Cold-Press Coffee Ice Cream with Salted Caramel Sauce

I’ve been making homemade ice cream for years. And, I thought I had a handle on the parts of a custard and how the ingredients come together to freeze just right for ice cream. Thanks to the new book Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop by Dana Cree, I now have a much, much better understanding of how all of that works. As I read my review copy, I enjoyed learning specifics like that fat helps to trap air as ice cream is churned and that dairy proteins bind to water in the base and prevent ice crystals from forming. I love this kind of information. I never really knew why some ice cream recipes call for corn syrup in addition to sugar, but here, it’s explained that monosaccharides in corn syrup, as opposed to disaccharides in sugar, bind more water which is again to prevent ice crystals. There are also explanations for the use of texture agents and how they affect the final result. By knowing the science behind what each item contributes, you get a clearer picture of what you could and what you should not change in ice cream recipes. You also learn how to create the creamiest texture and best flavors possible. For instance, fat in an ice cream plays an important role in how flavors are delivered. With a higher fat custard, flavors will develop more slowly as you taste them, and they will last longer on your palate. But, in the case of a lower-fat sherbet, the flavor is experienced more immediately. Depending on the flavor in question, you might want a slow, lingering effect or a quick burst. There’s also information about each step of making ice cream and what happens along the way. By curing or chilling an ice cream base before churning, the emulsion is strengthened and produces a better, less icy texture. The recipes are divided among Custard Ice Creams, Philadelphia-Style Ice Creams, Sherbets, Frozen Yogurts, and Add-Ins. Then, there’s a chapter for Composed Scoops that combine flavors, ripples, sauces, and toppings. There are delicious flavors offered in the book like Bourbon Butterscotch Ice Cream, Cheesecake Ice Cream, Bubblegum Ice Cream, Blood Orange Sherbet, and Key Lime Pie Frozen Yogurt. But, what I really appreciated was learning that a Philadelphia-style ice cream with no eggs is a better choice for flavors like chocolate or mint because you’ll quickly taste the subtleties of those ingredients. For coffee flavor that builds as the ice cream melts in your mouth, a custard base is the way to go. 

I have to explain how I chose the flavor combination shown here. When Kurt and I visit our favorite gelato shop, my go-to order is an affogato with salted caramel gelato. I love the hot espresso with the cold caramel gelato. Here, I kept the same flavors but switched the temperatures. I made the Cold-Press Coffee Ice Cream and topped it with a warm salted caramel sauce. The custard was made with cream, milk, sugar, and glucose. I used light corn syrup for the glucose. Egg yolks were tempered with the hot dairy and sugar mixture, and the custard was cooked until thick. After straining the cooked custard, coffee beans were added and left to steep while refrigerating the base overnight. The next day, the coffee beans were strained out, and creme fraiche was added before churning. The churned ice cream was placed in the freezer to harden for a few hours. I made the salted caramel sauce for serving and topped the scoops with chocolate-covered espresso beans. 

The coffee flavor was lovely in the rich custard, and the texture was perfectly smooth and chewy. Knowing the science behind ice cream making is eye-opening. To understand how all the ingredients interact and what each contributes makes me look at other recipes in a whole new way. It also makes me want to try every flavor in this book with all the ripples and swirls and crunchy, crispy toppings to go with them. 

Cold-Press Coffee Ice Cream 
Reprinted from Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream: The Art and Science of the Scoop . Copyright © 2017 by Dana Cree. Photographs copyright © 2017 by Andrea D’Agosto. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.

