How to make super smooth ice-cream or sorbets
How to make a super smooth ice-cream or sorbet? The secret to super smooth ice-cream or sorbets is to use some inverted sugar and add a little jelly.
In January 2011 I described the problems of making homemade ice-creams in Ice-cream or sorbet too firm in the freezer? explaining how it hardens too much, and having a rough texture of being too icy once stored. I went on to explain in Liquid Glucose – the answer to a perfect ice-cream and more, how the answer was to use liquid glucose which is commonly used in manufacturing and I explain what and how inverted sugar is made. I have also written about Linda’s discovery of jelly ice-cream which inspired me to make my own here, Raspberry Ice-cream (dairy, soya and egg free).
Commercial ice-creams use some form of jelly in their recipes which falls in the category of stabilisers which can be of plant origin such as locus bean gum or carageenan, read this site here for more details.
Ice is formed out of water molecules in the ice-cream mixture, and while stored these ice crystals will increase in size. Any ice-cream mixture that is trapped by the jelly is prevented from ice formation, so that the overall ice crystals in the mixture will be limited giving the impression of smoothness on the tongue.
It occurred to me when creating the Frozen Blackberry Soufflés if I boiled down the blackberries with sugar by 15 minutes I would created inverted sugar using the berry’s natural acidity, inverted sugar helps to keep frozen mixture soft. What I also created by boiling down the blackberries with sugar was a natural jelly, its pectin.
All fruits with a reasonable amount of pectin can be made into super smooth ice-cream. If the fruit does not contain enough acidity it will need a little lemon juice added.