Homemade Pistachio Ice Cream

Kath September 16, 2019

I have quite the obsession with pistachio ice cream and gelato. It is a flavour I would have turned by nose up at as a child, but now the prospect of having a decent pistachio ice cream fills me with joy.

My obsession started earlier this year, with a cafe in my local Westfield serving a pistachio thickshake made with pistachio gelato. It was utter heaven, and I ordered it a few times over those hot Summer months (to the point the waiters at the cafe began to recognise me and my standard order). Then a few months ago, the cafe changed their menu and the pistachio thickshake was long gone.

I tried a couple of bought tubs of pistachio gelato, and while they were ok, they weren’t exactly what I was looking for.

I began to research recipes in order to make some at home myself. It became a lot easier when I found a recipe for homemade pistachio paste, as most recipes for pistachio ice cream or gelato use it, however I have never been able to find it here in Sydney.

I first tried adding some homemade pistachio paste to my much used easy egg free ice cream recipe. While the flavour was good, the texture was far too firm and it froze like a solid log of ice cream.

The next recipe I tried as another egg free one from the blog Top With Cinnamon by Izy Hossack. I really liked this recipe, as the flavour was really good and the texture much less icy and solid like my initial attempt. The recipe also made quite a lot of ice cream which I definitely liked. My only issue was it took a really long time to churn in the ice cream maker. The ice cream base was quite thin, and there being so much of it, it did feel like it wasn’t ever going to work!

I had another recipe up my sleeve to try, which I found in the same book I found the pistachio paste recipe, À La Mère de Famille - Artisanal Recipes by Julien Merceron (too read my Off The Shelf post on this book click here). This book has been a wealth of information on making confectionary and the like, and it seems to have those hard to find recipes I have been looking for. I’m not sure if things have been lost in translation in this cookbook, but the instructions for each recipe are quite scant and I often find myself having to improvise or just guess what sized tin I need for something.

Nevertheless the recipes from À La Mère de Famille have been super useful, and instrumental in me finding a great make at home pistachio ice cream! I have ever so slightly adapted their recipe for Pistachio Ice Cream Popsicles below, and used my version of their Pistachio Paste to flavour the ice cream. While I am very happy with the end result, I somehow doubt my obsession with making pistachio ice cream is over. I am now on the hunt for a good pistachio gelato recipe (notably after having a really good one at Piccolina Gelateria in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago!).

How to Make Pistachio Paste

Ingredients:

250g raw or blanched pistachios

100g white sugar

30ml water

60ml (4tbsp) pistachio oil

Method:

Pre heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and place the pistachios on a baking tray. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes. Once done set aside to cool a little.

Place the sugar and water into a small/medium saucepan and heat until it reaches 120 degrees on a sugar thermometer. Whilst the sugar syrup is heating, place the roasted pistachios on the bowl of a food processor and blitz until they form a fine crumb.

Once the sugar syrup has reached 120 degrees Celsius, gradually pour into the food processor whilst it is running. Gradually add the pistachio oil, and continue to process until a smooth paste forms. This should take between 5 and 10 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the food processor bowl at regular intervals if necessary. The finished product will be a smooth paste, similar to a nut butter. When the paste initially combines it will form a smooth ball, continue processing until a more paste like consistency is reached.

Once a smooth paste has formed, decant into plastic containers or glass jars and store in the fridge until needed. It should last about 1 month refrigerated. If the oils in the paste separate a little during storage, mix the paste briefly before using.

Makes about 390g.

Pistachio Ice Cream

Ingredients:

600ml milk

30g cornflour

50ml pouring cream

140g caster sugar

20g mild flavoured honey

3 egg yolks

100g pistachio paste (see above)

Method:

Heat the milk in a medium saucepan over low/medium heat until it reaches 40 degrees celsius on a candy thermometer.

Whisk in the cornflour, cream, sugar, honey, egg yolks and pistachio paste. Continue to whisk until all the ingredients are well combined, then use a wooden spoon or a spatula to stir for the remainder of the time. Continue to gently stir the mixture until it reaches 83 degrees celsius in a candy thermometer. The mixture will thicken up, most noticeably as it gets closer to the 80 degree mark.

The mixture now needs to be strained (to remove any lumps etc) and then blended in a blender or food processor. If your sieve can comfortably fit over your food processor, strain the mixture straight into the food processor. If not strain into a medium/large bowl and then transfer to your food processor or blender.

