I'm lactose intolerant and have been experimenting with homemade ice cream recipes. I've been making my ice cream using a vanilla custard recipe – substituting the milk/cream with almond milk and adding guar gum to it. I make a recipe that yields a 2 quart batch of ice cream. However, I cannot get the guar gum amount right. Too little and the ice cream becomes as hard as a brick when freezing. Too much and it is so slimy, I might as well add vanilla to raw egg whites and slurp it down.
Is there an additive or method to make my non-dairy ice cream that will give it as close a consistency to normal ice cream (scoopable after freezing, but not soft serve) as possible?
I want to make some for my daughter's birthday party coming up and would rather make it ahead of time to save myself some stress. I want to be able to freeze it and bring it out when guests arrive, rather than letting it thaw out for hours previous and it be half-melted and the consistency off. BTW, I use an ice cream machine, if that helps any.
Best Answer
You can't do kitchen chemistry without measuring. Most "US measures" include a 1/4 teaspoon measure, and some include a 1/8 teaspoon.
At the roughest quick look from your list, I'd say that 1/2 gallon of almond milk plus 17-25 fl ounces of eggs (depends on the size of the eggs) would call for more like 3 cups of sugar for a reliable frozen dessert texture.
I prefer text to video; the video is easy to find if you prefer that. Alton Brown's "Churn, Baby, Churn" episodes of Good Eats are a frozen dessert experimentation primer.
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season1/churn/churntranscript.htm
http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season9/ice_cream/churn_baby_churn_ii.htm