Part I of My Ice Cream Making Curriculum
Things That Drive Me Crazy About Ice Cream Making + A Long List of Ice Cream Science Resources
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As some of you might have already figured it out; my latest kitchen project (obsession) is learning how to make the creamiest possible homemade ice cream. I’m also on the hunt for the perfectly dense and creamy homemade pistachio gelato1.
Let me outline some key differences between the two before we move on.
There are a LOT of regional American style varieties of ice cream, so I am trying to generalize. Locally I have access to Handel’s Ice Cream, started in 1945 by Alice Handel (fat content of 24%), but I also miss some of my favorite options from the H-E-B freeze aisle. Not sure if it is still the case but they used to make a very creamy store bought ice cream.
Gelato is easier to pin down or at least has way less variations before someone cries that it’s no longer gelato.
The first major difference is in fat content. Gelato is significantly lower in fat content usually between 6% to 10% range versus American style ice creams have to at minimum be 10% and go all the way to 25%. The second (and third) major difference is in the percentages of sugar and stabilizers. Gelato has a higher percentage of sugar, and the same goes for the percentage of stabilizers. Gelato requires a higher percentage of stabilizer because it has more free water due to the lower overall fat content.
Another important difference is in the overrun. American ice cream has substantially higher overrun. In other words, American ice cream has a lot more air in it than gelato. Some commercial machines can achieve above 100% overrun while gelato has an average overrun of 20 to 30%. Overrun is an industry term that refers to the total percentage of air incorporated into the mixture. So before churning you have 1 quart of ice cream and after churning you have 1.5 quarts, that is 50% overrun since the mixture increased 50% in volume.
The last big difference is the serving temperature. Gelato is served at higher temperatures than American ice cream, usually between 10 F to 22 F or -12 to -6 C while American styles of ice cream are served at colder temps somewhere between 14 F to 0 F and -10 C to -17°C.
It was with this challenge on my mind that I began my ice cream and gelato making side quest about 6 months ago. I bought some new tools, got my hands on way too many ingredients, and I of course made a huge mess.
But my obsession with achieving the perfectly creamy and luscious ice cream did not peak until this December. Maybe it was the massive dump of snow forcing us to stay inside, but during these short winter days and endless snow storms, ice cream making seemed like the ideal project to help both Tom and I keep our spirits up.
As with everything I do, I began with research. I made a list of ice cream making books and cookbooks, and got my hands on as many as I could, from local libraries, online databases, and bookstores. I began reading the literature to understand the general theory of ice cream making.
The first thing that immediately jumped out at me was that every single book has its own method for making ice cream. One of the most frustrating aspects of this is the fact that with each new method there are new ingredients. Let me give you an example.
Jeni’s ice cream book Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts from 2014 uses cornstarch and cream cheese to achieve a creamy consistency in home kitchens. Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Book: Classic Flavors and New Favorites on the other hand utilizes a custard approach incorporating egg yolks to give the final product a smoother and richer finish. Van Leeuwen famously refused to use any additional types of stabilizers or emulsifiers in their ice cream formulas as they deem them unhealthy and unnatural products. The majority of stabilizers actually come from natural ingredients but that’s another story for another time. In the Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook Tyler Malek employs xanthan gum as the main stabilizer for his formulas. The advantages of this approach is that it barely requires any cooking time just enough to dissolve the sugar.
You get the point.
Every single book I have read so far on ice cream making (check out the bibliography at the bottom) has their own method and formulas. Unfortunately the majority of the books don’t provide an in-depth scientific explanation for each step that is being executed or the ingredients used. I can follow the rituals, but it doesn’t leave me feeling confident to experiment on my own. In order to understand the science, you need to seek it out yourself, as a way to supplement the gaps in knowledge in cookbooks.
And this continues with every ice cream blog, Substack, Patreon, etc. The list of ingredients used in both ice cream and gelato making is absolutely enormous!
It is worth stressing that there are a ton of different styles of ice cream here in the US and all over the world. Each style requires their own techniques, ingredients, and machinery. But even within the same style of ice cream making there are endless variations in what the authors or recipe developers deem vital to include to achieve their desired final product along with the method or steps taken for achieving those results. You will see everything from no cook bases, double boilers, cooking to different temps, immersion or high speed blenders and so on.
Is all hope lost? No. Absolutely not. There are definitely some books and lots of online resources for understanding ice cream science. To understand and learn about the science of ice cream making, get your hands on Dana Cree’s Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop: A Cookbook published in 2017. From there you can start reading ice cream science textbooks, blogs, and academic articles. Like I said earlier, there aren’t very many trade books published on this topic. The only other exception I can think of is The Wanderlust Creamery by Adrienne Borlongan. You can find my full bibliography below.
