Kefir ice cream
Kefir in almost equal parts with the base, and it goes in raw, never near the heat. Sharp, light, with that fermented note no other ice cream gives you.
The kefir goes in cold for two reasons at once: hot, its protein curdles under its own acidity, and the heat wipes out the live cultures that give it its flavour.
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 kefir goes in with the base already at 4 °C. It is neither heated nor pasteurised with it inside.
- ·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
Light and clean, closer to a dairy sorbet than to a cream ice cream: little fat and plenty of solids, so there is body without the mouth being coated. The kefir's acidity leads and the finish is short and fresh.
Everything about this kefir ice cream
The kefir is the main ingredient: half the recipe. Since it already brings water, fat and protein, the base is pared to a thread — a little milk and some cream — and the ice cream still climbs in solids with very little fat. That is why it comes out so light.
The sugars leave the sweetness a little above normal, and that is not a whim: acid masks sweetness. At the sweetness of a cream ice cream, this one would taste like unsweetened yoghurt. Sucrose leads, with 38 DE glucose and dextrose behind it to put the serving temperature where it belongs.
The base is pasteurised without the kefir in it. Only once it has come down to 4 °C is it added and blended; then comes the whole ageing, which is what rounds the acidity off.
For this ice cream we use Pastoret whole-milk kefir, but the one you make with your own grains works just as well, as long as it is whole milk.
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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Answers to your questions
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