Homemade Italian Style Gelato

Today I'm making some homemade gelato. It's a pretty simple dessert to make. Very similar to ice cream and similar ingredients using an ice cream maker. Put together some fresh milk from fresh cream. The farmers market was sold out so I had to go with store bought but if you can get it fresh from the farm that's the way to go. I was able to find the eggs from the farm. If you're still separating your eggs, pushing the yolks back and forth between the shells or if you're using a separator, don't bother. Just use your hands. It's really easy to pick it up and separate them that way. You're going to need four egg yolks for this one. You take your milk mixture and put it over a medium low heat. I had it a little high so I moved it down. Whisk up those egg yolks and put that into the milk. You want to do this before it gets to about 83 degrees Fahrenheit. The timing of the temperature is the best. You don't want it super cold when you add the egg yolks but you don't want it getting too hot at this point. So you see me turning down the heat. I want medium low and now I'm sprinkling in the sugar mixture. So there's milk powder, sugar, dextrose, xanthan gum as a stabilizer. It sounds fancy but these are really all natural ingredients, derivatives of fermentation processes and it helps to create that silky smooth texture. So you can see I've reached over the 87 degree temperature point. So now I'm going to go ahead and add in some vanilla bean and a vanilla pod. You can use any kind of flavoring you want. This is a pretty base mixture for gelato. You can mix it up as just a vanilla and then add in your toppings later on or you can do it while you're heating up the mixture. So from here we're going to keep whisking this fairly gently. I throw the whole pod in and steep it like a tea. You'll see me pull it out later. But once we hit 187 degrees Fahrenheit it's time to come off the stove and now we want to cool this fairly quickly. I use a stainless steel bowl that I can set in some ice water. Then I pour the mixture into the stainless steel bowl and then stir that to bring it down. I'm really looking to get this below 90 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point I can turn it in the mixture and I know that it will freeze generously. But keep stirring that until you see it cool. Use a thermometer to check that you've got that cooled enough. You may have to add more ice, more water as you go just to make sure that it's still cooling it down. But you can see I've got it below 90 degrees Fahrenheit now. So I'm putting this into a condenser ice cream maker. You could also use the KitchenAid that has the bowl attachment. Whichever option that you wanted to use. Sticking it straight in the freezer won't really work but you could use the turn method where you freeze and you start and freeze and you start. You'll get a little bit of a different texture. If you have one of these condenser units this is fantastic. And you get ice cream where you know all of the ingredients that are going in. So you'll want to turn this on and you're churning for an hour. You just turn and let it go and that's basically it. Once it hits its churn you're going to take this out and put it into a tub that you can store in the freezer. I like to freeze this overnight. Gelato is typically served a little warmer than regular ice cream. So once it's done put it into the tub. I love these tubs. I got them off of Amazon. If I can find the link I'll put that in the description. But the ice cream scoop runs really nicely the long ways to get a full scoop. And you'll see that when we serve it a little bit later. There is no elegant way to get the ice cream off of the paddle. So you just take your rubber spatula and do the best that you can. It drips. It makes a mess. It gets on your fingers. But that's you know a little chef's kiss for you to have a taste before it's stored. But put this in the freezer overnight so that the flavors meld together. But when you're ready to serve you'll want to take this out of the freezer and let it sit on the counter until it softens up a little bit. And the ice cream scoop can go fairly smoothly through. You'll notice the texture. It's silkier a little bit stretchier than what a traditional ice cream might be. And that's the variations of the fat and the stabilizers that we use. But it's so smooth and decadent. We didn't let it sit as long as we should. Couldn't really wait. And we're serving it on top of a berry cobbler. I'll share that recipe later on. That's one of those delicious ways to serve it. It's a pretty simple cobbler. I hope you'll try this. Enjoy!