Lebovitz - The Perfect Scoop, Revised and Updated: 200 Recipes for Ice Creams, Sorbets, Gelatos, Granitas and Sweet Accompaniments

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

INTRODUCTION

The idea to write a book devoted to frozen desserts came to me when I was teaching cooking classes. People were constantly surprising me with questions about making ice cream. I had worked as a professional baker and pastry chef, and was used to making ice cream in restaurants, but I found it interesting that so many people had questions about churning their own up at home. Standing in front of a group of fifty people one day, after a few hands shot up with more questions about making ice cream, I asked for a show of hands to find out how many people made their own ice cream. Almost half of them enthusiastically did. After a little unscientific market research showed strong sales of ice cream makers, I had my next book idea.

I spent the next couple of years churning up frozen dessert recipes, going through gallons of milk and cream, cracking dozens of eggs, chopping up blocks of dark chocolate, toasting nuts, caramelizing sugar, whipping up marshmallows, and hitting the markets to find the ripest fruits and berries to come up with a well-rounded book of recipes for ice creams and sorbets, as well as all my favorite things to accompany them.

Writing and testing recipes for a cookbook is quite a bit of work, especially for someone whos as committedand obsessiveas I am. Should my Vanilla Frozen Yogurt () call for sugar, or would it be better with half sugar, half honey? Is teaspoon of lemon juice right, or would teaspoon be better? I originally envisioned a recipe with Greek yogurt, but maybe I should also test regular yogurt to compare. You see what I meanand that was just one recipe. Thankfully, I love tinkering in the kitchen to find just the right combination of ingredients that work (and taste) best for each recipe, and everything that came out of my ice cream machine was dutifully sampled and evaluated. I often enlisted friends, neighbors, and even the occasional deliveryman, to get their opinions. (When I told my regular UPS guy that I was moving to France, he was understandably upset.)

My freezer was filling up at such a rapid clip, though, so to make room for the next batches that were ready to be churned, I started handing off containers to everyone I knewfrom the guys at the market in Paris who sold me strawberries and peaches to the owners of my local pharmacy when I learned they had a freezer in the back for storing drugs. Which I saw as an opportunity: Why not use it to store ice cream, too? I asked. And they, too, became the recipient of countless tubs of ice cream.

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Right from the start, The Perfect Scoop was to be a compendium of techniques and my favorite recipes for making ice creams, sorbets, and granitas at home, with lots of variations and suggestions for taking them in your own direction. Especially close to my heart are the mix-ins because I love stirring and layering things into ice cream: pralined almonds, homemade marshmallows, peppermint patties, and a shiny-dark fudge ripple that stays soft enough when scooped up are meant to dial up the fun.

It was incredibly gratifying that when the book was released, the positive feedback was immediate. I got messages from people whod never made ice cream but who declared that the book became their ice cream bible, and from experienced ice cream makers and pastry chefs letting me know that many of the recipes had become part of their permanent repertoires. It was surprising how the world of small-batch ice cream took off shortly after, and soon, a variety of manufacturers began offering more machines and devices (at various price points) for churning ice cream at home.

There was also a notable boom in the number of ice cream shops that opened in cities and neighborhoods around the world. Im not taking responsibility for that, or the increase in sales of ice cream machines (although if a company wanted to name a machine after me, Id be delighted to accept the honor), but I was happy to be part of the burgeoning interest in artisan ice cream shops. My dream had always been to open my own place, and although that never came to fruition, Ive had thrilling experiences when visiting the shops of others.

When I walked into Ice & Vice, an edgy ice cream shop in New York, the young owner, a blue-haired Ken Lo, came bounding out of the kitchen to give me a big hug. Ive exchanged virtual messages (that only an ice cream geek could love) with Jeni Bauer of Jenis Splendid Ice Creams in Ohio about the size of ice crystals, and with gelato legend Meredith Kurtzman about which ingredients make the best Italian-style ice cream. Ive agreed to disagree with Nathan Myhrvold, the mastermind of Modernist Cuisine, over what exactly ice cream is. And Ive sampled the rock n roll flavors of Henri Guittet, the owner of Glazed, who quit his office job to churn up dazzling ice creams at his shop in Paris, at the foot of Montmartre. Henri confessed that The Perfect Scoop was the inspiration for his becoming a glacier, but he used the recipes as groundwork for inventing a whole new palate that would have startled Carme back in the days of yore, but is delighting Parisians today.

When the opportunity came to revise and update The Perfect Scoop (first published in 2007), I jumped at the chance to get back in the kitchen and add some new recipes. Ive included nearly a dozen, and this edition also sports a fresh look and all new photographs. I used a pretty heavy hand with the mix-ins in some of these new versions, such as Caramel Crack Ice Cream () that takes bacon off the breakfast table and pairs it with boozy, butterscotch-flavored scoops.

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I began the first edition of The Perfect Scoop with what I called a nostalgic tale about my first job scooping ice cream back in my twenties. I described it as my first and craziest, most insane summer job because the shop was incredibly busy and each shift had me up to my elbows in ice cream. But the look on peoples faces when I handed over their scoop made the job worth it. Im a few years older now, but Im still scooping ice cream. In fact, my love of ice cream has only grown.