Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream
after a long day of thanksgiving preparation, what better way to cool down than with a little homemade ice cream? only a sucker wants to wait for salt and ice. cryogenic cream is not only faster but has a better texture and allows the inclusion of ingredients (such as ethanol) that inhibit freezing in a traditional desert.
Assemble Ingredients, Stir and Enjoy
you'll need LN2. buddy up to someone at a university or find a supply house that will
sell to you. in either scenario, you will need to obtain a dewar or thermos to safely transport
and insulate the nitrogen.
we considered two recipes but feel free to improvise.
bourbon ice cream:
start with sufficient cream in a metal bowl.
mix in sugar and old rip van winkle's 10-year-old bourbon to taste.
green chile ice cream:
start with sufficient cream in a metal bowl.
mix in sugar and horseman's green chile (levels 1 and 2) to taste
once the ingredients are well mixed, slowly add LN2 while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the stirring action becomes infeasible.
tasters generally agreed that the bourbon ice cream, while OK, wasn't painfully delicious.
much greater success has been documented using a peaty coastal scotch. the green chile
ice cream, on the other hand, was a wild success, taking deliciousness to unprecedentedly
high levels of pain.
remember that LN2 is quite cold so take appropriate handling precautions.
sell to you. in either scenario, you will need to obtain a dewar or thermos to safely transport
and insulate the nitrogen.
we considered two recipes but feel free to improvise.
bourbon ice cream:
start with sufficient cream in a metal bowl.
mix in sugar and old rip van winkle's 10-year-old bourbon to taste.
green chile ice cream:
start with sufficient cream in a metal bowl.
mix in sugar and horseman's green chile (levels 1 and 2) to taste
once the ingredients are well mixed, slowly add LN2 while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the stirring action becomes infeasible.
tasters generally agreed that the bourbon ice cream, while OK, wasn't painfully delicious.
much greater success has been documented using a peaty coastal scotch. the green chile
ice cream, on the other hand, was a wild success, taking deliciousness to unprecedentedly
high levels of pain.
remember that LN2 is quite cold so take appropriate handling precautions.
Ancillary Commentary
A note on hard ice creams:
Under normal circumstances, high-proof ice creams are impossible. The
reason, of course, is that the freezing point of ethanol at normal
pressures is around -117C. When you are freezing your ice cream using ice
and rock salt, or even a state-of-the-art ice cream maker, temperatures
don't come even close to that low, and any attempt at hard liquor ice
cream will result only in ice cream soup, essentially just a well-chilled
white russian. The boiling point of N2, however, is around -195C, more
than sufficient to freeze that cocktail rock-hard. Thus, using LN2,
vodka ice cream becomes as straightforward to manufacture as vanilla.
A note on crystals:
The main advantage of LN2 ice cream, from a gastronomical point of view,
is not that it is so quick and easy to make, nor that it can be powerfully
alcoholic. Quite simply, LN2 makes significantly better ice cream. A
critical factor in ice cream deliciousness is crystal size. Crystals are
not delicious. This is why the top layer of ice cream that has thawed and
refrozen in your freezer is gummy and tastes bad - when it refroze, it did
so very slowly and with no stirring, and the result was large crystals.
This is also why you must constantly stir ice cream in a traditional
ice-and-salt ice cream maker. Decreasing crystal size improves not just
the texture, but the impressions of richness and flavor as well. When you
freeze your ice cream with LN2, the process is so fast that the crystals
have almost no time to form - as a result, the average crystal size in LN2
ice cream is far smaller than in conventional ice creams. Which means
that, if you choose your ingredients carefully, LN2 ice cream is very
close to the theoretical supremum of tastiness.
A note on Horseman's green chile:
What we know today as the New Mexican green chile was developed by
government scientists about a century ago, working at what is now New
Mexico State University, Las Cruces (http://www.chilepepperinstitute.org).
Chile growers have developed various arcane techniques, including
artificial cycles of watering and dehydration and of darkness and
sunlight, to induce the chiles to produce enormous amounts of spice
without compromising their flavor. Horseman's Haven, in Santa Fe,
purchases such specially tortured chiles and cooks them down into a
delicious and fiery stew, one of the hottest and tastiest dishes available
in the country. Green chile is a universal condiment in New Mexico - it
is available on burgers and pizzas from national chains there, and is good
on virtually everything. As it turns out, it makes an incredibly
delicious ice cream - the three-way contrast between the cold, comforting
cream, the delicious flavor, and the mind-searing heat is something we
definitely plan to enjoy again.
Under normal circumstances, high-proof ice creams are impossible. The
reason, of course, is that the freezing point of ethanol at normal
pressures is around -117C. When you are freezing your ice cream using ice
and rock salt, or even a state-of-the-art ice cream maker, temperatures
don't come even close to that low, and any attempt at hard liquor ice
cream will result only in ice cream soup, essentially just a well-chilled
white russian. The boiling point of N2, however, is around -195C, more
than sufficient to freeze that cocktail rock-hard. Thus, using LN2,
vodka ice cream becomes as straightforward to manufacture as vanilla.
A note on crystals:
The main advantage of LN2 ice cream, from a gastronomical point of view,
is not that it is so quick and easy to make, nor that it can be powerfully
alcoholic. Quite simply, LN2 makes significantly better ice cream. A
critical factor in ice cream deliciousness is crystal size. Crystals are
not delicious. This is why the top layer of ice cream that has thawed and
refrozen in your freezer is gummy and tastes bad - when it refroze, it did
so very slowly and with no stirring, and the result was large crystals.
This is also why you must constantly stir ice cream in a traditional
ice-and-salt ice cream maker. Decreasing crystal size improves not just
the texture, but the impressions of richness and flavor as well. When you
freeze your ice cream with LN2, the process is so fast that the crystals
have almost no time to form - as a result, the average crystal size in LN2
ice cream is far smaller than in conventional ice creams. Which means
that, if you choose your ingredients carefully, LN2 ice cream is very
close to the theoretical supremum of tastiness.
A note on Horseman's green chile:
What we know today as the New Mexican green chile was developed by
government scientists about a century ago, working at what is now New
Mexico State University, Las Cruces (http://www.chilepepperinstitute.org).
Chile growers have developed various arcane techniques, including
artificial cycles of watering and dehydration and of darkness and
sunlight, to induce the chiles to produce enormous amounts of spice
without compromising their flavor. Horseman's Haven, in Santa Fe,
purchases such specially tortured chiles and cooks them down into a
delicious and fiery stew, one of the hottest and tastiest dishes available
in the country. Green chile is a universal condiment in New Mexico - it
is available on burgers and pizzas from national chains there, and is good
on virtually everything. As it turns out, it makes an incredibly
delicious ice cream - the three-way contrast between the cold, comforting
cream, the delicious flavor, and the mind-searing heat is something we
definitely plan to enjoy again.