As a word of caution, once you dive deeper into the real underbelly of the ice cream making world it will be hard to stop.
Over the course of the last couple of months, I did end up making a couple of rookie mistakes hence why I wanted to write down and share these things in case someone new to ice cream making needs some pointers. I hope these ramblings will help someone else have a smoother ice cream learning journey, along with saving them a buck or two in this hellish economy.
So I am going to tell you that the best way (and most affordable) to start learning the art of home made ice cream making is to pick one (or at most two) sources (e.g. one cookbook and one blog or two cookbooks) and practice making those same formulas and methods over and over again to understand the various stages of ice cream making.
You need to start somewhere and honestly, anywhere is a good start. Go with Jeni, go with Malek, go with Alton Brown, it does not matter. As I am writing this I am of course thinking of bread baking which also benefits from this same approach, and bread baking cookbooks share the same frustration as ice cream making books, as they tend to also reflect the individual methods/style of bread baking from a single baker/bakery, food writer, or recipe developer along with their preferred ingredients and tools.
Secondly, I believe that the best way to learn is through practice. Don’t get stuck in the theory, get into the kitchen and see how things behave in your specific machine, with your specific ingredients, and so on. And like with anything else you are learning, make sure to take copious notes, as any good recipe developer and tester will tell you, keeping a notepad and a pen in the kitchen will save you so much time and energy. So please don’t let this essay discourage you from starting, go start accumulating experience making ice cream in your own kitchens.
A NOTE ON STABILIZERS
One of the main reasons I think the one formula at a time approach works best is because of the hell that is the world of ice cream stabilizers. THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM. And each ice cream maker has their own reasons and personal preferences for using their own stabilizer of choice.
Sure, once you understand that ice cream making is about creating well balanced formulas you will realize that each type of frozen dessert (be it ice cream, gelato, sherbert, sorbet etc.) requires its own perfect stabilizer or even more commonly a combination of different stabilizers, ratios, and let us not forget emulsifiers. It is overwhelming and it is, at least for me, way too much like a home chemistry set. I thought ice cream was, you know, milk, cream, and sugar! So how is a beginner supposed to navigate all these options? They can’t. Pick one and go with it. The best solution is to experiment with one of these at a time. Also check out my favorite ice cream stabilizers resources, find the full list below.
Another frustrating aspect of stabilizers is that they are quite expensive. If price is an important criteria for your ice cream making venture, maybe start with one of the cheaper options such as cornstarch, gelatin, pectin (powdered or liquid) or a tier above something like xanthan gum. Personally I am not a fan of using cornstarch because I always taste it in the final products including pastry creams, no matter how long you cook (boil) it. Cornstarch still imparts a flavor profile I don’t want in my ice cream. This is where your note taking shines. And like some mad scientist, you too can eventually devise the perfect stabilizer brew for your tastes.
Unfortunately this is another domain where I got a bit ahead of myself. I got my hands on too many options and felt immediately overwhelmed.
There is, however, a way through that mess. You can also buy premixed stabilizer mixes from companies such as Modernist Pantry or Secret Ingredients. However, be aware that others and myself find these types of premixes produce mixed results. I honestly would rather control my own ratios and shelf life of the ingredients used in the mix than have one premixed mix that might not always work for all my formulas. In other words, I would rather buy Guar Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Tara Gum, L-Carrageenan, separately and mix them based on individual needs2. If you know that you have serious ice cream making ambitions this might be the best route for you as well. I don’t see this suggested or written down in many places hence why I thought it would be helpful to do so.
If I had a chance to re-do one thing about my approach, I would have spent a little more on Locust Bean Gum, and started experimenting with it first. LBG is the best out of all the stabilizers mentioned above in fighting crystallization (ice crystal growth results in icy ice cream) and improving the creaminess of your final ice cream guaranteeing a smooth finish.
Instead I started with xanthan gum (after reading the Salt & Straw cookbook). One thing I really think is worth stressing is the fact that xanthan gum has to be used in incredibly small percentages. For this reason, xanthan gum can be extra tricky to work with especially for home cooks or those who don’t have a high precision scale! Something that I truly believe every ice cream homemaker needs.
