Made this coffee ice cream with a malted fudge swirl, toasted almond slivers, and chopped chocolate. Tasty ice cream and right after churning tasted great. HOWEVER, right after freezing and trying later that night the coffee flavor almost totally disappeared. I used salt and straw base with my own tweaks, and one packet of instant coffee (via Starbucks) yielded two pints of churned ice cream. Is this just a random thing or do I need to add more instant coffee? Why did the coffee flavor dissipate? Thanks for any help or recs 🙂
by happychicken57
19 Comments
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Ideas:
1. Not enough coffee owder
2. Coffee powder not mixed well.
3. Coffee flavor was absorbed into malted fudge or is overpowered by malted fudge.
If you are using the Salt and Straw base, their new book has some ways to make a coffee syrup to add to their base for a coffee ice cream. If you would like, I can post these.
I’ve had great coffee flavor from steeping coarse grounds in the base while hot and then straining it out. Otherwise, maybe just more instant coffee
Flavors tend to be more noticeable in the unfrozen base vs. the churned ice cream because flavor compounds tend to be volatile and are less apparent at colder temperatures. Maybe use more instant coffee or find a very concentrated coffee flavor
I steep my base in whole decaf coffee beans for 24 hrs and get an amazing coffee flavor. That’s my rec!
My experiences are: 1) you have to exaggerate flavors, when making cold treats. The lower temperature reduces flavors. If it taste correctly at roomtemp, then you probably need to up the flavor. It needs to be really potent. 2) a tiny bit of salt can help. 3) instant coffee is the way to go. I’ve done the steeping technique many a times, but instant coffee is much easier to add and adjust. IMHO I cannot taste the difference. I’ve even added it to the machine while churning and it works in a pinch.
I disagree with the steeping practices. I think you need to use good quality instant espresso, the only one I know that is really good quality is from blue bottle coffee. I’m sure there are more, but whatever your grocery store has is probably not that good. Next, why don’t you try adding a coffee liquor or extract. If you want to use real coffee as the liquid part of your base, buy some concentrated in the cold section of your grocery store, again it matters which brand and quality you get.
Personally, I would stick with just blue bottle products because they are all high-end and they will produce flavor that is unbeatable.
For a low end version that is acceptable, if you like Starbucks flavor, then that might be an OK choice. I do not think it is very good.
Another brand to look at is intelligentsia. And maybe if Stumptown has anything.
Definitely not enough coffee powder. When I make coffee ice cream I steep the cream in ground coffee to the point it looks like chocolate milk.
Steep whole beans. It’s not cheap but the flavor is superior. I use a lot of dark roasted beans, roughly two cups of beans for four cups of milk/cream. Bring the milk, cream, sugar and coffee beans to a boil, remove from the heat and steep the beans for a hours. The color is amazing and the flavor is in comparable.
Espresso powder and 2-3x more than the recipe calls for
Ditch the instant starbucks and get a jar of instant espresso. Add like a tablespoon and a half to two tablespoons per quart. You need the coffee flavor to be really strong to come through when it’s frozen.
That’s not much coffee… When I made mine, I steeped coarsely ground coffee (like 3 servings worth) in my base overnight (if you bloom it in water first you won’t have to deal with as much lost to hydration), used it to make the base up, added some Mr. Black and it was deep coffee flavor without acidity or sourness.
add more coffee
I had better luck steeping coffee beans, than using espresso powder or instant coffee.
Starbucks instant dark roast is what I use.
I use the Starbucks Via as well for my coffee ice cream. I use 6-8 packets for 2 pints, because I want that coffee punch when I eat the ice cream.
I make coffee ice cream all the time- I soak good quality espresso beans in the milk and cream mixture. Like a cup and a half of beans. That’s enough to imbue a really good flavour, then at the end before letting it cool in refrigerator…I’ll add a tablespoon of ground coffee. Works every time, very coffee forward.
I tried salt and straw’s stumptown recipe for the coffee, bourbon and cocoa ice cream and the coffee flavor lasted. It involved steeping the ground coffee and bourbon overnight or up to three days.
I have had great success steeping the dairy (milk & cream for my preferred base) with rough ground coffee. I haven’t tried instant coffee options but something to try. I recognize you are after “easy” but it’s truly no sweat – just add coffee the night before and strain the milk/cream before use.