Recipe for sous vide blueberry ice cream

Ingredients

These ingredients results in 1000 grams of ice cream base and is roughly the quantity needed for a single run of most ice cream machines.

• 434 grams double cream (35% fat)
• 104 grams whole milk (3.4% fat)
• 68 grams skim milk powder
• 150 grams cream cheese or mascarpone
• 160 grams granulated sugar
• 84 grams egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 0.3 grams salt
• Biscuits of your choice (I use Dutch Bastogne cookies)

For the blueberry swirl:

• 225 grams blueberries (fresh or frozen)
• 150 grams blueberries to dry (optional)
• 170 grams granulated sugar (I used unrefined cane sugar)
• 2.5 grams citric acid (or lemon juice)
• 1 gram of salt

Equipment

• Emersion circulator. I use an Anova, but any brand will do.
• Vacuum pouches + sealer. I use a fairly cheap vacuum sealer from Foodsaver.
• Waterbath, can be a large pan or plastic container.
• Saucepan to heat the cream and the swirl.
• Food dehydrator (optional), I use an WMF mini dehydrator.
• Ice cream churner, I use a Smart Scoop from Breville. Available as the Sage Smart Scoop in Europe.

Note on sous vide: This recipe can also be made non-sous vide if you have access to a food thermometer. Instead of heating the mixture in a water bath, heat the mixture on the stove and keep it for 25 minutes at 72 °C. Heating the mixture on the stove will result in more evaporation; to counter this, you can increase the amount of cream with 10%. I haven’t tested the non-sous vide version, let me know your results in the comments!

Perparing the base

1. Heat the water bath, set the circulator to 72 °C.
2. Combine sugar, eggs and salt. Add milk powder. Mix well.
3. Add the cream cheese.
4. Add the milk and cream.
5. Transfer the mixture to a vacuum bag.
6. Seal the bag and add it to the water bath.
7. Heat the mixture for 30 minutes at 72 °C.
8. Remove the bag from the water bath and transfer to a bowl with ice water. Cool the mixture as fast as possible. You can also cool the bag under running water in the sink.
9. Store the mixture in the bag in the fridge overnight.

Drying blueberries (optional)

Preferably, you don’t want to use whole fresh berries inside your ice cream base as these will freeze solid. One alternative way to add berries is to first dry them using a dehydrator. On the day that you make the ice cream, dehydrate 150 grams of blueberries at a low temperature in a dehydrator. After several hours they will look like raisins. After dehydration, you can add them to the swirl mixture.

If you don’t have a dehydrator, or want to skip this step to save time, you can skip the whole blueberries altogether or accept that they will freeze solid.

Making the swirl and churning the ice

Do this the next day, after the ice cream mix has chilled in the fridge overnight.

0. Pre-cool a storage container for the ice cream in the freezer. Crumble the cookies and also store in the freezer to cool.
1. Add the 225 grams of blueberries together with the sugar, citric acid and salt to a saucepan.
2. Slowly heat the berry mixture and, with a fork, crush the berries to the consistency of your liking.
3. Let the mixture slowly boil for a few minutes, making sure all sugar is dissolved. If you dehydrated berries, add them now. Remove from the heat and let cool.
4. Sieve the ice cream mixture and add one tablespoon of the vanilla extract by taste.
5. Churn the ice cream according to the instructions of your ice cream machine.
6. At the end of the churn, add the crumbled cookies.
7. After churning, quickly transfer the ice cream to a pre-cooled storage container. While transferring the ice cream, alternate with the blueberry swirl. Coarsely mix the swirl in the ice cream.
8. Let the ice cream harden in the freezer; this takes roughly 3 hours. If your freezer has a high setting, this is a good time to use it. The faster the ice cream freezes, the better.

Enjoy!

This recipe uses my preferred technique of heating the ice cream base sous vide. More info on this technique can be found in my post on sous vide ice cream base. It is possible to make this ice cream without a sous vide setup by adjusting the recipe, see below for more information.

