Jan Hedh - The Ultimate Guide to Homemade Ice Cream: Over 300 Gelatos, Sorbets, Cakes & More

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO HOMEMADE ICE CREAM

Copyright 2012 by Jan Hedh

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Printed in China

ISBN 978-1-61608-604-6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

As Swedes, we are one of the peoples that eat the most ice cream in the world. Unfortunately, most of it is factory made ice cream.

Today, very few bakeshops make their own ice cream and much of what is called homemade ice cream is based on powder products and pastes from Italy that have few things in common with ice cream made from natural produce.

I remember when sten Brolin and I began making our own ice cream at the bakeshop, Vete Katten, in Stockholm. Ice cream quickly became a favorite craving in the neighborhood! Te bakeshops began to make ice cream bombs just like back in the day. Ice cream in cups or in cones was served at every pastry shop. At Olof Viktors bakery in Glemminge, close to Ystad, where we are famous for making bread, jam, marmaladeand ice creamwith fresh produce, and without E numbers and stabilizers. In the summer, we make about 2,642 gallons or 10,000 liters of ice cream every week.

My first memory of homemade ice cream is from when my mother, Kerstin, stirred ice cream in the freezer with a ladle and served it freshly frozen for Sunday dessert. Sometimes, she would simply make frozen cream and serve it with berries. During the summer she used to make Popsicle sticks out of frozen juice, something we loved as kids. Parfait was often served when we had guests, or during various holidays. Most of the time, my mother would make strawberry or pineapple parfait. Sometimes, when someone in the family had a birthday, mother would order frozen pudding or Meringue Suisse from Brauns Bakeshop at Gustav Adolfs torg in Malm. Back then it was considered the nicest bakeshop in the entire city. Their window display was always filled with ice cream bombs and frozen puddings that had been decorated with spun sugar and other goodies, depending on the holidays.

Desserts and ice creams were always part of the bakeshop and most of the cake shops used to make their own ice cream parfaits and frozen puddings. I have always worked at places where we make our own ice cream. At my first job, we always received many orders for frozen pudding with spun sugar every Friday and Saturday. Bomb molds were lined with different ice creams and filled with various types of filling, such as parfait and fruit mousse. As an apprentice, I sometimes helped delivering the ice cream on my bike. Then, the ice cream would be stored in a metal container inside a very heavy bucket. 2.2 pounds of ice was mixed with 10.6 oz of salt to lower the freezing point so that the ice cream would hold up for hours. Eventually, artificial ice was introduced to us and made the delivery process a lot easier.

Meringue Suisse used to be a very common dessert back in the day. The tall creations were delivered in large boxes. They contained circles of classic French meringue and chocolate cream and vanilla cream. Other popular desserts included lemon or orange fromage, savarin, and charlotte russe. At weddings, croquembouches out of almond paste solved in egg whites were desired. The ice cream was placed on top of the crown and it was embedded in spun sugar. The entire creation was usually decorated with roses and leaves in pulled caramel. For baptisms, decorations often consisted of cradles made with hippenmasse or chocolate, with a baby covered in a marzipan blanket, or a stork out of caramel. For the childrens birthday party, the cake would be adorned with a marzipan train for a boy or a marzipan bear when it was for a girl. We sold loads of ice cream for graduation ceremonies, and for anniversaries, or birthdays. Not to mention the demand for ice cream for New Years Eve parties and Christmas.

The storefront windows at pastry shops were often adorned with croquembouches made with almond paste and egg whites, and a beautiful cornucopia filled with tea biscuits and chocolate pralines. Both of these baked goods were often served with ice cream desserts, especially at weddings, baptisms, festivals, and anniversaries. Last year I received an order for 13 croquembouches, all for the same wedding. It is fun when you receive a big order like that, but it also requires a lot of work.

This book is dedicated to my mother, father and grandmother who taught me to love good food and appreciate the importance of high quality ingredients.

I still recall my fathers conversations with butchers and fishmongers in Malms three market halls, which had floors covered in sawdust. I was a young boy, and stood there all ears and listened. I used to go shopping with dad every Saturday, while mom was at work. We spent a lot of time and effort on our cooking every weekend. Walks with my grandmother often ended up at the meat shops in Tomelilla, and to the market square, where they sold fresh vegetables, fruits, and berries every day. Every Saturday for breakfast, I would get sugar biscuits filled with vanilla custard or Berliner pastries with apple marmalade filling from Ekerlunds local bakery. These are the memories that have stuck with me!

A special thank you to expert herb grower Magne Haugen, for his generosity with his knowledge about herbs and edible flowers and the use of his herb garden in Klevane. Go to his website to learn all about edible herbs and flowers!

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ICE CREAM

Gastronomic encyclopedias disagree on who invented the ice cream. Some of them credit the Chinese, others the Romans, and sometimes the Indians. However, most of them agree that it was the Chinese who invented the ice cream many thousands years ago, although there are no similarities between the archaic ice cream and the one we eat today. The story goes that Marco Polo tried Chinese ice cream during his trip to China in 1292 (despite the ongoing debate whether he visited China or not).