Cereal Milk Ice Cream

Adapted from Christina Tosi | Momofuku Milk Bar | Clarkson Potter, 2011

Cereal milk ice cream shouldn’t taste eggy, so we don’t put eggs in it. We outsmart the traditional approach to making ice cream, which includes tempering eggs and making an egg-milk mixture, called an anglaise, that thickens as it heats, by using gelatin as an ice-cream stabilizer. It thickens the ice cream, gives it great body and mouthfeel free of crystallization, and keeps it from melting too quickly when you are scooping a sundae or from freezing too hard once stored in the freezer overnight.

Wait to spin your ice cream until you are ready to serve it. There is nothing quite like freshly spun–frozen–ice cream. It’s the perfect temperature and consistency right out of the ice cream maker. It’s easy to scoop and it melts in your mouth just right. In the restaurant industry, when you work in joints that give a damn, you spin the ice creams fresh daily and melt down any leftover ice cream in the fridge each night to spin the next day. Apply the same philosophy in your kitchen. Freshly spun ice cream will make you and your friends and family ice-cream snobs in all the right ways.

Scoop the ice cream into your favorite pie crust, sandwich it between your favorite cookies, scoop it into a bowl and decorate with your favorite breakfast cereal and jam or jelly, or blend it into a milkshake (cereal milk blended with cereal milk ice cream will change your life).–Christina Tosi

LC Bloomin’ Onion, Er, Blooming Gelatin Note

There are no eggs in this ice cream. Nope. None At all. Pastry chef Christina Tosi instead relies on gelatin, as explained above. But in order to incorporate gelatin seamlessly into a mixture, Tosi explains, it must first be softened, or “bloomed.” Once it is bloomed, in order to incorporate either kind of gelatin (sheet or powdered) into a mixture, you need to dissolve the gelatin in hot, but not boiling, liquid—usually a bit of whatever it will be mixed into. If the gelatin gets too hot, it will lose its strength and you will have to start over again.

Cereal Milk Ice Cream

Christina Tosi

Prep 15 mins

Total 15 mins

Dessert

American

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Equipment

• ▢
  Ice cream maker

Ingredients 

USMetric

• ▢ 1 1/2 gelatin sheets or 1/4 teaspoon powdered gelatin
• ▢ 1 recipe Cereal Milk
• ▢ 2 teaspoons freeze-dried corn powder (optional)
• ▢ 2 tablespoons light brown sugar tightly packed
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• ▢ 1/4 cup milk powder
• ▢ 1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions

 

• If using sheet gelatin, soak it in a small bowl of cold water until it has become soft, about 2 minutes. If the gelatin still has hard bits to it, it needs to bloom longer. If it is so soft it is falling apart, it is overbloomed; discard the gelatin and start over. Gently squeeze the bloomed gelatin to remove any excess water before using.
  
  If using powdered gelatin, sprinkle it evenly over a scant 2 tablespoons cold water in a cup. If you pour the powdered gelatin into a pile on top of the water, the granules in the center will remain hard and will not bloom. If you use too much water to bloom the gelatin, it will dilute the flavor of the recipe and its consistency will be looser than intended. Allow the granules to soften entirely in the cold water for 3 to 5 minutes.
• Warm a little bit of the cereal milk and whisk in the gelatin to dissolve. Whisk in the remaining cereal milk, the corn powder, if using, sugar, salt, milk powder, and corn syrup until everything is fully dissolved and incorporated. This is your ice-cream base.
• Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into your ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream is best made just before serving, but it will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

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Recipe Testers’ Reviews

Natalie Reebel

Oh my, this ice cream was fantastic! It had a buttery, sweet flavor that was pure delight. The texture was smooth and creamy. You can almost feel the crunch, yet it does not taste like cereal. We ate ours right out of the ice cream maker. Since you can make the cereal milk in advance, this ice cream comes together in a snap. It’s the kind of dessert that will really impress your friends. We loved it.

Adrienne Lee

This is a very interesting technique for making ice cream without eggs. The only caveat is that it all depends on the cereal milk, which you have to make first. What I liked: the flavor was really interesting. What I didn’t like: I think it’s a little involved. I did make the corn syrup mixture as indicated and the ice cream was very smooth.

Originally published May 30, 2012

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