Update March 1, 2020: After some experiments, I have updated the recipe. The new recipe has an improved texture and flavour release, compared to the old recipe. The main differences are the ratio of cream, milk and chocolate, and adding a tiny amount of salt.

Recipe for sous vide dark chocolate ice cream

Ingredients

These ingredients results in 950 grams of ice cream base and is roughly the quantity needed for a single run of most ice cream machines.

• 525 grams double cream (35% fat)
• 77 grams whole milk (3.4% fat)
• 35 grams skim milk powder
• 152 grams sugar (I used unrefined cane sugar, regular sugar also works)
• 86 grams egg yolks
• 76 grams cocoa mass
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 0.24 grams salt

Note on cocoa mass: The rich and non-sweet character of this ice cream is due to using cocoa mass instead of chocolate. I use cocoa mass from Callebaut, but it can be hard to find a supplier. Some alternatives are available through Amazon. If you cannot find cocoa mass, you can substitute it with high-cocoa chocolate (like 90%).

• Emersion circulator. I use an Anova, but any brand will do.
• Vacuum pouches + sealer. I use a fairly cheap vacuum sealer from Foodsaver.
• Waterbath, can be a large pan or plastic container.
• Saucepan to heat the cream.
• Stick blender (optional, but will result in smoother ice cream).
• Ice cream churner, I use a Smart Scoop from Breville. Available as the Sage Smart Scoop in Europe.

Note on sous vide: This recipe can also be made non-sous vide if you have access to a food thermometer. Instead of heating the mixture in a water bath, heat the mixture on the stove and keep it for 25 minutes at 72 °C. Heating the mixture on the stove will result in more evaporation; to counter this, you can increase the amount of cream with 10%. I haven’t tested the non-sous vide version, let me know your results in the comments!

Steps

1. Heat the water bath, set the circulator to 72 °C.
2. Add milk and cream to the saucepan, heat until around 70 °C. Don’t let the mixture boil.
3. Add the warm mixture to the chocolate, let the chocolate melt (about 1 minute).
4. Emulsify the cream-chocolate mixture with the stick blender. Try to minimize bubbles forming. If you don’t have a stick blender at hand, you can skip this step and use a whisk. If skipping, there is a chance that some small cocoa mass chunks will be in the ice cream.
5. Combine sugar, eggs and salt. Add milk powder. Mix well.
6. Slowly incorporate the chocolate mixture into the eggs.
7. Transfer the mixture to a vacuum bag.
8. Seal the bag and add it to the water bath.
9. Heat the mixture for 30 minutes at 72 °C.
10. Remove the bag from the water bath and transfer to a bowl with ice water. Cool the mixture as fast as possible. You can also cool the bag under running water in the sink.
11. Store the mixture in the bag in the fridge overnight.
12. The next day, sieve the mixture and add one tablespoon of the vanilla extract by taste.
13. Churn the ice cream according to the instructions of your ice cream machine.
14. After churning, quickly transfer the ice cream to a pre-cooled storage container. Let the ice cream harden in the freezer, this takes roughly 3 hours.

Traditionally, heating the mixture is done on the stovetop, as this has the added benefit that some of the moisture evaporates. However, this method is not precise and requires careful watching of the temperature. With sous vide, we can alleviate this and fully-automatic heat our ice cream mixture. Why I use sous vide for my ice cream base:

• No chance of burning the base or curdling the egg yolks;
• No need to monitor the ice cream base while heating;
• It’s easy to make large quantities;
• Heating the mixture in sous vide bags means you can easily cool and store them afterwards.

In this post, we’ll show how to use sous vide to make an ice cream base. As an example, we will create an Amarena Cantuccini ice cream based on a vanilla base. If you leave out the mixins, you end up with a normal vanilla ice cream.

