Well well well… Not many things exist in life i could eat anytime and anywhere. But ICECREAM is. Love dreaming it, making it, licking it. Love everything about it. Its not a dictionary description but (to be fair) its nothing else but some awesome flavoured liquid turned to solid made it less hilarious* looking the eating/drinking procedure. L.O.L.

*footnote: is licking less hilarious? hahaha

When i was doing stage in Mexico i had a chance to complete an icecream course with a pastry chef focusing only icecreams and sorbets. With him we had a chance to working on ‘a formula’ which can be used basically in every case while u want to create a new flavoured iced cream, gelato or sorbet. U just need to know some basic datas about the ingredients u re planning to use, like water content, fat content, sugar and solid percentage. Also need to take into consideration that different sweeteners got different sweetening and different anti-freeze effect:

Like the sweetening effect increasing like this:

GLUCOSE-LACTOSE-DEXTROSE-SUCROSE-INVERT-HONEY-FRUCTOSE

But the anti-freezing effect increasing like this:

GLUCOSE-SUCROSE-LACTOSE-DEXTROSE-INVERT-FRUCTOSE-HONEY

I dont want to get in very much details about this whole science of icecream business (u can always ask me more) let me just tell u that its more complex what u think but also not an impossible mission to make anything whats hiding in your little mind and turn to a delicious icecream.

Like my case. I have a bunch of crazy ideas running up and down. After satisfied my basic needs for chocolate, double chocolate and triple chocolate – strawberry cheesecake, tonka bean, coffee… i turned in to more natural flavoures. Oat, Toasted Oat, Hay, Smoked Dougles Fir. I started to focus on ‘infusing’ myscream instead of adding extra ingredient and changing all the formula. If u add dark chocolate to your basic recipe u add extra fat and solids which means u need to compensate this with liquid ratio for the same great result.

And during my experimenting i always ended up with one problem. All the time. I had to develop 2 different recipes for using paco jet and using traditional churning icecream machine. In the case of Paco – it is just a massive blade intends to cut thru very finely your ice block. If i had just a tiny bit if more fat in my mix the whole stuff just ‘curdled’. So i ended up working with a much more lighter mix using less cream and less eggs. In a case of a traditional churning method u do need that extra fat content and u do want to work with a nice and thick custard mix otherwise you end up having a ‘supericy smoothie’ cause the churning itself doesnt happen too fast so your water will grow into massive ice crystals. (thats the difference when using liquid nitrogen – the proccess is so quick that literally no time for big ice crystals to grow so it stays supersmooth). So no big deal – i just have 2 basic custard recipe i can use depending on the equipments.

footnote; in my last restaurant job i ve been told a lots of things about the perfection of icecream making. My comment is that i have knowledge what i earned in the last 10 years. I exprerienced stuff and this is what i share here. I am not perfect and always working on better results i had before. Also i belive there are more ways to achive deliciousness without any error.

I share my icecream base recipes but also feel free to try other recipes as every cookbook and every restaurant has got its own basic custard recipe, some of them with more cream, some of them only milk, milk powder, dextrose or different egg-sugar ratio. Only way to find your perfect icecream is to try out more and see what u get. Just keep playing.

Recipe for Paco:

• 1000milk
• 300cream
• 230sugar
• 170yolks

Recipe for icecream machine:

• 700cream
• 300milk
• 180sugar
• 200yolk

At some point in my life – when some rich investors will find me – i will open my very own crazy ‘myscream’ place serving real homemade icecream with flavours u never ever dreamed about. And im not talking about bizarr* notverynice flavours (*bizarr means different for all of us BTW) but flavours u just never tried in icecreams. Let me show u what im talking about…

BLACK GARLIC ICECREAM.

If u are reading me u must be foodie enough to know what black garlic is. If u do – ignore this – if u dont: black garlic is a very very f#cking slowly caramelized garlic. Slow means several weaks – usually 2-3 months – in very low temperature (60-70 degrees). Garlic turned black in color and the texture becomes like semi-dehydrated and chewy. Taste is very nutty also sweet and sour in the same time. Still garlic of course.

footnote: u can ‘blacken’ lots of other things not just garlic – but this veg has got the best potential to reach perfect results (protection of the skin!)

Sooooo… yes. I made black garlic icecream. U know what? I was experimented quite a lot with this idea and some other flavour pairings to find out the most successful one. In my head i compared garlic (molecules) with coffee and chocolate. I did make a basic black garlic icecream – left some alone, flavored some with coffee and some with dark chocolate. All of them were tasty – but the added flavoures were overpowering the very soft and elegant black garlic flavour. So plan has changed. I kept the original icecream but made it into a dessert – dressed with coffee infused oil and served with crunchy cacao nibs. Jesus Christ. It was really heavenly. But u know what? I didnt stop here.

footnote: part of the story that my ex colleague ChefConor asked me laughing and joking: ‘and why are u not making it look like an actual garlic?’

That was it. The lightbulb. Got it. Became obsessive. Ordered 1 kg of food trade silicon online and spend 3 days visiting each every shops and supermarkets around Brighton to find the best size and perfect looking garlic head. Got it. Made it, made my silicon mould. Ordered some MANITOL (modified sugar) and started to practise for perfection.

Did it. I made a perfect looking edible sugardome to hold my mindblowing black garlic icecream dressed with coffee oil and a hint of crunchy cacao nibs. This was me. And a brilliant idea.

Stay still till u will try my ‘kelp’ or ‘woodruff‘ icecreams in the next round…