Makes between 1 and 1 1/2 quarts ice cream 

Coffee was my mother’s favorite ice cream flavor, and one I pretended to like as a child out of sheer admiration for her. As I grew into a coffee-swilling adult, though, I too found a deep appreciation for this flavor. Most ice cream shops add concentrated coffee to their ice cream, making a recognizable tan-colored scoop. As a pastry chef, I learned to flavor coffee ice cream by infusing whole coffee beans into the dairy, giving me a pale-colored scoop with a deep coffee flavor. As cold-press came onto the coffee shop scene, promising a smoother, less acidic brew, it too changed the way I thought about flavoring my coffee ice cream. Heat changes coffee’s flavor, and as it brews, bitter, briny, acidic notes come with it. When I started making a cold-press coffee ice cream, I cooled my ice cream base completely before I introduced the beans. I let them infuse slowly, over the course of a full day and night. The resulting ice cream tastes the way coffee smells, and has the unique quality of being white. I stir in a small amount of tart creme fraiche at the end, and its acidic quality makes this coffee ice cream a very special version of a commonplace flavor—one you won’t forget. For a more classic-tasting coffee ice cream, or if you are short on time, go ahead and add the coffee beans to the milk and cream as they are heating up, and let them steep for 10 minutes before straining them out. You can also replace the creme fraiche with an equal amount of cream, added with the milk in the beginning of the recipe. 

Cream (20%)200g | 1 cup 
Milk (40%)400g | 2 cups 
Glucose syrup (5%)50g | 1/4 cup 
Sugar (15%)150g | 3/4 cup 
Egg yolks (10%)100g | about 5 large yolks
Cornstarch 10g | 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon, mixed with 20g | 2 tablespoons of cold milk, whisked into the simmering dairy, then cooked for 1 minute. 
Coffee beans30g | 1/2 cup 
Creme fraiche (10%)100g | 1/2 cup

Prepare an ice bath. Fill a large bowl two-thirds of the way with very icy ice water and place it in the refrigerator. 

Boil the dairy and sugars. Put the cream, milk, glucose, and sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, and place it over medium-high heat. Cook, whisking occasionally to discourage the milk from scorching, until the mixture comes to a full rolling boil, then remove the pot from heat. 

Temper the yolks and cook the custard. In a medium bowl, whisk the yolks. Add 1/2 cup of the hot dairy mixture to the yolks while whisking so the hot milk doesn’t scramble the yolks. Pour the tempered yolks back into the pot of hot milk while whisking. Place the pot over medium-low heat and cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot constantly with a rubber spatula to avoid curdling. 

Chill. When you notice the custard thickening, or the temperature reaches 180°F on a kitchen thermometer, immediately pour the custard into a shallow metal or glass bowl. Nest the hot bowl into the ice bath, stirring occasionally until it cools down. Strain. When the custard is cool to the touch (50°F or below), strain it through a fine-mesh sieve to remove any bits of egg yolk. (This step is optional, but will help ensure the smoothest ice cream possible.) 

Infuse the coffee. Stir the coffee beans into the cooled custard, and transfer it to the refrigerator to infuse for 12 hours. 

Strain the custard and add the creme fraiche. When you are ready to churn your custard, strain out the coffee beans through a fine-mesh sieve. Take 1/4 cup of the cold custard and stir it into the creme fraiche until smooth, and then stir this back into the custard. 

Churn. Place the base into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream is ready when it thickens into the texture of soft-serve ice cream and holds its shape, typically 20 to 30 minutes. 

Harden. To freeze your custard ice cream in the American hard-pack style, immediately transfer it to a container with an airtight lid. Press plastic wrap directly on the surface of the ice cream to prevent ice crystals from forming, cover, and store it in your freezer until it hardens completely, between 4 and 12 hours. Or, feel free to enjoy your ice cream immediately; the texture will be similar to soft-serve. 