Recipe for sous vide Amarena Cantuccini ice cream

Ingredients

These ingredients result in around 800ml of ice cream and is roughly the quantity needed for a single run of most ice cream machines. For the vanilla base mixture:

• 480 grams double cream (36% fat)
• 57 grams whole milk (3.6% fat)
• 65 grams skim milk powder
• 128 grams sugar
• 67 grams egg yolks
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

If making the Amarena Cantuccini variant:

• Amarena cherries, halved
• Cantuccini (almond cookies), chopped

Equipment

• Emersion circulator. I use an Anova, but any brand will do.
• Vacuum pouches + sealer. I use a fairly cheap vacuum sealer from Foodsaver.
• Waterbath, can be a large pan or plastic container.
• Ice cream churner, I use a Smart Scoop from Breville. Available as the Sage Smart Scoop in Europe.

Steps

1. Heat the water bath, set the circulator to 72 °C.
2. Remove the seeds from the vanilla pod. Cut the pod itself in small pieces or process using a food processor.
3. Combine sugar and eggs.
4. Add milk and cream to egg mixture.
5. Add milk powder. Mix well.
6. Transfer the mixture to a vacuum bag. Add vanilla seeds and pod to the bag.
7. Seal the bag and add it to the water bath.
8. Heat the mixture for 30 minutes at 72 °C.
9. Remove the bag from the water bath and transfer to a bowl with ice water. Cool the mixture as fast as possible. You can also cool the bag under running water in the sink.
10. Store the mixture in the bag in the fridge overnight.
11. The next day, sieve the mixture and discard pieces of the vanilla pod.
12. Add one tablespoon of the vanilla extract by taste.
13. Churn the ice cream according to the instructions of your ice cream machine.
14. In the meantime that the ice cream is churning, cut the cherries in half. Roughly chop the Cantuccini cookies.
15. Add the mixins in the final stage of churning.
16. After churning, quickly transfer the ice cream to a pre-cooled storage container. Let the ice cream harden in the freezer, this takes roughly 3 hours.

Note on adjusting recipes for sous vide

Not every recipe for an ice cream base can be made sous vide. For ice cream, the distribution between water and (milk) solids in the final mixture is very important for the end result. Traditional recipes, which heat the base on the stove, account for water evaporation. In those recipes, higher water content is used so that after heating, the distribution is correct. When heating the mixture sous vide you won’t lose any water, so the initial water content needs to be reduced. This reduction can be done by increasing the amount of cream or milk powder in the recipe.

Further reading

For me, flank steak has a great trade-off between being not too expensive while having lots of flavor. The texture of the steak is at its best when you cook the steak medium to medium rare and cut against the grain before serving.

Ingredients

• Flank steak
• Oil (for searing the steak)

Optional, to finish (as shown in the image):

• (Black lava) salt
• Rosemary (fresh)
• Butter

Equipment

• Emersion circulator. I use an Anova, but any brand will do.
• Vacuum pouches + sealer or a zip-lock bags. I use a fairly cheap vacuum sealer from Foodsaver.
• Pan for searing the steak.

Recipe

My preferred method for preparing flank steak is to use sous vide, this guarantees a perfectly cooked inside of the flank steak. However, due to the typical thinness of the cut, it is also possible to skip the sous vide step. In both cases: keep an eye on your pan when searing the meat; you can easily overcook it.

The recipe below uses the sous-vide method.

1. Heat water bath at 56°C (for medium to medium-rare).
2. Vacuum seal the flank steak (or put in a zip lock bag).
3. Put the sealed steak in a water bath for roughly 1.5 hours. The total duration will depend on the thickness and whether you want to pasteurize the steak. A general rule: preferably 30 minutes longer than the other way around. The sous vide guide by Douglas Baldwin is a great resource for determining the total time.
4. Finish the steak on the stove. I prefer to use a cast iron or stainless steel skillet on medium to high. Make sure not to overcook the steak as it will lose its lovely texture.
5. (Optional) At the end of cooking, you can add butter and herbs to the pan and baste the steak to add flavor.
6. Cut the steak in strips before serving and make sure to cut against the grain. Cutting against the grain shortens the muscle fibers in the meat, which results in a more tender steak.
7. Serve with black lava salt, fresh rosemary, and freshly ground pepper.