Whizz the ice cream base in the food processor/blender for one minute, then transfer to a container (at least 1L capacity). Place in the fridge to cool.

Once the ice cream base has had some time to chill in the fridge, it can be transferred to the bowl of an ice cream maker to churn (according to your machine’s instructions). I found it took only a few minutes, and the ice cream will be ready once it has firmed up a bit and is clinging to the paddle of the ice cream maker.

Transfer the ice cream into a container to freeze (you can use the same one as before), and allow to freeze for a few hours before serving. If the ice cream has been frozen for some hours, allow the ice cream to sit out of the freezer for a few minutes before serving.

Makes a little under 1L of ice cream.

References: ‘À La Mère de Famille’ by Julien Merceron (Hardie Grant Books, 2013), p.160 & p.250.

Off The Shelf - ‘À La Mère de Famille - Artisanal Recipes’ by Julien Merceron

Kath February 3, 2019

Bought at: Grosgrain Homewares - a gorgeous homewares store in Wahroonga (in Sydney, NSW).

Recipes Made: Marshmallows pp.108-112, Passionfruit Caramel p.142 & Galette au Beurre p.214. Pistachio Paste p.160, Pistachio Cake p.22.

I have always been a big fan of marshmallow, and I bought a packet of mixed marshmallows at À La Mère de Famille when we were there in 2014. They were nice, albeit a little sticky. A little while later I decided I needed to try and make some of my own and used À La Mère de Famille’s recipe. They turned out exactly as I remembered them from the shop, however didn’t cope very well in the humidity of a Sydney Summer. I found I needed to keep tossing them in the icing sugar and potato flour mix to stop them going wet and sticky. They were definitely nice, however this recipe has not become my go to marshmallow recipe.

À La Mère de Famille Marshmallows (Raspberry & Passionfruit)

À La Mère de Famille Passionfruit Caramels

After visiting À La Mère de Famille in Paris, I knew I had to make some of the Passionfruit Caramels. I had bought a handful of them when I was there, and they were just so good I couldn’t fathom not eating another until the next time I was in Paris. Luckily the recipe is in their book. You definitely need a candy thermometer for this recipe, however many of the recipes in this book do as well, so it well worth getting one anyway. I found the caramels didn’t work as well when I made them in the heat and humidity of Summer, but worked better in the cooler months. I even went to the effort of buying candy wrappers for them, and I found plastic wrap fairly useless the first time around!

To me the Galette au Beurre are kind of like the French version of shortbread. Lots of butter, however using icing sugar instead of caster sugar. This recipe makes a lot (about 50 biscuits), but they are that good that it’s worth having that many. I posted the recipe for them years ago here on the blog (one of the very early posts!), and I mention there that when I made them I took some to my Grandpa who was in a nursing home at the time. He seemed to like them, telling me later he had gotten up in the night to eat one!

I made the Pistachio Paste recently, as I have been on a mission to recreate a pistachio ice cream/gelato. While the book does have a Pistachio ice cream recipe (p.250), I just added some of the Pistachio Paste to my easy egg free ice cream recipe. The flavour was quite nice but the ice cream froze really solid so I think I will need to try another recipe next time. The pistachio paste was relatively easy to make, as long as you have some kind of food processor. I made a half quantity of the recipe and used a mini food processor. As the paste has a sugar syrup in it, the paste firms up quite a lot when it cools. I’m not sure how easy it would be to add to other recipes once it is like this, it would probably need to be pureed again or lightly warmed to get it to incorporate properly. Considering however how difficult bought pistachio paste is to find here in Sydney, making it using this recipe is a great substitute.

The final thing I have made so far from this book is the Pistachio Cake. It is relatively easy to make (no mixer required), and is meant to use the Pistachio Paste (p.160) from the same book. As I didn’t have enough left after making the ice cream, I used some of the Pistachio Butter I bought from the Royal Nut Company online. The cake turned out well, despite not knowing what size loaf tin I should be using (this book doesn’t seem to mention sizes or dimensions of anything unfortunately - for this cake I used one 22 x 10 x 9cm loaf tin). The green colour of my cake was probably a little muted from using pistachio butter rather than paste, but I think it still made a good substitute (though I should probably test with pistachio paste next time to really compare). If you don’t have access to good quality pistachio paste or butter, or can’t be bothered making some, I would recommend using this Pistachio Cake recipe instead to get your pistachio cake fix!