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Macaron Infiniment Cafe

I always think of macarons as little jewels of the cookie world. They’re a delicate, complicated cookie that’s a bit fiddly to make but so very pretty. I had made them exactly once before. After reading my review copy of the new Pierre Herme Macaron, I was inspired to try again. At the beginning of the book, there’s a story about how macarons were made at Lenotre pastry shop in Paris in 1976 when Pierre Herme worked there. Two vanilla shells were pressed together with no filling. The shells were baked on paper-lined baking sheets, and after baking a small amount of water was run under the paper to slightly moisten each shell bottom. That’s what made them stick together as a sandwich cookie. But, the most shocking part of making these early macarons was that they were baked on a hearth, and the baking sheets had to be placed in such a way to control the heat. Herme eventually moved on and perfected his own technique for making macarons including crafting inventive flavor combinations. This new book includes reinterpreted recipes from Herme’s early career as well as more recent flavors. Each recipe has its own instructions, and there’s also a separate kitchen guide for the basic steps involved that are the same for all macarons. For the most part, the shells are always made the same way but for many, different food coloring is added. The fillings, however, are all delightfully unique. For instance, for the Macaron Infiniment Mandarine, a mandarin cream is made with an orange and lemon curd mixed with melted cocoa butter. Chopped bits of candied orange are nestled into that mandarin cream inside each macaron. The Macaron Creme Brulee involves a vanilla ganache with salted-butter caramel shards, and the shells are vanilla on one side and coffee-caramel on the other. There are fillings with green tea cream and black sesame crunch, mint cream with sugared peas, strawberry compote and wasabi cream, lovage cream with green apples, and many more. I kept making mental notes of all the buttercream and ganache flavors I want to try. For my first attempt from the book, I went with the Infiniment Cafe because the shells have coffee flavor from extract and no food coloring, and the filling is a white chocolate-coffee ganache. 

Each recipe includes “liquefied” egg whites which are egg whites left to age in the refrigerator for five days or a week. The whites were placed in a bowl, the bowl was covered with plastic wrap, holes were poked in the plastic with a knife, and the bowl was refrigerated. The next step is to prepare the baking sheets. Circles were drawn on a piece of parchment paper. A second sheet of parchment was set on top of that template. When ready, the cookie disks were piped to the size of the circles. Then, the template piece was pulled from below and reused with new parchment on top for each baking sheet. Ground almonds and confectioner’s sugar were sifted together, and half the egg whites with added coffee extract were added to the ground almond mixture. The other half of the egg whites were whisked in a stand mixer while sugar syrup was brought to temperature in a small saucepan. The syrup was slowly streamed into the mixer while running to create the meringue. The meringue was folded into the ground almond mixture, and the batter was ready for piping. A piping pro I am not, and therefore my cookies were not all perfectly the exact same size. But, they were close. They were to be baked at 350 degrees F in a convection oven which I thought seemed a little hot for macarons. Also, I'm still getting to know my new oven and the convection bake option. Some of mine browned a bit, and I turned the heat down for the next pans that went into the oven. Next, the coffee ganache was made. White chocolate was melted, cream was steeped with ground coffee beans and strained, and the two were combined. The ganache was to chill for six hours before using. After leaving it to chill overnight, it still seemed very runny. I whisked it to thicken the consistency before filling the macarons. 

I felt like I had better success with these macarons that I did that first time just over five years ago. It almost seemed too easy. All of the little cookies had feet just as they should, and none of them stuck to the parchment or broke when I removed them from the baking sheets. The coffee flavor, the crunchy surfaces giving way to chewy middles, and that white chocolate-coffee ganache combined for dreamy cookies. I’m definitely less afraid of making macarons now and look forward to many more flavor combinations.

Macaron Infiniment Cafe
Recipe reprinted with publisher's permission from Pierre Herme Macaron.
 
Infiniment cafe is the expression of my work with coffee with Hippolyte Courty, founder of l’Arbre a Cafe in Paris. The Iapar rouge du Bresil coffee is both potent and soft, with aromatic notes of chocolate, cinnamon, spice, and a sharp touch of eucalyptus. It’s an exceptional coffee! 

