{"id":233,"date":"2004-11-26T09:48:30","date_gmt":"2004-11-26T09:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/233"},"modified":"2004-11-26T09:48:30","modified_gmt":"2004-11-26T09:48:30","slug":"liquid-nitrogen-ice-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/233","title":{"rendered":"Liquid-Nitrogen Ice Cream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I threw a house-cooling party, and I figure what can be better to cool a house than liquid-nitrogen ice-cream? I made up a big batch of unflavored ice-cream base, got some lN2 and had people bring whatever flavorings they wanted to try mixing into a micro-batch of ice cream. Having learned from my mistakes the last two times I&#8217;ve made it, this stuff was some of the creamiest, best ice cream I&#8217;ve had.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" alt=\"Liquid-nitrogen ice-cream\" src=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/supplemental\/233\/ln2.jpg\" \/>  <\/p>\n<p>A few lessons learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whenever the recipe calls for milk, half-and-half or cream, use whipping cream. Depending on how hard you mix it, this&#8217;ll make soft ice cream anywhere from creamy to frozen-mousse.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s really hard to hand-stir quickly enough to keep hard chunks from forming (and besides, hand-stirring is <em>so<\/em> last-century). I expect egg-beaters would work, but I really like the results we got with my cordless drill and the the quart-capacity <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcmaster.com\/nav\/enter.asp?pagenum=430\">McMaster coil-spring mixing attachment<\/a> (part #35325K51, halfway down the page). If it&#8217;s worth doing, it&#8217;s worth doing with power tools.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www-safety.deas.harvard.edu\/services\/nitrogen.html\">Liquid nitrogen<\/a> is deceptively safe-looking, at least unless something goes wrong. Safety goggles are a must, and long gloves are recommended. It&#8217;s fairly safe if it splashes on your skin because you&#8217;re protected by an insulating layer of nitrogen vapor, but don&#8217;t let it pool against your skin (duh) or super-cool metal or other material that then touches skin. Also be sure you&#8217;ve got good ventilation.<\/li>\n<li>Wasabi &#038;amp Mexican mole ice-cream is better than it sounds, but still not good. Balsamic vinegar &#038; olive-oil ice-cream is nasty on its own, but is OK on crackers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The winning flavor of the night, by my taste at least, was the orange-raspberry sorbet. In the interests of posterity (and so I can find it when I want it next time), here&#8217;s the recipe:<\/p>\n<p>Ingredients:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 cup baker&#8217;s sugar (aka fine granulated sugar)<\/li>\n<li>3\/4 pint water<\/li>\n<li>zest of 2 oranges<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 pint fresh-squeezed orange juice<\/li>\n<li>juice from a whole lemon<\/li>\n<li>3\/4 cup raspberry lambic<\/li>\n<li>about 2 pints liquid nitrogen<sup>1<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mix sugar, water and orange zest together in a saucepan, stirring under low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to a boil and and let boil until you have a syrup \u2014 roughly 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. When cool, stir in orange juice, lemon juice and raspberry lambic. This is your sorbet base. (You could put this in an ice-cream maker at this point, should you want to make it the old-fashioned way.)<\/p>\n<p>Put base in a large bowl, and don safety glasses. If the bowl is metal, you&#8217;ll probably want those gloves as well. Slowly pour liquid nitrogen into center of bowl, mixing all the while with electric mixer. (We use a tough plastic mug with a handle to pour the lN2 \u2014 don&#8217;t use a metal cup.) Stop every few seconds to blow the fog away and to break up any solid ice-patches that have formed. Keep adding lN2 until sorbet is completely frozen. Sorbet will still be soft-serve, that&#8217;s OK.<\/p>\n<p>I hear that for best results you should put the sorbet (or ice cream) into the freezer for about 15 minutes to even out the ice crystals and &#8220;set,&#8221; but I&#8217;ve never had the patience for that. Do make sure all the lN2 has boiled away though before putting any in your mouth, or else you might get a rude surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:  x-small\"><sup>1<\/sup> Ask your local lab-supply store or physics grad student for food- or medical-grade liquid nitrogen, or follow these three easy steps to make your own!  1) Collect about 1000 pints of air for every 1 pint lN2 desired. 2) Chill air until nitrogen condenses (around -320 degrees Fahrenheit). 3) Skim off liquid nitrogen and keep in insulated container. Should any liquid oxygen sublimate, save for making flamb\u00e9!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend I threw a house-cooling party, and I figure what can be better to cool a house than liquid-nitrogen ice-cream? I made up a big batch of unflavored ice-cream base, got some lN2 and had people bring whatever flavorings they wanted to try mixing into a micro-batch of ice cream. Having learned from my mistakes the last two times I&#8217;ve made it, this stuff was some of the creamiest, best ice cream I&#8217;ve had.<\/p>\n<p>  <img decoding=\"async\" align=\"right\" alt=\"Liquid-nitrogen ice-cream\" src=\"http:\/\/docbug.com\/blog\/supplemental\/233\/ln2.jpg\" \/>  <\/p>\n<p>A few lessons learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whenever the recipe calls for milk, half-and-half or cream, use whipping cream. Depending on how hard you mix it, this&#8217;ll make soft ice cream anywhere from creamy to frozen-mousse.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s really hard to hand-stir quickly enough to keep hard chunks from forming (and besides, hand-stirring is <em>so<\/em> last-century). I expect egg-beaters would work, but I really like the results we got with my cordless drill and the the quart-capacity <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcmaster.com\/nav\/enter.asp?pagenum=430\">McMaster coil-spring mixing attachment<\/a> (part #35325K51, halfway down the page). If it&#8217;s worth doing, it&#8217;s worth doing with power tools.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www-safety.deas.harvard.edu\/services\/nitrogen.html\">Liquid nitrogen<\/a> is deceptively safe-looking, at least unless something goes wrong. Safety goggles are a must, and long gloves are recommended. It&#8217;s fairly safe if it splashes on your skin because you&#8217;re protected by an insulating layer of nitrogen vapor, but don&#8217;t let it pool against your skin (duh) or super-cool metal or other material that then touches skin. Also be sure you&#8217;ve got good ventilation.<\/li>\n<li>Wasabi &#038;amp Mexican mole ice-cream is better than it sounds, but still not good. Balsamic vinegar &#038; olive-oil ice-cream is nasty on its own, but is OK on crackers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The winning flavor of the night, by my taste at least, was the orange-raspberry sorbet. In the interests of posterity (and so I can find it when I want it next time), here&#8217;s the recipe:<\/p>\n<p>Ingredients:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1 cup baker&#8217;s sugar (aka fine granulated sugar)<\/li>\n<li>3\/4 pint water<\/li>\n<li>zest of 2 oranges<\/li>\n<li>1\/2 pint fresh-squeezed orange juice<\/li>\n<li>juice from a whole lemon<\/li>\n<li>3\/4 cup raspberry lambic<\/li>\n<li>about 2 pints liquid nitrogen<sup>1<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mix sugar, water and orange zest together in a saucepan, stirring under low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to a boil and and let boil until you have a syrup \u2014 roughly 5 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. When cool, stir in orange juice, lemon juice and raspberry lambic. This is your sorbet base. (You could put this in an ice-cream maker at this point, should you want to make it the old-fashioned way.)<\/p>\n<p>Put base in a large bowl, and don safety glasses. If the bowl is metal, you&#8217;ll probably want those gloves as well. Slowly pour liquid nitrogen into center of bowl, mixing all the while with electric mixer. (We use a tough plastic mug with a handle to pour the lN2 \u2014 don&#8217;t use a metal cup.) Stop every few seconds to blow the fog away and to break up any solid ice-patches that have formed. Keep adding lN2 until sorbet is completely frozen. Sorbet will still be soft-serve, that&#8217;s OK.<\/p>\n<p>I hear that for best results you should put the sorbet (or ice cream) into the freezer for about 15 minutes to even out the ice crystals and &#8220;set,&#8221; but I&#8217;ve never had the patience for that. Do make sure all the lN2 has boiled away though before putting any in your mouth, or else you might get a rude surprise.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size:  x-small\"><sup>1<\/sup> Ask your local lab-supply store or physics grad student for food- or medical-grade liquid nitrogen, or follow these three easy steps to make your own!  1) Collect about 1000 pints of air for every 1 pint lN2 desired. 2) Chill air until nitrogen condenses (around -320 degrees Fahrenheit). 3) Skim off liquid nitrogen and keep in insulated container. Should any liquid oxygen sublimate, save for making flamb\u00e9!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}