one either because it was so rich.  I like my soft serve a little less heavy I guess.  And if the flavor is going to be so unique and specific as a donut, I want to feel like I am eating a donut.  

I guess the Milk Bar is primarily a take-out spot or a place to hang out while you're waiting to get in to the Ssam Bar (they two spaces are connected).  The big flaw here is that there is no seating.  There are just long bar areas where you are supposed to stand.  I guess this conserved space and gave the place a hip setting, but I don't want to stand after a long day of working.  I'd like to relax and take a load off, you know?

Overall, I was pretty disappointed.  I would try another one of their kitschy, gimmicky ice cream ideas down the line - hoping that I'll be able to at least taste the gimmick. But for now, I will definitely be going back to chick-a-licious when I am in the East Village.  

School for Ice Cream?

Last week my friend and possible business partner, Keri travelled with me to Penn State to undergo two very intense days of ice cream lectures, presentations, labs, and many discussions. I'm not sure we knew exactly what to expect, but it was certainly different than we had anticipated.

The class began on Saturday morning at 8am.  We were in a pretty small classroom in Penn State's new Food Science building.  It was on the second floor of their famous Berkey Creamery, where some of the most famous ice cream in the country is sold.   We were among about 70-80 students of all different ages from all over the world.  When we introduced ourselves and told

 our "ice cream dream", we discovered that most of the students were hoping to open up their own ice cream shop somewhere in middle America, many were already in the ice cream business (either from the small business angle or the bigger manufacturer side), and some just loved ice cream and wanted to learn more about it.  

The lectures started pretty immediately.  Dr. Phil Keeney gave us an introduction to Frozen Dessert Compositions.  Dr. Keeney evidently is a legend at Penn State.  A friend of mine who went to Penn State was pretty excited when I told him we met Dr. Keeney.  He's been at the Food Science department for many years and a favorite flavor at the Cremery (Keeney Bean Chocolate) is named after him.  He discussed the legal differences between ice cream, sherbet, sorbet, etc.  In order for an ice cream to be considered ice cream it has to contain at least 10% butterfat.  Then there is custard, which is richer and creamier and contains a minimum of 1.4% egg yolks.  Many people call custard French ice cream and that is usually the kind of ice cream I try to make.  

Then there is reduced fat, light, low fat, and non fat ice creams, which all have legal constraints that classify them as such.  Sherbet can have between 1 and 2% butterfat, which means just a slight bit of dairy, but lots more sugar.  And, of course, sorbet has no dairy. 

I found Dr. Arun Kilara one of the most interesting speakers.  He spoke the first day on ingredients of ice cream.   So he spoke briefly on both dairy fat and msnf (milk solids not fat), which are anything found in milk that are NOT fat (for instance, protein).  He also got into sweetners (sugars and the like), stabilizers, emulsifiers, flavors, and colors.  

These last four ingredients are things that I didn't want to be in my ice cream.   Stabilizers are ingredients that help keep ice cream together and bind water.  They definitely give ice cream shape and texture, but I always related these to preservatives.  While they do preserve the texture of the ice cream, they won't prevent bacteria from forming.  And they are often from natural ingredients, but ugly sounding words, like guar gum and carrageenan.  

Emulsifiers help disperse the fat in the water.  These also help with a smoother texture of ice cream.  These sound less natural, with names like poly this and mono glycol that.  Granted, ice cream can be made without both stabilizers and emulsifiers (I do it all the time), but they certainly seem to add texture.

Keri and I sort of tuned out the next speaker - John Hinkle.  He was a nice enough guy, but we really didn't like what he represented.  He is the President of National Flavors and he really seemed to present the first of many infomercials we were to witness here at ice cream school. His company sells flavor extracts, which can be both natural and artificial.  Keri and I agreed it is much more interesting and creative to be in charge of getting the flavors in the ice cream ourselves.  We are also against any sort of manipulated and created flavors.  We learned that some of these are just cooked down concentrated flavors of a fruit or spice or something.  But when we looked at the sheet of flavor options - anything from green tea to cotton candy to lemon custard and so on - we were sort of disgusted.  And to learn that most ice cream shops in America just buy these liquid flavors and add them to their mix!!

