Condensed milk ice cream
Condensed milk going in early, alongside the stabiliser and the sugar. The result is one of the firmest ice creams in the house, sweet and very dairy-led.
Condensed milk is milk with water removed and sugar added: it brings milk solids and sweetness without diluting anything. Which is why this ice cream reaches a lot of dry extract with hardly any milk powder.
Ingredients
For 1 kgTick each ingredient as you get it ready.
Need to adjust the formula?
Step by step
9 steps · follow the order for the best result
Chef's notes
- ·The condensed milk, at 40 °C, together with the stabiliser and the sucrose.
- ·Do not skip the cold ageing: it hydrates proteins and stabiliser and clearly improves the texture.
- ·The serving temperature depends on your recipe: if you formulate to a softer PAC than your freezer (say -11 °C with the chest at -18 °C), temper it for 5–10 min before serving; if the PAC matches your freezer, it can be eaten straight out.
- ·Why formulate at -11 and not at -18 °C: even though your freezer sits at -18 °C, formulating at -11 makes the ice cream tastes better — at -18 it is so cold that the taste buds barely pick up the flavour and the fat is slow to melt in the mouth. And keeps better: ice cream formulated at -11 and kept at -18 has less free water, suffers less from Ostwald ripening (ice crystals joining and growing) and keeps its creaminess longer.
- ·Keep your own notes: write down the POD and PAC that work best with your machine.
The texture
spot on
Very dense and firm: condensed milk brings sugar and solids at once, so little free water is left and the ice cream cuts almost like a set custard. The sweet, toasted dairy flavour fills everything.
All about this condensed milk ice cream
Condensed milk changes everything: it brings so much dry extract that the milk powder stays at a minimum, among the lowest on the site for a dairy ice cream. The result is an ice cream very heavily loaded with solids and with the fat on target.
The added sugar is restrained — 21 DE glucose, dextrose and sucrose — because the condensed milk brings its own: the sweetness stays below normal.
The serving temperature is among the highest on the site: this ice cream comes out firm and needs taking out of the freezer well beforehand. The condensed milk goes in at 40 °C, with the stabiliser and the sucrose, and is worked in with the blender.
The ingredients and what each does
Every ingredient has a technical job: cream brings fat and creaminess, milk powder raises the non-fat solids, the sugars set the sweetness and the freezing point, and the stabiliser controls crystal growth during storage.
Technique and controlling the numbers
Adjusting the POD (sweetening power) and the PAC (antifreezing power, given as a target temperature) lets you match sweetness and hardness to your taste and your machine. With the selectors in the side bar the formula recalculates itself and you will see how the amount of each ingredient changes.
Storage and common mistakes
Store at -18 °C in an airtight container and avoid freeze-thaw cycles. The commonest faults are not ageing it enough, too much sugar so it never freezes properly, and over-churning, which whips in too much air and wrecks the texture.
Recommended for this recipe
Equipment and ingredients that make the difference.
Ad links: we link to Amazon. We are not an Amazon affiliate in your market yet, so we earn nothing from these links.
Answers to your questions
Frequently asked questions
Other recipes
you might like
Missing a sugar?
Tick the one you haven't got and which alternatives you do have. We'll tell you whether you can make it with what's there.