Making LegatoGelato gelato

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Flavours

          I am having a great time figuring out our flavours. Strawberry (Ironwood Strawberry Gelato) was the first one we perfected. We purchase strawberries from Ironwood Organic Farm – just down the road from us in Fanny Bay. The rest of the ingredients are organic or local: organic sugar, organic hen eggs, organic lemon juice, organic cornstarch, and Vancouver Island Sea Salt.

          We spent time figuring out just the right proportion of the fruit to add to the base (the creamy milk base) to make it WOW. Many batches made with our little Delonghi machine at home, with lots of sampling by friends and neighbours. The best taste is from the strawberries that we just cleaned, sliced, cooked, and mixed in. There is no fancy processing, pureeing, or straining. Just fresh berries, cleaned, de-stemmed & cut by hand, cooked with organic sugar and organic lemon juice until nice and soft.

          Another very cool flavour we are doing is “Wild Nettle Gelato” – interested? We go out into the forests around Fanny Bay and pick the tips of stinging nettles. Then we either dry them or use them immediately to make a strong ‘tea’. After we remove the leaves we simmer the tea to concentrate the flavour, add some organic lemon juice and organic sugar and cook a little bit more. It tastes like spring and green and… A unique flavour is very hard to describe but is wonderful.

          Our main flavour is Honey Vanilla. Did you know that almost 45% of people who eat ice cream prefer vanilla? I like vanilla but it’s not my very favorite. Nevertheless, a gelato or ice cream maker’s craft shines through in their Vanilla product – it is a very simple, straightforward flavour but not so easy to make wonderfully well.

          The honey we are using is local from the company Big Dee’s Bees. They have at least two types of honey and we are using the fireweed flavour – it is a light, subtle honey, sweet but not cloyingly so. The vanilla is from two sources; we have whole organic Vanilla pods (Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla) and organic Vanilla extract. Did you know that vanilla is the second most expensive spice, only surpassed by saffron? I had no idea but then never had to use any quantity of it before.

To layer the vanilla flavour we add the beans to the raw milk during pasteurization. The heating and cooling extract the maximum flavour and when  cooled we strain out the beans, open them and add the seeds and paste back into the milk – makes for a lovely colour. The extract mixes in when the creamy vanilla base goes into our gelato batch freezer, it mixes, freezers and adds a small amount of air to the gelato.

          Gelato has much less air whipped into it when compared with commercial ice cream. The cheaper the ice cream the more air – up to 200% increase in volume. With good gelato you are only whipping enough air to keep it from becoming a hard, solid lump in the freezer, so about 30%. 

          Gelato – less air, more flavour, better texture – the perfect choice