MAKES ABOUT 72 MACARONS (OR ABOUT 144 SHELLS) 
PREPARATION TIME: 5 MINUTES (5 DAYS IN ADVANCE, SEE “MACARON SHELLS STEP-BY-STEP” IN THE KITCHEN GUIDE) 
COOKING TIME: 16 TO 18 MINUTES INFUSION TIME: 3 MINUTES RESTING TIME: 30 MINUTES REFRIGERATION TIME: 6 HOURS + 24 HOURS 

FOR THE COFFEE MACARON SHELLS 
3 cups (300 g) confectioners’ sugar 
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (300 g) ground almonds 
2 tablespoons (30 g) coffee extract, preferably Trablit 
7 large (220 g) “liquefied” egg whites, divided (separate eggs, place whites in a bowl, cover bowl with plastic wrap, poke holes in plastic with a knife, refrigerate for five days)
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (75 g) still mineral water 
1 1/2 cups (300 g) superfine granulated sugar 

PREPARE THE COFFEE MACARON SHELLS. The day before, sift together the confectioners’ sugar and almonds. Combine the coffee extract with half of the “liquefied” egg whites. Pour this into the confectioners’ sugar–almond mixture without mixing. Add the remaining “liquefied” egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the wire whisk. In a saucepan, boil the mineral water and granulated sugar to 244°F. (118°C). As soon as the syrup reaches 239°F (115°C), begin beating the egg whites on high speed. When the syrup reaches 244°F (118°C), reduce the mixer speed to medium-high and pour the syrup in a steady stream down the inside edge of the bowl into the beaten egg whites. Beat the meringue until it cools to 122°F (50°C). Fold it with a silicone spatula into the confectioners’ sugar–almond mixture until the mixture loses volume. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a plain #11, ½-inch (11-mm to 12-mm) pastry tip. 

FOR THE COFFEE GANACHE 
15 3/4 ounces (450 g) Valrhona Ivoire 35% white chocolate 
1/2 cup (30 g) Iapar rouge du Bresil coffee beans, preferably from l’Arbre a Cafe 
2 1/4 cups (520 g) light whipping cream (32%–35% fat) 

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Pipe disks about 1 1/2 inches (3.5 cm) in diameter and ¾ inch (2 cm) apart on the lined baking sheets. Rap the baking sheets on a work surface covered with a clean kitchen towel to gently smooth out the disks. Set aside for at least 30 minutes at room temperature to allow a skin to form. Preheat a convection oven to 350°F (180°C). Place the baking sheets in the oven. Bake for 12 minutes, quickly opening and closing the oven door twice during baking to release moisture. Remove the shells from the oven and slide them still on the parchment paper onto a work surface. 

PREPARE THE COFFEE GANACHE. 
Chop the white chocolate using a serrated knife then melt it to between 113°F (45°C) and 122°F (50°C) set over a bain-marie or in a microwave. Grind the coffee beans. In a saucepan, bring the cream to a boil. Add the ground coffee and stir. Cover and let infuse for 3 minutes. Strain the hot cream through a fine-mesh sieve then pour it in thirds into the melted white chocolate, stirring after each addition starting in the center then in increasingly wider concentric circles toward the sides of the bowl. Pour the ganache into a baking dish. Cover it by gently pressing plastic wrap onto its surface. Refrigerate for 6 hours, just until the ganache has developed a creamy consistency. Transfer the ganache to a pastry bag fitted with a plain #11, ½-inch (11-mm to 12-mm) pastry tip. 

Turn half of the shells over with the flat sides up onto a new piece of parchment paper. Fill them with the ganache. Close them with the rest of the shells, pressing down lightly. Refrigerate the macarons for 24 hours. Remove them from the refrigerator 2 hours before eating them. 

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Coffee Walnut Shortbread Cookies

