Folks, with the weaning of Natalie (the Funky Butte Ranch’s first goat mom)’s kid in early May, I’d like to begin a discussion here about the best way to make ice cream. Those of you ho have read Farewell, My Subaru know how serious an endeavor this is for me — ice cream, as far as I’m concerned, is a food group. So if I can make it locally, I cut my carbon miles significantly.
As a total newbie, I’ll start with solicitations for both recipes and ice cream makers. I’ve heard that vintage ice cream makers are better — that they are more metallic and durable than (shocker) plastic/digital varieties made in globalization-era slave factories. Natalie is a Nubian and the Walt (the father) is Saanen, so hopefully the milk will be fatty enough for ice cream (ice cream potential is the #1 — and probably #2-8 — reason I sought our Nubians on Craigslist). If this forum broadens into a cheese and yogurt recipe exchange as well, all the better. Happy local protein eating to all.
Move over Chunky Monkey, here comes Funky Goat - healthy and capriniciously tasty
I like to call my goat’s milk ice cream “reduced calorie.” For my first batch of ice cream, I made the mistake of using my usual recipe. It tasted like eating frozen eagle brand milk. Just try to imagine how disgusting that was! Now, I know to reduce the sugar by about half (hence the reduced calorie part). I will admit to using an ice cream maker probably made by globalization-era slaves, but it was a gift and what can you do?
We have a la mancha (crazy, neurotic creature), and alpine/saanen mix(the Mother Theresa of the goat world). We also had a nubian/saanen mix. The alpine cross makes the best ice cream, but it’s all to die for. Here’s my recipe and another warning. If you use organic vanilla and egss from the yard, your ice cream will be a strange brown color.
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
9 cups milk
4 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
Beat eggs, then add sugar. Beat until stiff. Add remaining ingredients and mix.
This recipe can be halved.
White Mountain hand crank ice cream maker. If you take care of it, it will outlast you. Cheers!
I second the White Mtn. maker. Expensive, yes; but we’re talking about “white-gold” here, so it’s worth it. They should include some “old-fashion” recipes; but whatever you do, go as full-fat as you desire; and don’t buy into the fat/cholesterol bogeyman - complete and “udder” BS.
Start basic - milk, cream, sweetener, eggs, vanilla - then build from there. peace
The faster you freeze your goat’s milk mix, the smaller the crystals and the smoother the ice cream. Dry ice works like a charm (-80 degrees Celcius), no ice cream maker required. About 1kg of dry ice, added to the mixer a little bit at a time, will yield a creamier product than you’ll get out of a commercial ice cream machine. Though, not sure of the environmental implications of solid CO2.
Congrats on the new book. I just received my copy (delivered to me in Scotland) from Michael Brody’s father in-law (my uncle). Good luck!
Check out Fankhauser’s Cheese Page. There’s lots of recipes for goat’s milk, including icecream. I haven’t made the icecream myself, but good luck!http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Ice_Cream/ICECREAM00.HTM
This is all great to read. My husband and I have been living in nomansland for a while and wondering why…but every year when we harvest from our garden and make homemade wild berry jams, we remember why we’ve sacrificed espresso drinks made by collegiate types and endless streams of retail-lined pavement.
Anyhoo, thanks for reinforcing that consumerism sucks.
Cool stuff, Doug.
We have an ice cream ball made by Industrial Revolution( http://www.icecreamrevolution.com)
It is non electric and shaped like a ball and reasonably priced. One port gets filled with rocksalt and ice, and the other gets filled with your ingredients.
Now comes the fun part: to make your ice cream you must roll it around for 30-40 minutes. Having a 3 and a 5 YO like we do helps with this part, but it can be rolled back and forth between grown ups, too.
To real ice cream you do need cream. To get the cream you need a cream separator and those aren’t cheap, but as a short term solution, frozen yogurt typically turns out yummier than ice milk.
BTW if you get one of these, get the “Mega”, it makes a quart at a time. We are a family of 2 adults and 2 kids and rarely have leftovers.
Good Luck
Ed
We just got our first goat (Alpine doe) from a local woman who successfully sells raw goat’s milk locally from her 1 acre farm. She also makes cheese, yogurt and ice cream and recommended the book Goats Produce Too by Mary J Toth. I don’t know how good the book is as my copy hasn’t arrived yet, but I hope it gets here soon. I’m also an ice cream lover and if we don’t start making some soon, we are going to drown in delicious creamy goat milk any day now!!
Thanks for the fun and helpful post, Catherine. And folks, don’t forget to see the July 15 Dispatch at the main page (www.dougfine.com) for the results of the first Funky Butte Ranch ice cream experiment!
Hi Doug, Just sent you a detailed email about a wonderful Donvier ice cream maker that’s hand cranked but requires no rock salt and a bunch of raw milk as well as vegan ice cream tips …. couldn’t tell if the message got through, was kind of long, let me know if you didn’t get it and I’ll try to recoup what was in there ….
P.S. I’m currently working at Coonridge Goat Dairy in Pie Town.
OK,well I guess I”ll just post it all here. The Donvier ice cream maker is available on Amazon for about $50 although I was lucky enough to find one for $6 at a local thrift store in Boulder. You put the cannister in the freezer for 12 hours minimum like you do with the electronic ones but then it’s hand cranked. When I read the reviews of many models on Amazon this one seemed to get the most consistent appreciation from users. I think it may be the only model that combines these features. Anyway I love it and so do my neighbors who are now borrowing it while I’m at Coonridge working with the goats!
I make delicious ice “cream” with just milk. You can add soy lecithin, raw honey, bananas and/or well cooked steel cut oats for added creaminess. The steel cut oats add no flavor of their own, but especially if you can skim some of the gelled oat fat off the top once a batch of oatmeal has chilled in the fridge it can really help your ice cream. Soy lecithin works well too and is good for you also, but it’s a little tricky to clean up and work with because of its consistency.
You can also make a medicinal strength infusion from cinnamon sticks which will leave you with a very delicious spicy liquid that has a very viscous consistency and that can also be added to your ice “cream.”
For the most amazing vegan ice cream (my neighbor was doing a cleanse and couldn’t eat dairy so we came up with this ….) combine raw soaked and peeled organic almonds, a little bit of filtered water, soy lecithin, cocoa, bananas, truly raw unfiltered honey, a little salt, and chilled cooked steel cut oats …. and voila …. it’s the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever tasted. If you don’t add too much water the consistency is fabulous. You do need a good blender to make this work with the almonds … ideally a VitaMix or BlendTec, but you can do the best with whatever you have.
With any of the ice creams you can always play with extracts such as vanilla, almond, mint, orange. Orange extract is especially sweet and you can get by with using less sweetener with chocolate orange ice cream, e.g.
I used to make homemade yogurt all the time with a heating pad.. I bet it would be good with goat’s milk too. I got the recipe from the tightwad gazette. I would cook about 4 cups of milk with a tsp of epsom salt and 1/2 cup powdered milk. Bring it to 180 degrees with a candy thermometer and stir it for 20 min. at that temperature (I would usually do other things around the kitchen and occasionally stir it).. Then let it cool a bit and put it in a glass bowl on top of a heating pad on low(and cover it with a lid and then an upside down pot on top). The next morning it would be yogurt - but not sour like the store-bought kind….just lovely creamy yogurt.
I am about to try out a modified version of jjjgea’s recipe posted above, I will be making it with strawberries, if it turns out well, I’ll post the process!