Flank steak pairs pretty well with a radicchio salad, parmesan cheese, and broccoli puree.

Background

Sous vide cooking is perfect for (extreme) long cooking times and can transform a cheap cut of meat to a steak-like quality. Roast beef is a nice example of this. Instead of using an oven you cook the roast for 12-24H in a water bath to make it tender.

A constant and accurate temperature of the water bath is of extreme importance in sous vide. To high and the meat is ruined. To low and your meat can become spoiled (below 54 °C is the danger zone). For recipes that only take a few hours you can watch the cooking process and regularly check whether everything is ok. But, how about those long multiple day projects? Being awake for 24H will probably not do any good.. 😄

There are many things that can go wrong (power malfunction, water level to low, etc.) with a shutdown due to evaporation being the most probable. Usually some kind of monitoring is required to assure a successful end result. In fact, the last time I did this my sous vide cooker broke down at random intervals which required me to check it every hour or so. To prevent me getting up in the middle of the night checking on my cooking process, I came up with a solution: an external water bath monitor!

In this post I’ll show you the system that I built: a device, independent of my sous vide setup, that monitors and reports to me when anything suspicious occurs.

Design considerations

As said, temperature is central to sous vide cooking. I simplified my problem by arguing that (almost?) every (negative) event that can occur will have an effect on the temperature:

• Water level to low? → Sous vide device stops and temperature decreases.
• Something wrong with the circulation? → The water bath will have different temperatures at different points. Or only has the correct temperature close to the device.
• Power problem? → No heating, so temperature decreases.
• Someone took the food out? → Well, if they have very cold hands the temperature will drop. 😉

In other words, if we monitor temperature and report any changes we can catch most events that occur!

I started my search and came across the DS18B20 temperature sensor which is available in a waterproof version: perfect for monitoring the temperature of a sous vide water bath! For example available through the Adafruit store. It has a PVC tube which doesn’t make it food-safe, but it won’t come into contact with food as everything is packaged in bags.

Second part is the reporting. I want to know, even when away from home, when something goes wrong. So, anything that can show the current status of the system on my phone would be great. Luckily, I had a Spark Core laying around from the original Kickstarter they did. It has WiFi support so that covers the reporting part of the system.

Hardware overview

Besides the Core and the two temperature sensors I also added some parts for direct feedback (as opposed to indirect using WiFi). I ordered a two-line lcd screen to show the current temperature and a buzzer to alert me when something is wrong. The full list of electronic components:

• 1x Spark Core, with external WiFi antenna
• 2x DS18B20 waterproof version
• 1x Regular buzzer
• 1x Blue Backlight LCD, with I2C interface
• 3x 4.7k resistor (for pull-up)

Powering the Core (and other components) is done directly through USB.

Circuit

The circuit is fairly simple as the component list is short. We do however need to separate the 5V and 3.3v power lines.

Both temperature sensors are connected to a digital pin (D3) on the Spark Core with a pull-up resistor (4.7k) to the 3.3v pin. They will use the Dallas OneWire library so multiple sensors can work with a single pin. The LCD screen uses I2C and is connected to the corresponding SCL and SDA pins on the Core (which are D0 and D1). As the LCD screen needs 5V to work, its Vin pin is connected to Vin of the Core (which is 5, directly from the USB). Both I2C pins have a pull-up resistor to Vin.

I installed the whole circuit on a breadboard. For a moment I considered perfboard but I first want to do some more test runs before making the circuit really fixed.