I started off cookie baking season with a few completely new and different varieties. I wanted to bring some treats to a meeting, and I knew several of the people attending avoid eating gluten. Luckily, I had a review copy of Alice Medrich’s latest book, Flavor Flours, to use for inspiration. Medrich set out to experiment with flours like rice, oat, corn, sorghum, teff, buchwheat, coconut, and nut flours to discover new flavor combinations, and all of the recipes in the book are gluten-free. Unlike other gluten-free recipes that involve mixes of several flours and starches, these recipes mostly stay true to one type of flour at a time. There’s a chapter for each flour, and the recipes highlight the flavor, texture, and aroma of that flour. The New Classic Boston Cream Pie is made with layers of corn flour chiffon and a pastry cream that incorporates rice flour rather than wheat flour. I’ll definitely try this soon since Boston Cream Pie is Kurt’s most favorite dessert ever and also because the light corn flour chiffon and super silky pastry cream promise to be better than the original versions. The Carrot Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting with rice and oat flours is another updated classic I want to try. The Savory Corn Sticks that are sprinkled with smoky paprika would be great with a cocktail, and the Panforte Nero with buckwheat flour, cocoa powder, and spices sounds like an ideal addition to a cheese course. The Chestnut Jam Tart was the first recipe I tried since it was described as a “simpler-to-make linzer torte.” It’s a sturdy tart that can be cut into small servings that are easy to pick up and eat with your hands. The crust comes together in record time once you have chestnut flour of course. I was determined to locate it, and thankfully one of our newest Whole Foods Austin locations was able to special order it for me. The dough was pressed into a tart pan and was topped with strawberry jam and then sliced almonds and bits of reserved crust dough. The added flavor from the chestnut flour was lovely with the jam and nuts. I also made the Brown Sugar Pecan Nutty Thumbprints. The dough is a puree of pecans, sugar, brown sugar, salt, and an egg. It’s a very sticky dough, but once chilled it was easy to shape into balls to be baked. The balls flatten a bit as they bake. When removed from the oven, indentations were pressed into the cookies, and they were filled with jam. Pecans and brown sugar is a pretty perfect pairing. Last but certainly not least, I tried the sorghum flour shortbread cookies shown here. 

The Coffee and Walnut cookie is a variation on the Salted Peanut Shorties in the book. The dough was made by pulsing walnuts, finely ground coffee beans, and salt with sorghum flour, rice flour, and sugar in a food processor. Chunks of butter and cream cheese along with a splash of bourbon, vanilla, and one of water were added, and the mixture was processed until it formed a smooth dough. The dough was shaped into a log on parchment paper, and I added a step to the process here. I chopped some additional walnuts, added a little more finely ground coffee and some demerara sugar, and rolled the dough log in the nutty mixture. The dough was then wrapped and chilled overnight. The next day, one quarter-inch rounds were cut and baked until golden on the edges. 

It’s no secret that I love the flavor of coffee in sweets and that I love baking with various types of flour. This cookie was sure to be a hit with me. The shortbread is tender and crumbly in the best way, and the coffee balances the sweetness. It’s going to be fun to bring new additions to my bins of various flours and bake more treats with all their unique flavors. 

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Coffee Power Panna Cotta

I have an Earth Day story to share today. Back in 1992, I attended an Earth Day event at which I learned about the environmental damage caused by large animal feedlots and how consumption of beef and pork was rising sharply around the world. I wanted to do something and put my money where my mouth was literally I suppose, so it was then and there that I decided to stop eating red meat. And, what does that have to do with panna cotta? Well, even though I had stopped eating red meat, I continued to use gelatin which is made from collagen extracted from cattle and pigs, and gelatin is needed for dishes like panna cotta. I had read about other gelling agents, but hadn't tried any other alternatives until now. For Earth Day, and to learn something new, I decided to experiment with agar agar powder which is a natural substance derived from red algae.

Also, in celebration of Earth Day, I had just received a basket full of samples from the Central Market Organics line. I've shopped at Central Market since the first-ever store opened in Austin, and I bring home items from the Organics line every week. I was thrilled to receive this basket of samples which included organic rice milk, organic coffee, organic peanut butter dots breakfast cereal, and organic agave syrup, in addition to organic almond milk, strawberry preserves, oatmeal, and tea. My plan for this panna cotta came together when I saw the rice milk, coffee, and peanut butter dots. Maybe I should explain the peanut butter part of that. I've been hooked on the mix of flavors of coffee and peanut butter since my first peanut butter espresso milkshake years ago. Add a banana, and it's even better. And, since I remembered seeing a dessert in the book Delicious Days which involved a layer of gelled Kahlua on top of a coffee-flavored panna cotta, my idea was to re-create that in a completely vegetarian incarnation and top it with crushed peanut butter dots cereal for added flavor and texture.

