Book Review: Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook by Tyler Malek and JJ Goode

https://amzn.to/3VlczaS

This has got to be the strangest ice cream book I own. I like daring and unusual flavors, but this one takes the cake (pun absolutely intended). I've read through it pretty carefully and tried a caramel sauce from the book, though not any of the ice creams yet, and well ... it's weird. It's not bad by any means, just unexpected.

Not because of its unusual flavors (of which it has many), but in its combination of flavors. Most ice cream cookbooks include recipes for three things: 1) classic flavors, 2) house specialties, and 3) mix-ins and toppings. 

Every ice cream shop is going to have the classics: vanilla, chocolate, mint, caramel, strawberry, coffee, etc., and most ice cream cookbooks are going to include the author's take on those. S&S on the other hand has only one, a recipe for double-fold vanilla.   All the other house specialties utilize classic flavors (strawberry-honey balsamic with black pepper ice cream, or salted sweet cream ice cream with caramel ribbons). 

In other words, this book leans extremely heavily on the house specialties (which I kind of like), and I love trying new combinations and unusual flavors. But ... ice cream happens to be something that is reliably vegetarian (if not vegan), and this book isn't an exception, not exactly. As a long-time mostly-vegetarian, that is also something I appreciate, but as a pragmatist, I'm fine with the fact that most ice cream books are going to have at least one recipe that includes candied bacon, and there is one such offering here (bacon caramel). 

But it doesn't stop with bacon; the irony makes me giggle a little. It has recipes for/including turkey (turkey skin/stock/boullion/fat), chicken (stock/boullion/fat/skin), gelatin, and …. pork blood. Take a gander:

• Xocolatl De David’s Bacon Raleigh Bar Ice Cream (gelatin and bacon)
• Chocolate "Sardines" Ice Cream (gelatin)
• Creepy Crawly Critters Ice Cream (candied bugs)
• Grandma Dracula’s Blood Pudding Ice Cream (pig blood)
• Buttered Mashed Potatoes & Gravy Ice Cream (chicken stock and bouillon)
• Salted Caramel Thanksgiving Turkey Ice Cream (turkey stock, bouillon, and skin)

Some of the omnivorous recipes actually sound pretty good, and if I still ate meat, I'd happily give them a try (the Xocolatl one is salted sweet cream ice cream with chocolate-covered pecans, caramel infused with bacon, and chocolate marshmallow nougat, and the "Sardines" recipe is chocolate with chunks of Swedish Fish-infused jello). There is one I might learn to like if I could get past the crunchy chitin from bugs (the creepy crawly flavor is tequila, orange, and matcha ice cream with chocolate-covered crickets and coconut-toffee candied insects). But the last three kinda turn my stomach (brandied chocolate pig's blood, mashed potato ice cream with white chocolate/chicken bouillon ripple, and turkey ice cream with turkey skin brittle).  I don't think I'd like those even if I were still omnivorous. 

But those recipes aside, 51 of the 57 recipes are vegetarian, and there are many that sound great, in particular Stumptown Coffee & Burnside Bourbon Ice Cream, Almond Brittle With Salted Ganache Ice Cream, and the Honey-Lavender.  There are many others that sound delicious as well. 

As for the mix-ins, they are pretty standard, including the usual chocolate sauces and brittles, cookies, and brownies.  The caramel sauce is really quite excellent - it remains pliable when frozen (kitchen chemistry to the rescue!), instead of turning hard like stiff taffy the way most caramels do when cold.

It uses a philosophy that I really like, providing three different bases to which you add flavorings: an ice cream base, a sorbet base, and even a vegan ice cream base. 

The vegan base is another area where they get weird.  First of all, the presence of a base suggests that it's neutral-flavored and easily adaptable, but in this case they only use it in a single recipe, and they give zero instructions for using it with other flavors.  In fact, their vegan base probably cannot be widely used as it is STRONGLY coconutty, and the coconut would overshadow most other flavors.  So, this feels (particularly in the context of a meatier-than-usual offering) almost phoned-in, included so they can claim it's vegan-friendly when it really isn't. 

So: if you are looking for dairy-free desserts, look elsewhere (it doesn't even include sorbets which are typically vegan). But if you are interested in interesting flavors, this might be a fine choice.

Ice Cream Recipe Review: Rose Levi Beranbaum's Chocolate Ice Cream

"Chocolate Ice Cream" from Rose's Ice Cream Bliss by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

• The online recipe can be found here. 
• My other Chocolate ice cream reviews can be found here.

This is an unusual recipe in that it includes a little malted milk powder and a tiny bit of instant espresso powder (1/16 tsp for the whole recipe). It's not as deeply chocolate as I prefer, but it's really quite delicious, perhaps the best "regular" chocolate ice cream I've ever made.