After lunch Dr. Bob Roberts (poor guy!) taught us about pasteurization and manufacturing a mix.  I tried to pay attention but it got very technical and scientific and I sort of drifted off.  It also seemed to involve huge pasteurization machines and manufacturing on a huge level.  This is when I began to realize that we were not able to make our own mixes.

I have always bought pasteurized milk and pasteurized cream and added them together and then figured out how to incorporate the flavors.  This was one of the most exciting and creative parts about making ice cream for me.  Well, over the next few hours, we learned that legally if you want to sell the ice cream, the entire mix has to be pasteurized together (minus the flavor). This put a huge damper on all our ideas.  I was even more saddened when I learned that these mixes come with sugar and stabilizers and everything already mixed in.  So what if I wanted to make the ice cream with honey instead of sugar?  Or brown sugar?  Too bad.  The sugar is already in the mix.  I felt like this was very limiting and I saw my creative juices being sucked away.

Deborah Lee, the owner of a gelato shop in North Carolina, tried to get us all excited about gelato.  Now, living in New York, gelato is something that I see every day.  It seemed that this is a new exciting product for a lot of America.  And Deborah said this was a great way to finally get creative (oh, now we're getting creative?)  Gelato has no federal standards to say what it must or must not contain, but generally it has less air and less cream than regular ice cream. It's usually denser and smoother.  Deborah said we can get creative in our presentation by adding fruit slices or pieces of candy.  I think Keri and I are just snobs, but none of her gelato presentations looked very artistic to us.  We would get an even closer look a bit later.

Next the class split up into three groups for labs.  Our first lab was with Dr. Roberts and it was a history and tour of the Creamery.  It was neat to learn the history of Penn State's dairy farm and ice cream shop.  And the factory was pretty impressive.  But this was such a huge operation that it didn't seem completely

 relevant to what most of us wanted to do.  Again, it got very scientific.  What about just a big pot with some fresh fruit, sugar and cream?  No, we got some huge pasteurization machines to do all that for us.  I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to taste their ice cream.

The next lab was with Deborah Lee and she demonstrated making gelato.  She was making a "unique" flavor to show us how creative you can get with gelato.  She made a grapefruit and thyme sorbetto.  The texture was really smooth and refreshing, but the flavor was just awful.   It was much too bitter and the thyme just didn't go well with the grapefruit.  Not impressed, Deborah.

By the final lab, I was exhausted.  But it was probably the most helpful of the bunch.  It was with Dr. Kilara and it involved tasting many different types of ice creams.  We tasted about eight different vanilla ice creams all with different characteristics.  One had high 

fat, one low fat, one had high overrun (overrun is the amount of air put into ice cream), low overrun, no stabilizers, etc.  Then we had two chocolate ice creams - one with vanilla added and one without.  I think this was to demonstrate the effect vanilla has on just about any flavor.  It's really like the salt of the ice cream world - it brings out the other flavors.  

After a while, all the different ice creams started to taste the same.  I don't think I was quite prepared to taste all these.  It's sort of like a wine tasting where you really have to be focused and not drink too much wine because they start to all taste the same after a while and you might just be a little tipsy.  It was definitely a bit of ice cream overload.  But it was an interesting and useful project.

That night they threw a very nice little reception for us.  There were finger foods, free beer and wine, and the gelatos that were made with Deborah Lee earlier in the day.  I don't think Keri nor I tried them.  I'm not sure if it's because the last thing we wanted to do was eat more ice cream or if it was because we knew they weren't the best.

At the reception, we got a very interesting lecture from Steve Christensen.  We actually met Steve on the shuttle from our hotel to the reception.  He was a witty Australian guy who was the first to inform us about the legalities of not using your own mix.  He was easy to talk to and seemed the least technical and scientific of the teachers.  And we learned from him that pasteurizing machines are becoming illegal in the states of California and New York.  Great.

