Crema catalana ice cream
Egg yolk and butter, like the classic custard: deep yellow, dense and thoroughly indulgent, with the lemon-and-cinnamon base note.
The 30 °C for the yolk is the exact point: warm enough for it to work in and well clear of the 65 °C at which it starts to set. It is the only recipe in the house that goes that low.
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
- ·Yolk and butter at 30 °C · cinnamon and peel at 40 °C · it is strained after ageing.
- ·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 creamy with the body only yolk gives: it emulsifies the fat and leaves a slow, enveloping melt, closer to a custard than an ice cream. Behind it, the cinnamon and lemon of the base note show through.
All about this crema catalana ice cream
This is the recipe with the most yolk on the site, plus unsalted butter. Between them they supply almost all the fat — and it runs high — and that dense body reminiscent of real custard. There is no cream.
The aromatics are all infused: cinnamon stick, lemon peel and orange peel are added at 40 °C and stay to the end, and the mix is strained after ageing. The vanilla comes in another way: the pod is ground with the sucrose in the processor before starting.
The sugar is mostly sucrose, with dextrose behind: sweetness and serving temperature stay in band.
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.
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