Let me give you an example, the Salt & Straw formula asks for 1/8 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon of xanthan gum for its base recipes. The first time I made it, I used teaspoons (but measured it on the scale to convert everything into grams). I got 2.6 grams of xanthan gum. The final product came out slimy with an unpleasant stretchy texture. That’s due to the strong gelling and thickening properties of xanthan gum. The perfect amount of xanthan gum for the base formula in Salt & Straw for me is .7 gram! Xanthan gum does an excellent job at increasing the viscosity of the mixture, resulting in a creamier final product. And to be honest when used in accurate and precise amounts you do get great creaminess and mouthfeel. Furthermore, you can get away with just using xanthan gum on its own unlike other gums that require the addition of other gums/stabilizers/emulsifiers to achieve the same results. I haven’t personally tried it, but Tara Gum is also meant to be a good catch all option except that it doesn’t do well with acidic bases.3
There are pros and cons in each stabilizer, and ideally, you will eventually start understanding enough about them to create your own blends, but in the meantime, I encourage you to check out the stabilizers portion in the resources section.
These are the resources I have been using and referencing over the last couple of weeks to educate myself as much as I can on this endlessly complicated subject.
A NOTE ON SUGARS
To a lesser degree, as there are fewer options in this category (thank the gods), a similar note applies to all the various sugar options. I can very briefly share what I learned about sugars. All ice cream and gelato recipes (unless you are looking for sugar-free alternatives) will use granulated sugar (sucrose). In addition to sucrose, a lot of ice cream makers will use dextrose, fructose, invert sugar, maltose, or glucose syrups, as these help primarily with lowering the freezing point of your ice cream which is a way to control the final hardness of the ice cream and its scoopability. Sugar also plays an important role in helping prevent ice crystals from forming along with their size.
These seem to be the most common organized from most common to least across the resources I have reviewed;
Light Corn Syrup
Dextrose Powder
Glucose Syrup
Glucose Powder
Maltodextrin (not technically a sugar but it acts as one)
The cheapest and easiest option for American home cooks is to use light corn syrup (this is not the same as high fructose corn syrup). It is easily available in American grocery stores.
The main take away is that incorporating any type of inverted sugar will improve the texture and scoopability of your ice cream.
A NOTE ON TOOLS
I know I already mentioned this but make sure to get a high precision scale, especially if you will be using and experimenting with stabilizers.
Trust me! You can thank me later.
The same goes for a thermometer. More on this in Part II. But in short you need it for literally every step of the process cooking the base/activating stabilizer, churning, and serving.
So at this point you must be wondering what ice cream machine I have been using for all these ice cream experiments. I have been teaching myself ice cream making with a KitchenAid ice cream attachment. This falls into the freezer canister category of ice cream machines, meaning you have to pre-freeze your canister for at least 24 hours before making ice cream. When considering what machine to buy, make sure to take your freezer into account. You need to have enough room in your freezer for one of these canisters.
A frequent complaint is the need to pre-freeze the canisters 24 to 48 hours ahead of time. I personally don’t mind needing to pre-freeze ahead, since you need to age/cure the majority of ice cream and gelato bases at least overnight before churning them, this sort of planning is intuitive.
The real limitation for me is only being able to make one batch of ice cream at a time every couple of days since after you use the canister you need to let it warm up, clean it, dry it, and put it back in the freezer to freeze again for a day or two. All this really means is that you can’t make a lot of ice cream or different types of ice cream in one go. The KitchenAid ice cream attachment can churn 1 liter (1 pint) of ice cream or gelato base with relative ease.
Apparently from what I have read (and most definitely from what I experienced in my own kitchen), the advantage of using the KitchenAid over something like a Cuisinart ice cream maker is the power of the motor. The KitchenAid machine is strong enough to incorporate a lot more air (as much as 70% overrun!) giving you a better overrun than the other freezer canister options that spin at a slower rate which is actually better for gelato making as it is traditionally churned slower. So if you want to focus on making American style ice cream that requires the incorporation of more air during churning I would definitely consider going with this option.
Do I dream about the Lello 4080 Musso Lussino daily? Maybe. I am SO curious about how much better (creamier) my ice cream could be in this fancy machine. A lot of professional ice cream makers I know started making ice cream for sale with this machine. Honestly not buying one of these 5 years ago has been one of my biggest regrets in life lol.
At the end of the day, I am able to produce some pretty killer ice cream and “gelato” in my $39.99 KitchenAid ice cream attachment. Something I was initially skeptical about.
I am going to officially end things here for today.
Part 2 will include additional takeaways from my ice cream making research and experiments. We will look at things such as ideal draw temps, the crucial importance of skimmed milk powder, issues with home freezers, my favorite ice cream calculator for balancing formulas, etc.
