7

Dry ice ice cream

TUTORIAL

RECIPES

There’s a wide range of ice cream options and we

couldn’t limit ourselves to just one. You can be a little

creative with the flavourings. Here are two bases:

one for a light, fresh ice cream, and one for a richer,

creamier result. On top of these bases, you’ll need to

add some flavouring to the liquid before you start to

freeze it with dry ice. We’ve included some suggestions,

but feel free to go off-piste.

Rich and creamy base

-^600 ml double cream

• 1 tin (397 g) sweetened condensed milk

This works well with sweet, rich liquid flavours. For

example, blend 250 g of hulled strawberries and sieve to

remove pits. Mix this with 60 g of strawberry jam.

Light and fresh base

-^300 ml double cream
-^200 ml natural yoghurt (full fat)

• 200 ml milk


• 300 g sugar

The slight tartness of the yoghurt comes through, but

it’s still got enough cream in to have a proper ice cream

texture. Citrus works particularly well with a base like

this. For example, add the juice and zest of two lemons.

Apply some science to make extra-smooth frozen treats

Dry ice ice cream

irst, you need to get some dry ice.

This will depend on where you live, but

here in the UK it’s easy to buy online.

Make sure that you get food-grade dry

ice to ensure that it’s not contaminated

with any nasty chemicals. It’s also far

easier to work with if you can get it in pellet form.

It’ll arrive in some form of insulated box, quite

possibly made out of expanded polystyrene, and it’ll

stay solid in here for several hours at least – if you’ve

got a large quantity it might even survive overnight

• but it’s worth organising delivery on the day you’ll
  use it, to avoid being left with an empty box (well,
  technically, a box of CO 2 ).
  Before we get too bogged down in what we’re
  doing, let’s look at what ice cream is, and what makes

good ice cream. You need three basic things to create

the perfect-textured ice cream: oil, water, and gas.

Your ice cream should start as an emulsion of oil (or

fat) suspended in water. The two usual ways of doing

this are either by using egg yolks and milk to make a

custard, or cream (possibly with yoghurt or milk added

to lighten it). The key point is not how they freeze, but

how they melt in the mouth to create that delicious

feeling of eating ice cream. Many ice creams also

have gas bubbles trapped in them which gives them a

light and fluffy feel, even before they start to melt.

As ice cream is all about texture, it’s critical to make

it as smooth as possible, and this is the challenge

to the home ice cream maker. As water freezes, it

has a tendency to form crystals of ice. However, our

emulsion isn’t just water, so it won’t freeze into one

F

This is an advanced tutorial that involves

handling very cold objects. Any working

with a gas requires good ventilation.

This tutorial is a guide only, and you

should be confident in your ability to

handle these substances safely before

making dry ice ice cream. You are

responsible for your own safety – take

this responsibility seriously.

WARNING!

Ben Everard

@ben_everard

Ben is busy trying to

find more culinary uses

for his chemistry set.

Bunsen burner-grilled

marshmallows for

dessert anyone?