Strawberry Milk Gelato

Fruit reads fresh and faintly tart rather than jammy, and the body stays soft and creamy on the spoon instead of setting hard into pink ice.

Blend 300 g of fruit into a kilo of mix with nothing to compensate, and the freezer hands back a pink brick that scrapes instead of scooping. Fruit that is only about 9% solids arrives as 27 g of solids and 273 g of free water, and free water is precisely what grows into crystals overnight. Three answers sit in this sheet: 54 g of non-fat dry milk to put back the solids and the body the water diluted, dextrose to drop the freezing point without adding more sweetness, and glucose powder to thicken the unfrozen phase so the crystals that do form stay too small to feel on the tongue.

The answer to 273 g of water is 54 g of non-fat dry milk and 60 g of glucose powder. The milk powder gives MSNF back, closing at 8.77 percent in a 6 to 10 range. The glucose powder buys dry extract at POD 44, so it adds body without adding sweetness, which matters because sugars close at 19.59 percent against a 22 percent ceiling while solids sit at 35.72 against a 33 percent floor. Both constraints bite at once, and glucose powder is the one ingredient that answers both.

Dextrose is held to just 15 g for the same reason. It is the strongest freezing point depressant of the three sugars here at PAC 173 against sucrose's 100, but it also spends sweetness and sugar budget, and PAC is already comfortable at 259.53. Sucrose takes 110 g and does the actual sweetening. Fat comes from 130 g of cream and nothing else, closing at 5.81 percent, and there is no yolk anywhere: egg fat and egg flavour both sit on top of the fresh aroma that is the entire point of a strawberry gelato.

Ingredients

Makes 1000 g of finished base.

Method

White base pasteurised and aged cold, macerated raw puree folded in at the end

1. 1Whisk every dry ingredient together first: sugars, milk powder, stabiliser and salt. Dry-blending them stops the stabiliser clumping when it meets liquid.
2. 2Warm the liquids to 40 C (104 F), then rain the dry mix in while whisking hard.
3. 3Heat to 82 C (180 F) and hold for 2 minutes so the stabiliser hydrates.
4. 4Chill in an ice bath to under 5 C (41 F) within 2 hours. Slow cooling is where bacteria and coarse crystals both start.
5. 5Age 6 to 12 hours in the fridge under 5 C (41 F). This is when the stabiliser and the milk protein take up water.
6. 6Fold the fruit in cold, after ageing. Heating it costs you the fresh aroma and nothing is gained.
7. 7Freeze in a shallow metal pan 2 to 3 cm deep, breaking the crystals with a fork every 30 to 40 minutes, 4 to 6 times.
8. 8Freeze firm, then temper 10 to 15 minutes in the fridge before scooping.

The balance

All six against the professional range for Milk Gelato with Fruit.

This sheet is a water management problem and two numbers show it. Solids close at 35.72 percent against a 33 percent floor, with water at 64.28 percent inside a 57 to 67 range, which is what 300 g of a 9 percent solids fruit does to a kilo. MSNF at 8.77 percent in a 6 to 10 band is the recovery: 54 g of non-fat dry milk is an unusually high dose for a gelato and it is there because the fruit diluted the dairy, not because the recipe wanted extra milk flavour. Sugars land at 19.59 percent in a tight 17 to 22 window, and POD 171.7 against a 200 ceiling shows the sweetness is not being pushed. Fat at 5.81 percent sits mid band in 4 to 8.5 and comes entirely from 130 g of cream, while protein reads 3.48 in a 2.5 to 4.5 range. Lactose is 4.78 percent of the mass and 7.44 percent of the water, so despite the heavy milk powder dose, crystallised lactose is not the thing that will make this one grainy.

If it goes wrong

Allergens: milk

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