The secret to getting a good stracciatella ice cream is to make a creamy ice cream and add the liquid dark chocolate at the right time during the ice cream process. When you touch the cold ice cream, it solidifies and breaks into tiny, irregular pieces that spread evenly in the cream. This is undoubtedly the hardest step when making this ice cream and what will make the difference between them.
Making ice cream at home is something really simple and we will avoid unknown ingredients and excessive amounts of sugar that when we have children, big fans of ice cream in different shapes and colors, is important. It must be taken into account that domestic freezers cool much more than those of ice cream parlors, and although the ice cream formula is designed so that it does not harden as if it were a block of ice, it is true that it will not have the creamy texture of how when we order an ice cream in an ice cream parlor.
What do we look for in an ice cream? A pleasant flavor, a creamy texture, fluffy, and that is not a block of ice. How do we get it? Using Balanced Percentages of each ingredient that will affect these factors in one way or another. With sugar, as with alcohol, we achieve, in addition to sweetening our ice cream more or less, that the freezing point is not so high, that they have the right texture. The fat and lecithin (which we also have in the egg) provide creaminess and help in the butter process. And the powdered milk will add body to the ice cream, facilitating the butter process and avoiding an excessive sensation of cold on the palate.
We can vary some ingredient, but always keeping in mind that if we do not balance and counteract it with another, we can destroy the ice cream and achieve the opposite of what we are looking for.
recipe information
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- Preparation time: 30 minutes
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- total time: 7 hours
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- rations:8
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- Category: desserts
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- type of cuisine: international
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- calories: 214 kcal per serving
Ingredients for stracciatella ice cream for 8 people
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- 400 ml of whole milk
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- 300 ml of whipping cream (35% MG)
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- 30ml powdered milk
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- 4 ml soy lecithin
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- 60 g invert sugar or soft honey
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- 3g of salt
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- 20 g of dark chocolate to melt
How to make stracciatella ice cream
First and as always, we press and measure the ingredients. In a saucepan or processor, mix the milk with the cream and the powdered milk and heat it up, add the inverted sugar or honey, the salt and the soy lecithin and continue stirring.
For this ice cream, as for the cream one, it is better to use inverted sugar. If like me, you don’t have it and you put honey (which is natural inverted sugar), make it a soft honey, otherwise it will add too much flavor and we run the risk of masking the flavor of the cream. Invert sugar is a syrup or syrup of water and sugar to which we add an acid to separate the fructose from the glucose. It is used in ice creams to help prevent it from crystallizing due to its high antifreeze power, but it must be taken into account that it sweetens 30% more than sugar.
We continue heating the mixture without stopping stirring and taking care that it does not come to a boil. When we see that it is approaching the boiling point, we set it aside and let it cool. Once it is completely cold, we store it in the fridge for between 6 and 12 hours. After the rest time, we have to butter the ice cream. We put the mixture in the ice cream maker and program according to its instructions. With my ice cream maker, in 30 minutes it was ready.
A little before the matecado process is finished, we add the dark chocolate. We can do it using two different methods.
Melt the chocolate and drop a thin thread into the ice cream so that it mixes while the ice cream finishes. With the cold, the chocolate thread solidifies and the characteristic pieces of chocolate of this ice cream are formed. The other way, much easier, is to grate the chocolate and add it to the mixture at the end of the shortbread. The flavor of the ice cream will not change whether we use one system or the other and we will have a delicious and creamy ice cream either way.
Once the ice cream is finished, we transfer it to a container and store it in the freezer for a minimum of two hours so that it acquires a little more consistency.
A little trick to have our ice cream balls ready to serve at dessert time is to make them in advance and place them on a tray in the freezer. Thus, serving the dessert will be as simple as placing them in the chosen container, decorating them to taste and that’s it.
In my house they have been a great success and although they cheated on it, saying it was Oreo ice cream, it had no trace of it.
Easy preparation summary
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- We prepare all the ingredients
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- Mix the milk, cream and powdered milk
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- Heat it up and add the inverted sugar and soy lecithin
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- We keep stirring and heat without it coming to a boil
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- Remove it from the heat and let it cool
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- We keep it in the fridge between 6 and 12 hours to macerate
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- We butter it, add the chocolate and serve it
