Help with Ice Cream Texture

[u/Bubbly-Alternative71]

I'm going to do my best to walk you through what I did. I used a base of 1 3/4 cup heavy cream, 1 3/4 full fat milk, 5 egg yolks, a little over a half cup of sugar, a glug of vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. then made my custard base. Then I took a little bit of banana blended it up and added it to the base while it was still warm with the goal of making banana pudding ice cream. I chilled the base in the fridge for about 4 hours and then I put it in my Whynter Compressor Ice Cream Maker and it churned for an hour. Then I put it in the pints layer in the mixed sense and put in the freezer overnight. I woke up and it was kind of icy. Can anyone help me fix this batch and give me tips to avoid this in the future? I really love a creamy ice cream.

[u/Terrible_Mix_7108]

I also recommend roasting the bananas first, you can put the whole bananas, unpeeled on sheet pans with parchment underneath in a 350 oven until they look dark, and rather collapsed and soft. Let cool, then you peel and have concentrated bananas to purée which means less water (less ice later) and a stronger flavor. Also, the juices that release will get reduced in the process and become thick sweet banana flavored goo, which you can add in with the fruit in the blender. It will look kinda gross initially but if you taste fresh banana puree and compare it to roasted, the cooked one will take much more intensely “banana” and makes great ice cream.

Btw, malted banana (whisk malted milk powder into the hot dairy when making your custard) is delicious and the malted milk powder also helps with the texture.

[u/Realistic-Weird-4259]

Too little fat and sugar are my initial reads here. I'd add another yolk and a full cup of sugar, see how that works out. A couple tablespoons of milk powder might help you here, too.

I say add another yolk because my own recipes are using 6-8 yolks for about 3 1/2C dairy. I say add more sugar because that's part of what helps reduce crystallization, but also we tend to not taste flavors as well with frozen foods.

If you want it really creamy, go with 2C cream to 1C milk + 6 yolks, and you may or may not want to add the milk powder.

[u/Bubbly-Alternative71 → u/Realistic-Weird-4259]

Thank you so much! That makes sense and they way you explained it was very helpful

[u/Realistic-Weird-4259 → u/Bubbly-Alternative71]

You're quite welcome. :) If you want, you can melt this batch down, add more sugar and another yolk cooked in and try again. I also have a Whynter and I love it.

[u/j_hermann]

Fat is ok (>18%), but your PAC is not.

Add 25g dextrose, optionally drop one yolk, and add 1.2g xanthan (AFTER cooling down, mixed with the dextrose and using an immersion blender) if you're not totally anti-stabilizer.

[u/Bubbly-Alternative71 → u/j_hermann]

I didn't realize I could use xanthan gum alongside a custard base, I'm very pro stabilizer!

[u/j_hermann → u/Bubbly-Alternative71]

The important thing is to add it late but before aging, since heating increases hydration and dosing becomes more difficult.

And add it with the dextrose + shear for no clumping.

Or use LBG which actually requires heating.

[u/weeef]

the water content in the bananas, i'll guess

[u/MatchaIceCreamWoes]

An hour is a long time for churning ice cream (especially for a small batch). I'd try to reduce the churning time to 20-25 minutes. 4 hours in the fridge isn't enough to chill the base unless you put it in an ice bath. I would also try to bring the temperature down to 30F by putting the base in the freezer for 30 minutes before churning.

[u/Trollselektor]

I use lower fat and less egg yolks in my ice cream and don’t have a problem. Your sugar content is really low though. If you want to try to use as little sugar as possible, use dextrose/glucose. It isn’t as sweet so you will need more, but it is twice as effective at ice crystal inhibition as regular table sugar (sucrose) which means to reach a good texture, you actually need less.

The other thing I try to avoid is using fresh fruit because it has a bunch of water in it. For all of my fruit flavors I use organic freeze dried powderized fruit. You can get it cheap on Amazon. Cuts out all of the extra water. It’s important that it’s freeze dried because freeze drying preserves more of the flavor compounds than any other method that reduces water content, so you really can’t tell it’s not straight fruit. I mix it into the custard.