Wild blackberry ice cream
Strained wild blackberry, without a single seed: near-black purple, sharp, with that bramble aroma cultivated blackberries do not give.
The recipe calls for strained pulp, not whole blackberries. Between seeds and skins a portion is lost along the way, so you have to start from considerably more fruit.
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 pulp, strained and cold: with the mix already at 4 °C.
- ·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
Creamy and fine, with no trace of seed because the purée is strained before mixing. The cream holds the blackberry's water and its wild acidity cuts through the fat, with a longer finish than other red fruits.
All about this wild blackberry ice cream
The wild blackberry is sharper and more aromatic than the cultivated one, and here it goes in strained so the ice cream stays fine, and in quantity.
The base sits on its fat target, with a fair amount of cream, and reaches its solids via the milk powder. The sugars leave the sweetness high, to offset the acid, with the serving temperature in band. There is a lighter version for anyone who wants the fruit further forward.
The pulp goes in with the mix already at 4 °C and is homogenised thoroughly with the blender. Cooked, it would lose colour and freshness.
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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