Genius, as Thomas A. Edison said, is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. If the idea is good but the execution is not, there goes the idea. Here, execution translates to technique. Knowing how things are done, the ingredients you will use, and the necessary equipment is key to a successful result.
It is at this point that many pastry chefs and pastry cooks can fail. The importance of execution and technique cannot be stressed enough. (Techinique Execution Techinique Execution Techinique Execution Techinique!)
The simplest things, which we take for granted, such as whipping heavy cream properly, are just as important as the most complcated tasks, like making a properly balanced ice-cream.
Personally as far as taste goes, I like to work with flavours that appeal to my tastebuds, but its important to make things you dont like to eat, because, who knows!
Personal taste is something that begins in childhood, from the first smell of your mother's cooking, and is aquired through many years, and never ends. It never should. It is a continuous process.
It should evolve and you should be open to new flaovurs, techniques, ideas and experiences.
Flavour profiles do not always have to be traditional, like chocolate, but there are some out there that are, for a lack of a better word, unusual. There is a big difference between innovation and shock value. For example calling melted ice cream "hot ice cream" (it did happen!).
It is essential to have fun whilst cooking. And its alright to make mistakes to learn and make the next one better and so on.
The following points are general guidelines that have worked for me, though they are by no means carved on stone.
Flavours first, visual appeal close behind. Keep temperature, texture andd compostion in mind.
Be aware of your enviornment and commit to using seasonal ingredients as often as possible.
Try to support local farmers as long as their produce have high quality standards. (Im a huge supporter of 'slow food')
Know the ingredients and how the interact with each other.
Always use the highest quality ingredient possible. DON'T forget that you have a tremendous responsibilty towards your customers.
Understand both Culinary and Pastry Techniques. It will give you a vaster field to play in!
A sound knowledge of technique and execution are crucial for successful results.
Bells and Snowman don't make the desserts, they only distract. Streamline your food.
Simple, clean and polished desserts are hard to achieve, but are often the best.
The less you manipulate ingredients, the better. You can always tell when too many fingers have touched your food.
Work clean, work fast and work efficient. CLEAN AS YOU GO! *A messy kitchen reflects a messy mind*
Learn from the Masters first and creat your own styles there after. Imitation is not very well reguarded. Plagerism is a crime!
Desserts are typically served at the end of a meal, and mostly people are not hungry.
Stick to smaller portions. customers should leave feeling satisfied and not stuffed and sick!
Always be willing to learn. There is always room for more knowledge. I am the first to admit that I dont know everything. If i did, why would I go on?
Keep in mind the tongue on an average can identify only three to four flavours at a time.
Respect your customers. Don't serve anything you wouldnt eat yourself.
Most importantly, have fun while cooking. When we cook our energies get transferred into our foods. Enjoy yourselves. cooking isnt Rocekt Science. It is a creative expression. Enjoy the process.
Talking about sweet nothings: I love ice-creams. Way more than chocolates!
We all love ice-cream. Infact some say our favourite flavours are almost synonymous to our personal charecteristic traits. After all, we are what we eat!
Ever wondered where this frozen piece of ecstasy comes from?
I hear, in 3000 B.C. (approximately) the Chinese made the first frozen dessert, a flavoured ice (whether it was snow with fruit juice or milk and sugar churned in a rudimentary machine that emplyed ice and salt to freeze, its unknown. There are further tales and theories that Marco Polo was responsible for taking this discovery to Europe in the 13th Century. In 1533 Catherine de Medici arrived in France, in marriage to Henry II, and brought her cadre of Italian chefs, who introduced the frozen delicacies of sorbets and ice-creams to Frnech nobility during their month long celebration. Legend has it they served a different flavour everyday!
In 1672 the English term 'ice-creams'appears in a document from the court of Charles II in England.
The first recored recipe for a sorbet appeared in Paris in the late 1600s.(ofocrse!)
The first recipe for ice cream (named " Snow of orange flowers") is recorded in a book titled
'Nouveau Confiturier'.
Unfortunately, there is no solid evidence as to when or where man began to employ ice or freezing temperature or machines to produce frozen desserts. It is my personal opnion that the very first frozen desserts had to be flavoured snow. (seems most natural and elementary)
Some of our very favourite ice-cream leagues started close to the mid of the 1900s.
1940: Dairy Queen
1945: Baskin Robbins
1961: Häagen-Dazs
1978: Ben & Jerry's
The Basic ingredients for making Frozen desserts
DAIRY PRODUCTS:
Milk
Heavy cream
Heavy cream is usually mixed with milk to reduce the fat content in an ice-cream or gelato base, because using only cream will produce a base with a very high fat content. Though heavy cream is used in its entirety when it comes to areated still-frozen desserts. It is one of the ingredients that is 'aerated' meaning that air is incorporated into it through whipping and it is directly responsible for the desserts' light texture and smooth mouth feel.
The other ingredients that is aerated, depending on the type of frozen dessert will be the egg (tolks, whites or both)
P.S. heavy cream needs to be very cold (ideally 4 degree celsius) to whip properly, otherwise the structure will not hold. In countries with warmer climates, one may use an ice tray on the base of the bowl, to keep the temperature low and constant.
