I recently made some Agua de Jamaica (hibiscus tea) ice cream. I made it by making a typical sweet cream base, and then steeping dried flor de jamaica in it. I noticed that the base got much thicker, and had some separation, almost like a foam on top. It had a distinctly acidic taste, and was clearly curdled. I churned it, and it came out good. However, it had a funky kind of cheesey taste, which while not ruining the ice cream was not exactly what I was going for. I figure this must be because the agua de jamaica is acidic. I was wondering if there was any way to make ice cream with an acidic flavor or ingredient without curdling the base and imparting that ricotta-like flavor?
by DiamondAxolotl
13 Comments
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I ran into this issue when making Passion fruit gelato in the past. There might be other ways to get around this, but if I’m flavoring a base and it is acidic, I wait until I’m about to churn to mix it in, letting it sit with the acid is what I believe can curdle it.
This is harder with teas obviously as they like to be steeped, but maybe there’s another way to flavor the base with Hibiscus, like a concentrate of the tea itself you mix in right before churning? I’m sure there’s other ways, just my 2c, good luck!!
You can either go coconut based, or use dairy products that basically already are curdled (Cottage Cheese, Cream Cheese, Greek Yogurt, Buttermilk, Quark, Soured Milk, Kefir, Skyr).
The other option would be baking soda, but I did not try that yet.
I would add the acid right before churning if possible, as the curdling is aided by time and heat. I would try to make a jamaica concentrate of sorts with just the jamaica and water and reducing the amount of milk/increasing SMP/increase cream in the base recipe to account for the added water. I would then cook/cure the base as usual and mix in the heated and cooled concentrate at the very last second before churning.
I’ve only done a Jamaica sorbet, but when adding acids to ice cream like buttermilk or lemon I cook the base and then add them when it’s the base is cooled down. I wonder if you can cook the aqua de Jamaica down to a very concentrated reduction (we do it for savory applications and it doesn’t make the taste remarkably different), and then add it to a fully made and cooled base?
Food grade malic acid is added for the sour effect.
You need to cook your base and then COMPLETELY chill it in the fridge. Once youve done that, fold in your acidic ingredients and then churn. Without heat the curdling process is much much slower so you shouldnt have an issue cooling it further to ice cream level. If you still run into trouble, you can also use a bit of xanthan gum to help stabilize.
Churn your base, and then add sour flavors in a sugary (and flavor oil rich) ribbon folded in at the end.
My first approach would be like others, timing and temperature. I think a good lesson to learn would be from the process of making morir soñando, where you want everything very very cold and you add the juice to the milk and not the other way around. Not quite sure what would help if the churning agitates the process too much 🤷🏼♂️
probably add the acid when the heavy cream is hot, because heavy cream reacts with acid but unlike milk it gives a pleasant texture it makes it thicker, and add milk when the mixture id cold. a generous amount of vanilla would probably mellow the sour milk taste
You can also add some pectin will help but best practice like for shorbets is just to add it right before churning.
From an ice cream book;
To make lemon ice cream without curdling, add the lemon juice to a chilled custard base, preferably after it has been cooked and cooled, and then churn it immediately. The high fat content in heavy cream and the presence of eggs in a custard base help stabilize the dairy y denaturing the proteins and prevent curdling when combined with lemon juice. Alternatively you can add lemon curd to the chilled custard base. Which will add more stability.
I blended some Rehan plums (which are sour) with some milk then let that steep in the refrigerator for a day. Then I made my custard base the usual way but swapping the milk I use with the plum milk. I put Kaffir lime leaves in the custard while I was cooking. Then strained it all and chilled overnight before churning. It was delicious and had both the lime leaf and sour plum flavors.