Interesting Information: July 9, 2011
Vanilla Ice Cream
COOKS ILLUSTRATED, May/June 2010, investigated vanilla ice cream. Nationwide, there are nearly 40 brands of vanilla ice cream. CI chose the eight top-selling brands and taste-tested those. The winner was Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla. Next came Haagen-Dazs, Wells blue Bunny, Breyers, Friendly’s, Blue Bell, and Turkey Hill. Edy’s Grand Vanilla was not recommended.
The criteria included what kind of vanilla was used (natural or synthetic); the tricky business of using stabilizers like carob gum, guar gum, tara gum, and carrageenan (the winner uses two); how much air is pumped into the ice cream to expand volume; and what kind of sweetener is used.
Edy’s, for instance, is a big package with lots of air, while Ben & Jerry’s is a small package with lots of ice cream. Between the two, Ben & Jerry’s is a POUND heavier than Edy’s, even in the smaller package.
And ice creams using corn syrup tasted “`unnaturally sweet,’ ” no matter the sugar levels.
Testers discovered that “keeping it simple” produced the best vanilla ice cream: cream, milk, sugar, eggs, real vanilla, and a minimum of emulsifiers made the best ice cream.
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
You can keep it even simpler: get a pint of some real/raw heavy cream, add 2 or 3 egg yolks (keep the whites for macaroons or meringues) , some real vanilla extract, a tablespoon of healthy arrowroot for creaminess, some maple syrup or honey for sweetness, put it into one of those quart ice cream makers you keep frozen in the freezer, and you have delicious and healthy ice cream in about 20 minutes!
You can also make food processor ice cream out of cream or yogurt and frozen fruit. That recipe is on the blog in July 2010.
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