I am also putting together a spreadsheet of all the formulas and methods I have tried so far. If anyone is curious I would consider sharing it. It is super messy and unprofessional but it has been helping me keep track of things.
Lastly, would you be interested in annotated ice cream recipes? So I would take an ice cream recipe from a blog, cookbook, etc. and I would annotate it with notes, questions, observations, etc.
Tell me your favorite books, websites, YouTube videos etc. on the subject of ice cream!
Resources and Bibliography:
Ice Cream (and more) Cookbooks:
These are affiliate links which means I get a tiny percentage from each sale.
Bauer, Jeni Britton. 2014. Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts. New York: Artisan.
Bauer, Jeni Britton. 2019. Perfect Homemade Ice Cream : The Best Make-It-Yourself Ice Creams, Sorbets, Sundaes, and Other Desserts. New York: Artisan.
Beranbaum, Rose Levy, and Matthew Septimus. 2020. Rose’s Ice Cream Bliss. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Borlongan, Adrienne. 2024. Wanderlust Creamery Presents : The World of Ice Cream. New York: Abrams.
Clarke, Chris. 2004. The Science of Ice Cream. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.
Cree, Dana. 2017. Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream : The Art and Science of the Scoop. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter.
Goff, H. Douglas, Richard W. Hartel, and Scott A. Rankin. 2025. Ice Cream. Eighth edition. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Lebovitz, David. 2018. The Perfect Scoop : 200 Recipes for Ice Creams, Sorbets, Gelatos, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments. Revised and updated. [Berkeley] California: Ten Speed Press.
Malek, Tyler, and J. J. Goode. 2019. Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.
Malek, Tyler, JJ Goode, Stephanie Shih, and Salt & Straw (Ice cream Shop). 2025. America’s Most Iconic Ice Creams : Classic Flavors & Creative Riffs. First edition. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers.
O’Neill, Laura, Ben Van Leeuwen, Pete Van Leeuwen, Olga Massov, and Sidney Bensimon. 2015. Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Book. First edition. New York, NY: Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Gelato Cookbooks:
Kenedy, Jacob, and Morano Gelato (Firm). 2021. Gelupo Gelato : A Delectable Palette of Ice Cream Recipes. London: Bloomsbury.
Lagorce, Stéphan. 2020. Amorino Guide to Gelato : Learn to Make Traditional Italian Frozen Desserts. . Translated by Bob Mitchell. First Skyhorse Publishing edition. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing.
Morano, Morgan. 2015. The Art of Making Gelato : 50 Flavors to Make at Home. New York, New York: Race Point Publishing.
Palumbo, Nick. 2013. Gelato Messina : The Recipes. Richmond, Victoria: Hardie Grant Books. Out of print only available as an ebook.
Ice Cream Science Resources and Ice Cream Calculators:
Websites, Newsletters, and Patreons:
Stabilizers:
https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/using-stabilizers-ice-cream/
https://www.icecreamscience.com/blog/stabilizers-ice-cream?rq=stabilizers
https://asktheicecreamqueen.com/xanthan-gum-in-ice-cream-making/
All of Polar Ice Creamy Videos on the topic of Stabilizers
Sugars and Inverted Sugars:
https://icecreamcalc.com/2023/07/11/glucose-and-dextrose-explained/
https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/sugar-in-ice-cream/
All of Polar Ice Creamy Videos on the topic of Sugars
The verdict is still out on whether one can actually make real gelato in a home kitchen, with the major limitation being our kitchen refrigerators.
There are a whole lot more stabilizers that I didn’t mention here! Especially once you get into commercial stabilizers on a global scale.
Love this! I actually started getting into making ice cream last year as well. So far, I’ve made the pandan tres leches ice cream from Wanderlust and a cantaloupe sorbet using her sorbet base formula. I definitely still need more practice, but the results have been incredibly delicious—especially considering I’m using a Ninja Creami as my primary machine. I’ll absolutely keep following along on your journey, especially since pistachio gelato is my all-time favorite ice cream.
I love how you go on wormhole explorations. I am also someone who gets on a “thing”, researches the hell out of it, tries to find the perfect symphony of ingredients and process - but not to the intensity that you do coz I am way too lazy 🤣.
I am glad I found you in the panetonne era because I learned SO much! Thankyou!
I used to have a fantastic recipe for a gelato cake, but I think that recipe collection got chucked out in one of my many house moves in my younger days!
I will have a proper read of this post tomorrow, it’s the end of the day here now 🥱😴.