Cinnamon Ginger Pear Ice Cream: ysabetwordsmith

Cinnamon Ginger Pear Ice Cream

I've been fiddling with a recipe for pear-ginger ice cream. It's good ice cream, but it keeps overflowing my ice cream maker. This time I kept a close eye on it and bailed out some before it overflowed. Naturally we ate the results. And ... it was flat. Doug pointed out that I'd used ginger root that had been in the fridge for a couple weeks, so it didn't have the expected amount of fire. So, he suggested adding some cinnamon. The result is substantially different than the original pear-ginger, but good enough that I figured it was worth writing down. Plus it's a tasty way to use up a couple of very ripe pears and a chunk of stale ginger root.

Don't be afraid to try new things. Even if you don't get what you expected, sometimes the results are good in a different way. Don't be afraid to discuss and brainstorm and critique. Somebody else may come up with a good idea that you would've missed by settling for "not bad." My suggestion was to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and use the ice cream as a base for liberal amounts of bittersweet chocolate syrup. I think that would've worked, but it was easier to test the cinnamon by sprinkling it on top of the samples. That was good enough to convince me to flavor the whole batch.

Cinnamon Ginger Pear Ice Cream

Ingredients:
2 very ripe pears
1-inch piece of stale ginger root
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon

Directions:
Peel pears and cut into chunks. Peel and grate ginger. Combine pears, ginger, and lemon juice in a bowl; mash thoroughly. Stir in cream and milk. Stir in sugar until dissolved. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze for 25 minutes. Add cinnamon and continue to churn until thoroughly blended, about 2 minutes. Transfer ice cream into container and store in freezer.

Tags: food

dianavilliers

May 8 2008, 05:49:59 UTC 13 years ago

New comment

Collaborative experimental cookery. One of my favourite pastimes.

ysabetwordsmith

May 8 2008, 15:54:18 UTC 13 years ago

Yeah, I do it for him too, usually when he's cooking Indian food.

LOL

purplevenus

May 8 2008, 07:04:40 UTC 13 years ago

Sounds and looks delicious, but the first time I read it through, i was confused.
"Where's the part when we add the plain vanilla ice cream?"
Then I reread it, and "Oh. She's hardcore. She really meant make ice cream."

Re: LOL

May 9 2008, 01:38:30 UTC 13 years ago

*laugh* I think this is the first time I've been called hardcore because of ice cream!

This is a moderate recipe for me. If you want to see one of my fancy ones, check out Lakshmi's Mango Ice Cream:
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/75186.html

haikujaguar

May 8 2008, 11:38:03 UTC 13 years ago

*salivates*

dulcinbradbury

May 8 2008, 13:18:19 UTC 13 years ago

I'd expect the lemon juice to curdle the dairy....

May 8 2008, 15:52:28 UTC 13 years ago

The lemon juice is for the fruit. Most fruits need a bit of extra acid for use in frozen desserts, usually lemon or lime juice.

With things like raspberries or strawberries, you put the fruit in a bowl, add the lemon juice, and add the sugar. Then you let it sit for a while, stirring occasionally. This process is called "maceration" and it makes the fruit soften and start to release its juice. So when you pour that into the ice cream, the fruit blends in nicely. The syrup from the fruit juice colors the base ice cream, and there are little lumps of fruit left.

With the pears, they were so ripe that all I had to do was take a potato masher to them, and they turned to slush. Adding the lemon juice before mashing made it easier to get started.

You just have to be careful not to let the undiluted lemon juice get into contact with the unmixed dairy products -- that probably would curdle them. *ponder* Although, that how you make fake soured milk or buttermilk as needed in certain recipes. I wonder if anyone has ever frozen buttermilk? I don't like it myself, but I know people who do. And last summer's experiment with frozen rice milk and black raspberries was fascinating...