It was a little hard getting all the cocoa dissolved, so next time, I think I'd put the salt, espresso powder, sugar, malt powder, and cocoa in the saucepan first and stir it together well, then add the yolks, liquid sugar, milk, and the first part of cream on top of that.  Whisk, then turn on the heat.

Creating the custard went really fast because I set my pan on the scale and used the gram measures from Rose's book, hitting tare between each ingredient.  I also cooked the custard in the pan (as the recipe directs) instead of the double boiler, and it seemed fine.  Once chilled, it was quite thick, but still pourable. 

Substitutions and Techniques:

• Turbinado sugar instead of white sugar (always) as I prefer the flavor.
• Tapioca syrup instead of glucose.
• Nielsen Massey vanilla extract.
• Lake Champlain Unsweetened Organic Cocoa - this really is one of the best ones - excellent flavor and it's finely ground enough that it easily goes into solution with little effort, without imparting a powdery taste.

Results:

• Same day: Wonderfully smooth texture, nice milder chocolate flavor.
• Next day: Smooth, nice texture, slightly less scoopable than I'd like.

Uses:

• I stirred in about 1.5 ounces of crispy toasted sweetened coconut chips/flakes and while the coconut chips are a nice texture element, they are quite delicate, and the flavor gets a little lost against the chocolate.  I think chunks of coconut macaroons (Mounds candy bars?) would be better, or maybe toasted shredded coconut - anything to make the coconut element bigger, and a little more forward.  
• I also stirred in 1/4 cup of toasted slivered almonds because that's all I had on hand.  The toasted almonds held their own nicely against the backdrop of the chocolate, but I think it needed double the amount I used.

Ice Cream Recipe Review: Jeni Britton Bauer's Olive Oil Ice Cream with Roasted Pepitas

  "Olive Oil Ice Cream with Roasted, Salted Pepitas" from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer.

• The online recipe can be found here. 
• My other ice cream reviews of unusual flavors can be found here.

Note: Pepitas are a variety of pumpkin seed with no hard hull and a thin, delicate thin.  They are common in Mexican cooking. 

I've been planning to make this recipe ever since I ordered an award-winning, freshly pressed olive oil (link below) from California two months ago. I know from unfortunate past experience that rancid olive oil is unbelievably nasty, so it was important to me to be absolutely sure that the olive oil had zero hint of rancidity.

But, I must admit this ice cream flavor kinda scares me. Really.  I've had the book for more than a decade, and I've never managed to try it, despite being intrigued by the idea. Olive oil? Seriously, that's for salad dressings and sautéing veggies, right?

So, I finally decided to stop being afraid of the flavor and give it a try. I figured that the worst case is that I end up composting it, wasting 1/4 cup of a very nice olive oil. 

.... And, to my surprise, it's pretty good! I don't think I'll ever be a huge fan, and unless someone in my family falls in love with it, I probably won't make it again, but it's definitely not going in the compost.

There is a faint hint of olives in the flavor, which is decidedly strange (but not bad) but shouldn't be because olives are fruits, and sniffing the chilled (but unchurned custard) it is a little off-putting because it makes me think of sautéed vegetables. But the colder the base got, the better it was. Once it was churned/soft-serve, it was pretty good, and once it was hard frozen, all off-putting notes disappeared, and it's just good.  I think maybe a little lemon zest would be a wonderful note.

Here's something weird: it's an unusually creamy ice cream, which is counter-intuitive, given that it has LESS cream than other recipes (you reduce the cream, and then make up the fat content with the olive oil).  

The real standout though, was discovering that roasted pepitas are insanely delicious in ice cream, and that discovery alone was worth the effort of making an ice cream I may not make again.

Substitutions and Techniques:

• Turbinado sugar instead of white sugar (always) as I prefer the flavor.
• Tapioca starch instead of cornstarch (1:1 ratio).
• Tapioca syrup as the liquid sugar instead of corn syrup (1:1 ratio).
• I only had raw pepitas on hand, so I tossed them into a dry skillet with some fine popcorn salt, and stirred almost constantly. When they started to pop and snap, I removed the pan from the heat and froze them. 
• I used Katz Rock Hill Ranch Estate Grown Chef's Pick Extra Virgin Olive Oil harvested in November/December 2023. I wanted to ensure that the ice cream had zero hint of rancidity, so I made sure to get olive oil I was certain was fresh.

Results:

• Same day: Silky smooth, OK flavor, wonderfully crunchy pepitas.
• Next day: Silky smooth,  nice flavor, wonderfully crunchy pepitas. Nicely scoopable.

Uses: 

• I don't think this flavor is one that lends itself to a float or a sundae. But that's OK - it stands on its own nicely.