24 September 2006

Gelato Gelato

Chocolate Gelato (above), and Lavender and Citron Thyme infused Olive Oil Gelato

When I started learning how to make ice creams with my newly acquired ice cream maker, I had no notion of the differences between ice cream and gelato. I thought that gelato was merely the Italians' fancy way of naming ice cream. That the difference between ice cream and gelato boiled down to mere nomenclature.

But when I started reading up a little more on these frozen desserts, not only did I find out what made gelato different from ice creams, I even found variations within ice creams. Traditional gelato actually contains no cream, just milk, egg yolks, sugar and the flavouring. Gelato is dense and slightly chewier as a result of the proportion of ingredients used, as well as the method used that ensures as little air incorporated as possible.

One good news about gelato is that it has a lower fat content as compared to French or American style ice creams, because of the lack of cream. However, some recipes call for some cream because the milk in Italy has a higher level of butterfat as compared to milk from outside the European region. Too little fat and the gelato might become too icy and less smooth. While you may not think that 0.5% more of fat is important, I did not want to go against the advice of the masters and added a little cream like the recipe asked. Gelato is also known to melt a little faster than ice creams, which explains why my photos show baby gelato balls in little silky pools of melted gelato (still delicious nonetheless).



For the chocolate gelato, I took the recipe off Melissa from The Travelor's Lunchbox. She had done some intensive research, comparing three different chocolate gelato recipes and blogged tediously about it. Needless to say, I lapped up every word and promised myself that I would try the recipe one day. And this was even before I got my ice cream maker!

True enough, the chocolate gelato turned out beautifully and was exactly as she had described it - 'The flavor was very deep and well-rounded, without a gritty/powdery aftertaste.' It was easy to scoop straight out of my freezer even after extended freezing. As I am not a big fan of deep, dark chocolate (unlike many of my friends and family), I used some dark chocolate with a lower cocoa content (45% as opposed to 70-75%) and it worked out just perfect for me.

Of course my gelato escapades would not stop there. It went one step further and ventured into the more dubious sounding Olive Oil Gelato. The first time I heard of Olive Oil Gelato, I was fascinated by what the inclusion of olive oil would do, but at the same time a little apprehensive by what the inclusion of olive oil would do. Still, I jumped into it without thinking. Instead of just using some really good, fruity extra virgin olive oil, I decided to use a lavender and citron thyme infused olive oil as well, that I had recently got my hands on from JM Thiercelin, courtesy of Bats. I recently got a huge stash of samples to play around with, so don't be alarmed if I keep plugging them in subsequent entries.

This Lavender and Citron-Thyme infused olive oil smells exactly like it sounds, strongly of the earthy olive oil, with a second layer of the flowery lavender and citron-thyme. The aroma shone very strongly while I was heating the custard base over the stove, and this frankly made me a little worried that the resulting gelato would be overpoweringly flavoured. Thankfully, my concerns were unfounded. But as taste is extremely subjective, some others might use a lower concentration of the infused olive oil to get a gelato only vaguely perfumed by the floral and herby tones.

What I loved about creating this version of olive oil gelato is that it was tremendously smooth (perhaps because of the use of olive oil) and just slightly more floral than herby. I find this extremely important because of a recent bad experience with a pure thyme ice cream that left me thinking about nothing but Lamb. This led me to believe strongly (at least for now) that herby ice creams should be limited to savoury applications, like basil sorbet in a cold tomato gazpacho. The flavour of the olive oil in the gelato was imperceptible to me except in my aftertaste, but which makes me wonder what pure Olive Oil Gelato might taste like. Rest assured, it will be my next project.


Both gelatos have been very well received, even by my father who is a traditionalist and Chinese at heart. That means any flavour beyond the conventional chocolate, vanilla, coffee or (when he is feeling adventurous) green tea is out of bounds. But trendy Asian flavours, such as Chendol, Gula Melaka, Coconut or Durian, appeal to him. So when he gave the thumbs up for this Lavender and Citron-Thyme infused Olive Oil Gelato, I was very pleased.

Olive oil gelato recipes are hard to come by, even in frozen dessert books. But I managed to get one off Mario Batali's The Babbo Cookbook.

Olive Oil Gelato
From Mario Batali’s The Babbo Cookbook

Ingredients
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
¾ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 cups milk
1 cup cream

Method
Beat egg yolks and sugar with an electric mixer until mixture is thick and pale.
Continue beating with mixer and drizzle in olive oil.
Beat for another 2 minutes until olive oil is incorporated.
Add milk and cream and stir with a wooden spoon thoroughly until all ingredients are combined.
Heat mixture over medium-low heat until custard thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon (65-70 degrees celcius).
Let it cool to room temperature, cover with cling wrap and chill in the fridge overnight.
Churn in ice cream maker the following day.
Freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.

* For Lavender and Citron-Thyme infused Olive Oil Gelato, replace 1/2 cup of olive oil with 1/2 cup of infused olive oil. Or reduce this amount according to your preference.

5 comments:

Sammy said...

Are those home made ice cream again? Looks delicious!
Btw kcd, I'm using the same template as you are. Do u have any idea how to place the titles for my posts? Can't seem to find the code.

Anonymous said...

Hi! Such a coincidence that we're using the same template. I'm not extremely well versed in HTML but I think the code regarding the title is towards the end of the template code just slightly after "!-- This is the blogger side on the right
", it involves something about blog title. I usually just fiddle around with it by trial and error to see what I get. Good luck!

Sammy said...

Oh okay... so you enter a code like Blogtitle or something like that?

Anonymous said...

Heya =) Best if you add me to your msn at amoebamoron@hotmail.com and we can chat from there. It might be a little complicated to explain like this.

Sammy said...

haha okok :)