Having an Ice Cream Social and I need ideas of kinds of ice cream to make. Check my list -so far

I would eliminate the chocolate sorbet but it is one of my husband's favorite. I was thinking (nt)

mango if I can find some ripe ones.
If you are willing to come over the bridge I would be thrilled to meet you. The date is August 25th.

 
This is really good. It was too sweet for me, so I added about 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 tsp instant espresso.

 
The selection looks well balanced. Chocolate, fruit, caramel, nut...Perfect. Can you talk a little

about your process and what kind of maker you have? What kind of volume are we talking about here? How many days in advance do you churn the ice cream? How many people do you anticipate serving?

Over the past year, I've been a little obsessed about ice cream. smileys/smile.gif I'm curious about how one would even tackle an ice cream social. I have an older model maker with a compressor so I can churn batch after batch consecutively, but I couldn't do much in the way of volume...

 
ok, I have a Simac Gelataio Magnum Plus. It is a self contained refrigerated unit with a

removable 1 quart bowl. This is the second Simac I have had-the first lasted at least 20 years.

For ice creams I usually use a stirred custard base of 1 cup each heavy & light cream, 2-3 egg yolks and 1/2 sugar. For some ice creams-vanilla, coffee, nut etc, I will steep the flavoring in the scalded cream for a day before I make the remaining base. I find this intensifies the flavor. Always remember that cold food has to be more highly flavored. I have just started playing around with other types of bases but haven't been good about marking which work best.

I will buy the cardboard quart containers to put the ice creams in when it is done churning. The only problem with them is that they are cumbersome for storage.

I have had as many as 60 people for the ice cream social but that was unusual. Usually it is between 20 and 40 people. I make a double batch of big flavors-vanilla, armagnac hazelnut praline but just a quart of the rest. But I usually make over ten flavors of ice cream so that makes 3-4 gallons of ice cream. Over the week before the party I will make and churn the bases. It is a process since these are cooked custard bases but on some of them I can double the custard and make two or three bases with it.

I usually clear out my refrigerator freezer the day of the party and put all the ice creams in there. If there are a lot of people there at once we might put the containers in an ice bin on the counter. Unless it is very hot that will keep them.

 
Abby, how do you present the ice creams...what I mean is...

how do you keep them all cold during the social? Is this held indoors or outdoors?

 
I went to one once where the ice cream came out of the kitchen

in huge bowls of all kinds of ice cream balls about the size of baseballs. Some were rolled in toasted coconut, some in chocolate, others in sprinkles of different colors. It was beautiful and scrumptious!

He had a LOT of help to get this ready!!

Needless to say, his popularity rating jumped about 5 stars! (He was the EXO at a US Govt office in a developing country -- the "yes or no", usually "no" man).

 
Yowza. That's a ton of work! I've seen pre-freezing scoops and then dip them in chocolate,

freeze again. It's a ton of prep on the front end, but probably makes things easier for serving.

 
I went to a function where it was presented in the same way, Pat. I can still taste the pineapple

ice cream with macadamias which was rolled in toasted coconut.

It was soooooooo good~

 
I'm a big fan of the self .contained refrigerated units. Thanks for shedding light on your process

it makes total sense.

Does your schedule look something like this:

Day 1: Make the steeped bases. Chill over night.
Day 2: Strain the steeped bases & churn. While the steeped bases churn, make the non-steeped custard bases. Chill over night.
Day 3: Churn the custard bases. While those churn, make the sorbets (non-egg, non-heated varieties). Chill.
Day 4 (early AM): Churn the sorbets.
Day 4 PM: Ice Cream Social.

In case anyone else is thinking about ice cream socials, here's a few notes about the recipes above: The Chocolate Sorbet is a great recipe because it doesn't have the eggs. Also, I love that Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. It comes together very quickly. (If you have strong coffee on hand, you don't even need heat.) If you have lemon curd on hand (or make it ahead of time) that Lemon Ice Cream base comes together in a snap. (People in my office are *still* talking about it--nearly a year later!)

Guess you can tell I've become a little ice cream obsessed lately! smileys/wink.gif

 
Nothing quite as fancy as has been described. I have a number of ice cream scoops and we scoop to

order. If there are a number of people waiting for ice cream we take the containers and put them in a bus bucket filled with ice. Usually it is not a problem for them to be out of the freezer for that short a time unless it is brutally hot out. We do the scooping indoors with the house and yard available for people to sit.

 
That is close to my schedule but no ice cream is churned the day of the

social. It needs time to harden in the freezer. One day I might get adventuresome and do frozen drinks during the social. As it is we usually serve the sparking Spanish cava during.

I have lemon curd on hand and probably will swirl it through the super lemon ice cream. The chocolate sorbet is like fudgsicles.

 
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