I've been a huge fan of homemade ice cream ever since I went to Herrell's ice cream in Northampton Massachusetts: http://www.herrells.com
The owner, Steve Herrell, is known as the godfather of chewy ice cream in America, and I've been trying to come up with ice cream just as good as his and, after a lot of experimentation, here is my recipe (some measurements might be wrong because I can't find my recipe book right now):
Base:
- 1 cup of heavy cream
- 1 1/4 cup of milk
- 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp of milk powder
- 3 tbsp of light corn syrup
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1/8 tsp of salt
Other:
- 4 tsp of cornstarch
- 1/4 cup of milk
- 3 tbsp of cream cheese
- Extract of your choice to taste
Mix all the base ingredients together, bring to a boil, reduce to gentle simmer, simmer for 4 minutes. Mix cornstarch and milk together, put in simmering base, bring back to simmer for 2 minutes or until thick. In a small bowl with the cream cheese, mix some of the mixture, then mix cream cheese with base. Rest overnight in the fridge. Put in extract of your choice to taste (this prevents flavor from evaporating if you put it in while hot). Make with your ice cream maker of choice, but make sure to cover holes in your ice cream maker so that air won't get in, and the ice cream is dense.
My ice cream, while it tastes as good as if not better than Herrell's, just does not have the same texture. Herrell's is much softer and creamier. It might be because my freezer is too strong (at someone else's house where the freezer is much warmer, I've noticed that Talenti ice cream has a much better texture) and also because the stabilizer I'm using, which is cornstarch.
Thoughts? What stabilizer is best for ice cream (egg yolk, gum, starch, flour etc.) and what temperature is ideal for the ice cream's texture? I hope I can adjust my freezer's temperature at the apartment I rented.
Best Answer
There is an article on Serious Eats that is pretty much entirely about replicating Herrell's style ice cream at home. The differences I can see between your recipe and the one discussed in that article are the addition of egg yolks, the addition of arrowroot powder, using evaporated milk (rather than milk and milk powder), and they stop their machine early (as most overrun happens in the last few minutes usually).