Butter
Butter is used sporadically in some recipes mainly for flavour purposes and no so much for its contribution to the chemistry of ice cream making.
EGGS
All said about eggs, nothing is enough. What would the patiserrie world be without eggs. The thought alone is disturbing.
They are used widely from binding liquids into a moist-tender solid, to thickening sauces or custards, to emulsifying sauces and ice creams or even delaying the crystallization in ice creams due to their fat content, or as a mere coating or glazing which makes the final product so much more appealing to all our senses. And this is only the beginning.
Egg yolks are used in certain ice creams and gelatos whilst the whites are not. The whole eggs are used primarily in some varieties of still-frozen and aerated-frozen desserts, such as frozen soufflé, parfaits, semifreddos and some frozen mousses.
SUGARS
The most common sweetners used to make frozen desserts are:
Granulated or crystalline sugar
Powdered glucose
Dextrose
Invert sugar or trimoline
Honey
Lactose (found in milk)
STABILIZERS
This is the ingredient that contributes to the uniformity and consistency of a product throughout its different stages, from manufacture through its frozen storage.
Stabilizers aren't chemicals at all, they are extracted from natural sources. They help to promote air incorporation and even air bubble distribution throughout the frozen product as well as prevent the collapse of such air bubbles, which is responsible for the product's texture and mouth feel.
Some of the stabalizers used vastly are: Agar-agar, guar gum, locust bean gum, gellan gum, xanthan gum, pectin, gelatin & sodium alginate.
In the ice cream business, these are all known as “stabilizers”, and they mainly help with two things: reducing iciness, and extending shelf life. The first time I made strawberry ice cream it came out really icy and cold because of all the extra water in the fruit. I tried it again with a packet of powdered gelatin and it made a huge improvement. That’s when I realized that there might be something to this stabilizer business, even in homemade ice cream. As for the part about extending shelf life, that’s especially true when you take a pint of ice cream out of the freezer and put it back after a few minutes. Each time it warms up a little and then re-freezes, it re-freezes at a much slower rate than when you churned it in your ice cream machine. When you freeze it quickly, you get smaller ice crystals that taste smooth. But when it re-freezes slowly, you get larger crystals. Stabilizers help with that re-freezing problem also.
Guar gum comes from guar beans, which are mainly grown in India.
Locust bean gum comes from the seeds of the Carob tree, which anyone unfortunate enough to be allergic to chocolate will be familiar with, because carob is often used as a chocolate substitute (eh, sort of, anyway). It also has a nicer-sounding name: carob bean gum.
Carrageenan comes from seaweed. Yep, that’s right.
Xanthan gum comes from glucose or sucrose that’s been fermented with a bacteria.
Mono- and diglycerides come from either animals (cows and pigs) or vegetables (soy beans and canola oil).
Gelatin, which is found in homemade ice cream recipes more often than the ingredients above, comes from animal collagen. I think that’s enough said on that topic
EMULSIFIERS
Emulsifiers are used to prevent the seperation of fat-in-water emulsions. Emulsifiers are molecules that are composed of a hydrophilic (water-loving) part & a lipophilic (fat-loving) part. When these molecules combine, they make it possible for water and fat droplets to become finely dispersed in each other, creating a stable emulsion. This is what gives ice-cream a smooth texture, slower melt down, and better freeze-thaw stability.
One of the most common emulsifiers is egg yolk, which makes things like mayonnaise and Hollandaise sauce possible.
Fresh fruits and vegetables, flavours, chocolates, zest, vanilla beans, nuts, herbs, spices, alcoholic beverages are some of the most common ingredients added in frozen desserts to enhance their flavours, texztures, colours and moods.
It is always STRONGLY advised to stick with all the natural produce and not artificial flavours or colouring.
Frozen Desserts can be categorised into 3 main types:
Dairy based Frozen Desserts
Icecreams, Custard based ice creams, Gelato, Sherbet & Frozen Yoghurt.
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| Strawberry Balsamic Ice cream |
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| Blue Cheese & Shallot Ice cream |
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| Candied bacon Ice cream |
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| Carrot & Curry Ice cream |
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| Fig & Goat Cheese Ice cream |
Non-dairy Frozen Desserts
Sorbet, Frappé, Granite
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| Pomegranate & Mint Sorbet |
Aerated Frozen Desserts
Frozen Parfait, Frozen soufflé, Frozen mousse, Semifreddo
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| Raspberry & Avocado Semifreddo |
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| Frozen Chocolate Parfait |
Try this easy Vanilla Ice-cream at home:
http://www.lcbathome.com/2011/07/french-vanilla-ice-cream-ice-cream.html
"I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream."
Have a wonderful weekend. Stock up on ice creams and lots of delish goodies. Less than a month to go for Christmas, and I still haven't decided my plans for Christmas day in sunny Maharashtra.
Anywho, see you next week. Happy therapeutic weekend cooking, and don't forget to experiment with your favourite flavours in a frozen scoop of heaven!
Bon Appetite!
xoxo
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