Building the device

As the monitor will be placed in my kitchen I looked for a simple enclosure that is watertight. I found my solution in a very simple food container that has an air tight seal. I drilled a few holes in the bottom for the sensors, USB cable and WiFi antenna:

With all the cables fitted I added the breadboard to the enclosure and tidied all the cables. The cables of the sensor and LCD are not permanently attached to the board so that I can remove various parts. Tie wraps and some brackets are a lifesaver in these kind of situations. The end result is a very small packet with the two temperature sensors probing out:

So that’s that! My two-channel monitor is complete and I am really happy about how it turned out. The total build cost me around two afternoons, including some programming and testing. I can now monitor two water baths or a single bath at two points (usefull for large containers).

Next step? Software! But, I will cover that in the next post.

Luckily, we don’t have to use an oven! I got inspiration from a ChefSteps recipe and tried to make my own crème brûlée in a new way: using a water bath.

By using a water bath, similar to sous vide cooking of meat and vegetables, we can precisely control temperature and prevent any overcooking. As I am still waiting on my immersion circulator to arrive, my ‘cooking-experimentor-in-crime’ Maaike and I had to resort to a more low-key approach: the ‘stove top’ method. While a good sous vide setup is advisable, this recipe can also be done using a regular pot, a thermometer and canning jars. And guess what, it worked perfectly!

So, if you are a crème brûlée enthusiast and have some canning jars laying around, you should definitely try this!

Ingredients

• 130 g Egg yolk
• 500 g Heavy cream
• 75 g Sugar
• Some salt
• Vanilla pod or extract {: .ingredient-list}

You can scale the ingredients according to the size of your jars. I’ve used this recipe to fill approximately 12 small jars.

Required materials

• Small canning jars (I used traditional Weck jars)
• Large pot to hold all the jars
• Thermometer (or sous vide setup)
• Blowtorch {: .material-list}

Time to make

30-40 minutes active time, 1 hour cooking, 10 minutes for serving.

Recipe

Step 1: Combine

Combine the egg yolk, sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk until smooth.

Heat the heavy cream in a small pot. Don’t let it cook. A temperature around 70°C is oke.

After heating, slowly combine the warm heavy cream into your mixture. If you go to fast your eggs will turn in some sweet form of scrambled egg.

Let the mixture set for 15 minutes, remove any bubbles from the top with a sieve or slotted spoon.

Step 2: Fill jars

Make sure that your jars are very clean. Slowly fill each of your jars with the mixture. You can use a scale if you want to be exact. Try not to create any bubbles.

I’ve used Weck jars but other canning jars are also possible (e.g. Mason jars). The main requirement: they need to be able to release air during the cooking process and not let water in.

If there are any bubbles at the top of your mixture you can carefully remove them with a blow torch.

After filling, close each jar. If you misplace the rubber band (as I did for one of my jars) they will fill up with water during the cooking process. Mason jars should not be closed to tight or air won’t be able to escape.

Step 3: Cook

Heat a water bath to 80 °C. The exact temperature is important: to hot and your eggs will start to curdle, to low and the custard will not set.

I’ve used a large pot, put it on my stove and monitored the temperature with an external thermometer. Of course, you can also use a sous vide setup (which will save you the hassle of constantly checking the temperature!).

Add the jars to the water bath, cook for 1 hour.

You will see small air bubbles escape from the jars. This is normal and part of the process.

Step 4: Cool

Remove the jars from the water bath and cool them in a water/ice bath. Do this carefully, there is a small risk of breaking your jars.

(Tip: Open one of the jars to check the consistency before you start the cooling process. Check if the custard did in fact set.)

Store the jars closed in the fridge until serving. You can do this a few days in advance.

Step 5: Brûlée

Just before serving, open the jars and add regular granulated sugar. Use a blow torch to carefully create a “brûlée” topping on your custard. Be generous with the amount of sugar, you will see that this helps create a nice crust.

Enjoy 😀!

If everything worked out you will have that typical ‘crack’: