Let's play with starches (Updated)
- Catherine Mello
- Aug 17, 2017
- 3 min read
Last weekend to play in the kitchen before I face my adult responsibilities. Coming up next in the kitchen, over several pairwise tests... The Cashew Ice Milk base (sans aquafaba, due to unknown potential interactions) with about 20g/serving of:
(DONE) Sweet (glutinous) rice flour - matcha
(DONE) Coconut flour - extra coconut extract
(DONE) Ube (purple yam) powder - vanilla extract
(DONE) Dehydrated potato flakes - butter or caramel extract
(DONE) Arrowroot starch - orange blossom water?
(PROCRASTINATING) Corn starch - hmmm.
(I'm curious about potato and tapioca starch but not sure I can be bothered to procure either.)
(DONE) Toasted oats! That's a starch, right?
(DONE) Breakfast cereal (corn flakes)
(DONE) Cornmeal - nutmeg & brown sugar
(PLANNED) Bulgur wheat
(PLANNED) Semolina
(DONE) Defatted sesame Flour - vanilla and hint of cinnamon
(CHILLING) Defatted almond flour (powdered almond butter)
These additions impart approximately 70 calories to a 73-calorie serving, with the exception of coconut flour (fat content). I don't intend to remove any solids (e.g. polydextrose) to compensate for these at this time. I don't anticipate the flavors to substantially affect outcomes. The simplest way to keep the process constant would be to make a slurry out of each "starch" and briefly cook it in a just simmering base.
Coconut Flour vs. Sweet Rice Flour
These were made from a common base which was divided once slightly warm. Once the flours were added, the respective mixtures were cooked for a few minutes. Both were churned fairly quickly: after about 4 minutes (single serving, mind you), the coconut flour version needed manual churning and was definitely done after 8 , while the rice flour took somewhat longer
Coconut flour imparted a thick, slightly grainy (I use King Arthur Flour brand, which is coarser) texture and subtle taste of coconut which I kicked up a notch with coconut extract. This reminded me more of a coconut gelato in texture. Would do again, and would definitely consider as part of a base that tends to be grainy or have larger ice crystals -- possibly a tofu base. Might also be nice in higher concentrations in a water base?
Rice flour, as it cooked, resulted in a very elastic base (sorry: snot-like) but once churned gave the ice cream a pleasant firm, chewy bite and fine texture (good ice crystal control). I would definitely consider using this in the Red Velvet base to emulate the firmness of Enlightened's version. I overdid the matcha - 2 t would have been sufficient for a single serving.
Note: Oddly enough, both of these bases were frozen hard and had to be microwaved 15 seconds to be scoopable. This doesn't normally happen to me. Unless the freezer was being particularly zealous (which I failed to notice), I have to wonder if adding 20g of solids and consequently reducing the concentration of other ingredients, somehow affected the freezing point depression. (Adding solids of any kind lowers the freezing point, so... color me confused.) Or I mismeasured another ingredient?
Potato Flakes vs. Ube Powder
Sorry for the poor pictures. These were frozen pretty hard and I was in a hurry.
Similar process and churning times as the two flours. The white potato flakes version had a much thicker, starchier texture as it was cooking, whereas the ube powder did not seem to dissolve quite as much. As both impart flavor to the base, I decided to work with those. These both yielded firm, but finely textured base - think powdery, but in a good way. The white potato had a good "bite" to it, and noticeable potato flavor when paired with some light butterscotch flavors. I would not recommend using this in this concentration unless you a) want ice cream that is FIRM, and b) want a potato flavor (which I dig). Perfectly viable for a "Spudnik Lite", though the creaminess of the supercharged version was missed here. The ube had a less pronounced powdery potato texture, but in the same vein.
I don't really have notes to go with these guys...
Toasted Corn Flakes vs. Toasted Cornmeal
The corn flakes ice cream was inspired by the Momofuku Milk Bar recipe, except (of course) I blended the softened corn flakes into the base instead of straining them out. Lovely taste, but I'd use more next time.
The cornmeal version was inspired by this Indian Pudding Ice Cream recipe. It's a good flavor, but even after soaking overnight the cornmeal stayed unplesantly firm and gritty - did I over-toast it?
Sesame Flour
This one was just to see if I could get decent sesame flavor adding only about 75 calories per serving. Actually, yes, and the texture was delightfully stretchy, somehow. I pan-toasted the sesame flour until fragrant, which I suspect helped.
