Churning into the world of ice cream making

It’s the simple things that make life sweet. Or so they say.

When it comes to ice cream… It’s the simple things that make life sweet. Or so they say.

When it comes to ice cream making, simple might not be the best description. But you won’t hear anyone who undertakes the task complaining — the surprisingly scientific labor fosters an inspiring amount of pride and dedication. And its product is still one of the sweetest at the grocery store — if not necessarily the healthiest.

Ice cream is complex. As part of an interesting summer project, I’ve learned that whipping up a batch of your favorite flavor is a good deal more challenging than scarfing it down. But after speaking to the managers of several professional creameries and even giving homemade ice cream my own well-intentioned try, I’ve discovered that there’s nothing richer — both literally and figuratively — than a freshly made, diligently prepared gallon of one’s own ice cream.

So what makes stirring up one of America’s favorite desserts so involved? Essentially, it’s that producing quality ice cream requires considerable precision in preparation temperatures and ingredient ratios. That’s because ice cream is a special type of mixture: It’s a colloid — a suspension composed of large molecules or microscopic particles of one or more substances dispersed throughout a second substance. In the case of ice cream, milk fat, ice crystals and air are scattered throughout the water found in milk.

Tom Palchak of Penn State’s Berkey Creamery called it an emulsion. The term refers to a particular type of colloid in which the combined substances are two liquids that are immiscible, or won’t mix together. Palchak is the manager of the well-known university creamery, popular for its Ice Cream Short Course, an eight-day course on ice cream technology offered yearly and open to participants from anywhere in the world. The creamery’s instructors and staff are familiar with the challenges and complexities of ice cream production, and they’re used to explaining these to aspiring creamers and casual hobbyists alike.

“You have to take water and air and solid materials, such as milk fat and protein and flavors, and you have to keep it all in a solid structure. And keep it frozen. And maintain that structure throughout the time that the consumer buys it and consumes it,” Palchak said. “A very good ice cream is challenging to make, time in and time out.”

I’ll say. Any online food blog will tell you that the trickiest part to making your own ice cream is assuring the combined ingredients obtain the right consistency in the freezer. This process is often aided by the use of an at-home ice cream maker, which churns a prepared mixture as it’s being chilled. Continually breaking up the ice crystals that form as the substance freezes prevents them from growing too big and making the finished product grainy making for icy ice cream.

But if you’re without the specialty equipment — as I was — and are trying to make an equally smooth ice cream, you’re going to have to invest a good amount of time and effort monitoring and stirring the mixture during the freezing process.

But that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Even using custom-made, professional quality equipment, production of a quality frozen dessert requires that same time and effort. Elias Wilson, soon-to-be owner of Glen’s Custard in Springdale, has known this since he was a kid. His great-grandfather, the store’s namesake, opened the original Glen’s Custard shop in Cheswick, Pa., in 1848. Although Wilson loves his job, he’s quick to point out the difficulties of production.

“It’s pretty complicated. We’re here doing this from about nine in the morning ’til about midnight,” he said.

Whereas the Penn State creamery produces what Palchak terms a “premium ice cream,” meaning that the creamery’s mixture “contains at least 14 percent milk fat and over 40 percent solids,” Glen’s Custard specializes in frozen custard.

“We don’t actually whip any air into our products, so our product is a little more dense,” Wilson said. No matter the variety of dessert, however, the care and precision required to ensure quality remains the same. “Don’t get in the custard business if you don’t want to put in some hours,” Wilson laughed.

Andy Hardie, owner of Oakland’s own Dave & Andy’s Homemade Ice Cream, agreed. Dave & Andy’s offers a variety of products, including ice creams, frozen yogurts and sorbets. With the exception of the sugar-free products, all are made daily on the premises, as the custard is at Glen’s.

“We make it, this time of year, every day, all day long,” Hardie said.

The Dave & Andy’s owner had his own recommendations for anyone attempting the culinary feat on their own: “You’ve just got to make sure to have your ingredients fresh and make sure whatever type of freezer you’re using, that you’re following the directions correctly for it. And, you know, it’s just fun to mess around with.”

His comment just about covered it all. Each of the three frozen-dessert specialists stressed the importance of precise freezing, using fresh ingredients and simply having fun with the project.

“Ice cream is a very creative food, just in and of itself … So there’s a lot of room for creativity and experimentation,” Palchak said. “Just remember that, as a frozen food, it has a limited shelf life and make it and enjoy it and have fun with it.”

Ice cream recipes and flavorings can all change up your final product. We stayed pretty basic, trying chocolate and vanilla, with our recipes and the final product was a creamy consistency — but while our ice cream was smooth, the process was not.

The American journalist Heywood Broun once wrote, “I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream.” His quote held true. Ten minutes into my own endeavor, my friend and I were entirely splattered with the as-yet-un-whipped cream we were vigorously mixing by hand in a bowl, and we had lost our third conspirator to an extended quest for a can opener. But in the end, our effort was rewarding in more than one way. Not only was making our version of ice cream fairly successful, it was also an enjoyable time.

A close friend of mine has a trademark saying: “We can’t all be ice cream.” She coined the phrase our freshman year when, inspired by our new ownership of a refrigerator and ample supplies of Panther Funds, we bought some yogurt and froze it in a naive attempt to make a chilled dessert. What we discovered that day, chipping at our blueberry and cherry flavored ice blocks, is the same thing I discovered this week, speaking to professionals. Making something satisfying and delicious is not always simple. But put in a little time and effort, and you might have something even better: generous portions of ice cream.

Recipe for low-key frozen delight

Here’s how my friends and I made our own very easy ice cream at home…

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Flavoring

Whip the heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks. We didn’t have an electric mixer, so the cream took about 10 minutes to mix by hand with forks. In a separate bowl, stir flavoring — we used vanilla extract for one batch and unsweetened cocoa powder for the other — into the condensed milk. Mix the condensed milk into the heavy whipping cream. Freeze the mixture for three hours.

Other recipes might have you using other ingredients, stirring more or even employing the use of an ice cream maker, but this was the least involved recipe we could find.

Enjoy!