Favourite Things About The Book: This book has an amazing variety of recipes from cakes, biscuits, chocolates, confectionary and ice creams. It really gives a great representation of what À La Mère de Famille is all about and the types of products they sell. It also gives a history of the store (which was established in 1761) periodically throughout the book which is lovely.

Bookmarked Recipes (to make later!): Pain d’Épice p.32, Praline Paste p.48, Pistachio Nougat p.154, Strawberry Pâte de Fruits p.168, Quince Paste p.176, Macaron de Nancy p.242, Pistachio Popsicle p.250.

Homemade Marshmallows (Gluten + Dairy Free)

Kath December 10, 2015

I have always loved marshmallows. I would eat them by the bowlful as a kid, much to my Mum’s dismay. I’d often melt them in the microwave, add Rice Bubbles, and eat them like a massive LCM (or rice crispy treat), but with much more marshmallow!

Then while I was at uni, a friend introduced me to Sweetness the Patisserie in Sydney, who make their own marshmallows, known as Sweet Mallows. They are made with natural flavours, and come in an amazing variety of flavour combinations. These homemade, (much) more natural versions of the marshmallows you buy in the lolly isle at the supermarket, make you never ever want to eat the supermarket variety again.

I then stumbled across the below recipe in the recipe book from the Parisian confectioners, À La Mère de Famille (check out this post for more on the Parisian confectioners). Its not an overly complicated recipe, you just need to be organised, work quickly and have a sugar thermometer. So once I bought a sugar thermometer, there was nothing stopping me finally making marshmallows for myself!

The flavour combinations are really quite endless, and I think they make cute gifts (cue impending holiday season!). The flavour of the marshmallows develops a lot after a day or so, so I would recommend making them a day or two in advance before giving them as gifts. They also require tossing in the icing sugar and potato flour mix more than once over the first couple of days, particularly in humid conditions. They will otherwise absorb the first lot of icing sugar and potato flour quite quickly and become wet and sticky. And let’s face it, its always handy when you are making gifts, or just cooking generally, to have things that can be prepared in advance!

Homemade Marshmallows

Ingredients for Raspberry Marshmallows:

15g gelatine sheets

100g raspberry pulp

20g water

50g mild honey

240g sugar

100g egg whites

1 tsp freeze dried raspberry powder, sifted, optional

75g icing sugar

75g potato flour/starch

Ingredients for Passionfruit Marshmallows:

15g gelatine sheets

70g strained passionfruit pulp

40g water

50g mild honey

240g sugar

100g egg whites

1 tsp freeze dried passionfruit powder, optional

75g icing sugar

75g potato flour/starch

Method:

Place the gelatine in bowl of cold water, and leave to soak for 5 minutes. Then drain and set aside.

Place the egg whites in a bowl, and have everything ready to whip them once the sugar syrup starts to heat up (see following step).

In a large saucepan heat, the raspberry pulp or passionfruit pulp, water, honey and sugar until it reaches 114 degrees Celsius on a sugar thermometer. The sugar syrup will start rapidly boiling and increase in size, so make sure you use a large enough saucepan. This shouldn’t take too long, so once the mixture starts to increase in temperature, start whipping the egg whites on a low/medium speed.

Once the sugar mixture has reached 114 degrees Celsius, and the egg whites are whipped to stiff peaks, gently fold the sugar mixture and gelatine in to the egg whites.

Increase the speed of the mixer (medium to high speed), and allow the marshmallow to thicken and cool. This will take a few minutes. Add the freeze dried raspberry powder or passionfruit powder, if using, and continue to whip the marshmallow until it has cooled to at least 40 degrees Celsius. Whilst the marshmallow is thickening and cooling, lay a sheet of baking paper on a clean dry surface and generously dust with combination of the icing sugar and potato flour.

Once the marshmallow has thickened and cooled, pour it onto the prepared surface and spread into a rectangular shape, about 1.5-2cm in thickness. Dust with more icing sugar and potato flour, and leave to set.

I found it didn’t take very long for the marshmallow to set, but leave it about 30 mins to be sure - it will be set when it bounces back when pressed and the outside area dusted with the icing sugar and potato flour is no longer sticky. You may need to dust the marshmallow more than once depending on the humidity.

Once the marshmallow has set, cut into cubes, and toss cut marshmallows in a bowl filled with icing sugar and potato flour. Cut cubes of marshmallow may need dusting a couple more times as the first lot tends to be absorbed after a few hours (particularly in humid conditions). Keep a bowl or container of the icing sugar and potato flour handy so the marshmallows can be re-dusted if needed.