After reading up on using agar agar, I realized this might require some testing and tweaking. I found a recipe online for a vegan panna cotta made with coconut milk and soy yogurt. I didn't want to add coconut to the mix of flavors I had in mind, so I tried this recipe with rice milk instead. After pulling ideas from the Delicious Days recipe, I simmered rice milk, agave syrup, seeds from a vanilla bean, and crushed coffee beans with agar agar powder. The mixture was simmered and strained into a bowl, and soy yogurt was whisked into it. It's necessary to cook agar agar for it to dissolve, but it will set up at room temperature if necessary. Also, it sets up very firm, so less is better. The general ratio is two teaspoons of agar agar powder to two cups of liquid, but I found the result of that to be too rigid. I wanted the panna cotta to have a little wobble. I also found my first experiment to be a little too virtuous. There was no richness, and the coffee and vanilla flavors seemed flat in the finished dessert. So, I decided this wasn't going to be vegan but just vegetarian. I tried again with the same initial process of simmering rice milk with agave syrup, vanilla seeds, crushed coffee beans, and a little less agar agar powder. Then, I poured that through a sieve into a bowl and whisked in cream. One taste before it was even set and I knew this was going to be a winner. I poured the mixture into ramekins and placed them in the refrigerator for an hour. The next step, also taken from the Delicious Days recipe, was to simmer some Kahlua with agar agar powder and then pour that over the set panna cotta in the ramekins. After they had chilled and the Kahlua layer had set, I turned out the desserts onto plates and sprinkled crushed organic peanut butter dots cereal on top.

Working with agar agar does take a little getting used to, but it's completely flavorless and dissolves once simmered. Depending on the texture you want, it might require some testing. I'm happy to have learned to use a vegetarian alternative to gelatin though, and I can't wait to try it in homemade marshmallows. As for the flavor of the final dessert, I was delighted. The coffee and vanilla with a little richness from cream was divine especially with the sweet liqueur of the gelled Kahlua layer. I always like a mix of textures too, so the crunch of the organic peanut butter cereal worked well and reminded me of those incredible milkshakes. I hope you find a delicious way to celebrate Earth Day too.

Vegetarian Coffee Power Panna Cotta
(adapted from Enlightened Cooking and Delicious Days)

1 1/4 cup organic rice milk
1/4 cup organic agave syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon agar agar powder
seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
3 tablespoons coffee beans, crushed so that they can be sieved out without leaving graininess behind
1 c cream

1/2 cup Kahlua
3/8 teaspoon agar agar powder (I realize that's an odd measurement, but 1/2 teaspoon is a little too much.)
1/4 cup crushed organic peanut butter dots cereal

-Place rice milk, agave syrup, 1 1/2 teaspoons agar agar powder, vanilla seeds, and crushed coffee beans in a medium saucepan and stir to combine. Let sit for a few minutes before bringing to a simmer. Simmer while stirring occasionially for about eight minutes.
-Pour rice milk mixture through a sieve into a heat-proof measuring pitcher. Add cream and whisk to combine. Divide evenly between four six ounce ramekins and place ramekins in the refrigerator for one hour.
-For the Kahlua gelee layer, place Kahlua and 3/8 teaspoon agar agar powder in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer while stirring. Simmer and stir until agar agar has dissolved. Carefully pour or spoon Kahlua on top of set panna cotta in ramekins. Let ramekins chill again for at least one hour.
-To serve, place hot tap water in a wide bowl. Dip bottoms of ramekins into hot water for about 15 seconds. Then, use a pairing knife to loosen edges of panna cotta all around the ramekin. Invert ramekin over a plate and use the knife to pull out the panna cotta if necessary. Top with crushed peanut butter dots cereal.

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