Vanilla ice cream with polyols
Vanilla sweetened with polyols and a little fructose: very fragrant.
The pod is scraped out and added whole, then removed after the 12-24 h of ageing: that is when it has given everything. With polyols instead of sugar the vanilla comes through more: their sweetness is shorter and does not mask it.
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 pods, at 40 °C with the insides scraped out, and removed 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
A low-density texture and a characteristic cold sensation: that comes from the polyols, which cool as they dissolve. The whole milk powder supplies the fat and the body sugar cannot supply here.
All about this vanilla with polyols
The sugar is replaced by mannitol, erythritol and sorbitol, plus fructose and a pinch of aspartame. The solids are held up by the whole milk powder and the butter, which supply the little fat there is.
All the same, the ice cream falls well below the solids of an ordinary vanilla, and the serving temperature drops considerably. It is a looser ice cream and colder on the palate; worth knowing before comparing it to the classic.
The vanilla pods are added at 40 °C, with the insides scraped out, they accompany the whole climb and the ageing, and are removed just before churning.
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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