He led a very interesting and funny lecture on opening an ice cream business.  He made the talk very fun and I think everybody agreed he was the best of the presenters.  He compared opening a shop to having a baby and divided the whole process into trimesters.   He owns a slew of custard shops in Australia and teaches a hands-on class in St. Louis.  He also has his own blog known as the ice cream bloke where he travels around the world on ice cream adventures. Sounds like this man has my dream job.  Check him out: www.icecreambloke.com

The second day got off to an even more scientific start as Bob Roberts talked about freezing and hardening.  The key to good ice cream is to freeze the mixture into billions of tiny little ice crystals.  The bigger the ice crystals are, the grainer and less fun to eat ice cream gets.  So we want more ice crystals that are smaller, as opposed to less ice crystals that are larger.    Bob continued to talk about how this works scientifically.   My mind doesn't exactly work in a scientific manner, so I was lost here at times and really just wanted to talk about how exciting it would be to make bacon ice cream or some such!

The next speaker was Ted Galloway, who is a representative from Classic Mix Partners in Wisconsin.  He talked about Soft Serve and Custard products and gave himself a big plug for his pre-manufactured mixes.  This is where were began to learn about ice cream machines and specifically soft serve.  There are different machines for soft serve ice cream, which is constantly moving the mixture until it is ready to be dispensed.  We saw examples of these machines later.

Dr. Kilara returned to talk to us about sherbet, water ice, and sorbets.   Now people still buy a manufactured mix for these things, but there is no need for them to be pasteurized (except for sherbet which does contain a small amount of dairy).  Honestly, I love sorbets and water ices.  I think they're more fun in the mouth and a lot lighter than ice cream.  I could eat those all day long.  But the public wants creamy, smooth ice cream.  I'd be happy sucking on a flavored ice cube all day.  Isn't that terrible?

After that, Patti Kroening spoke to us on the importance of freezer sanitation.  She spoke about how often you need to sanitize the machines and how to go about doing that.  That will become incredibly important once I invest in a commercial machine and am selling my product to the world.

And the last lecture was Ted Galloway again who talked about the importance and process of choosing a mix manufacturer.  This is still breaking my heart.  I really didn't want to have to buy a mix from a manufacturer.  It takes away a lot of the creativity and freedom of putting together a flavor.  This lecture was mainly about the professionalism of dealing with your manufacturer and finding the one that is right for you.  How do the other artisanal ice cream shops in New York get around this?  Do they have connection with local farms?  Do they ignore this law?  Is there another loophole that we're missing?  This is something we need to find out when we get back to the city.

After lunch, we had some more labs.  This is really where it turned into a big infomercial for companies selling their products.  It is definitely a great marketing tool and a way to find suppliers.  Keri and I are not quite there yet, so it seemed a little late night infomercial to us.

First we got a demonstration of three different soft serve freezers.  The actor in me was sort of more interested in the drama between the competing companies and their sleazy salesmen ways of trying to sell their freezers.  We both agreed that we weren't really interested in soft serve.  But I must say, trying the soft serve ice cream really brought me back to my childhood. Soft serve was always my favorite kind of ice cream - it was so cold and soft (who would have thought?) and it was fun to play with the swirls with my plastic spoon.  There is definitely a soft spot in my heart for soft serve.  But I don't think you can get as creative or find authentic unique flavors in it.  And it often feels a little plastic-y to me - maybe it was those plastic spoons.

Then we had a big round of demonstrations of batch freezers.  They all had many different features - some were self-cleaning, some had a timer to tell you when they were ready, some were better suited for custards, etc.  One in particular really made us wonder.  It seemed one machine had almost a built in pasteurizer on top where you would heat the mix and infuse flavors and then you moved it to the freezer section where you could freeze it.  We were so confused.  We thought this was illegal.

When we found two of the instructors and questioned them, they seemed to sort of avoid the question.  They said some people do things differently.  I'm not sure if they were saying that it was an illegal method and some people turned their ears.  Or was it that this was a feasible way of doing things but the mix manufacturers don't really want us to do it that way?  I'm still not completely sure.  

We seemed to have gotten quite a bit of information from different sources at this ice cream convention.  It did feel more like a convention and less like school, especially towards the end. I'd really like to find out what the true laws are and what is and what is not possible.  

We definitely learned a lot and I think our eyes were opened a bit to the realities of opening an ice cream shop.  I don't think all of these technical details were necessary, but it is certainly good to get a taste of it and start thinking about the whole thing in a different, more practical way.

But for now, I can't wait to get back to making my ice creams on my little Cuisinart that I bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  And I don't have to use any liquid flavorings or manufactured mixes if I don't want to.