My first batch of Ice Cream

Sometime in the beginning of 2023, after talking to my therapist about having trouble finding passion in life he asked me, 'So what kind of things do you enjoy?'

I struggled to provide an answer; 2022 was frequent 60 hour workweeks, staff shortages, and figuring out a learning curve after a promotion. All of my time was invested in work and stacking cash for my planned proposal to my wife, there wasn't much thought of how to enjoy time for myself.

One of my forefront adult hobbies is cooking. I enjoy cooking and I deeply enjoy seeing other people enjoy the food that I make. Cooking is my favorite love language. Cliche I know, but I believe it all started with my grandmother and a lot of my family members both enjoy food and enjoy cooking. Someday I'll get into more details blogging it.

Anyhow, I told my therapist that I would like to make ice cream to sell someday...I mean, almost everybody loves ice cream. It doesn't matter the time or season of the year, Ice cream is enjoyed all year round. I would frequently go out of my way to take my friends out to the city to try out new and interesting scoops.

My wife bought me a cook book written by the creators of Salt and Straw Ice Cream. This was the start of my inspiration. Little by little we bought cold containers, spatulas, a kitchen-aid attachment of a cold ice cream mixing bowl, and finally the ingredients to make my first ice cream base.

I made the ice cream base...MONTHS ago. I set it and left in in the fridge for a couple days before moving it into the freezer and in typical ADHD fashion, I suddenly lost interest and I forgot about it for the next couple months. This past week I finally picked myself up after drawing inspiration from a friend to finish making ice cream.

On a side tangent, My friend Erik, is my wife's best friend's husband. I introduced him and his wife to mochi donuts that I bought from Third Culture Bakery and started creating mochi donuts of his own. Months later, he now operates his own side hustle making mochi donuts to deliver to clients. I had never been more inspired by his story of creating something from a simple interest to suddenly selling to strangers.

I picked up the Salt and Straw Ice Cream book for some inspiration and knowledge and went straight to work...and it still took days.

The months old ice cream base had to be defrosted first and I had to figure out which flavor will I be using as my first creation. I decided to go with a variation of Salt&Straw's Freckled Chocolate. Next I had to whip out the cold mixing bowl which had been exiled from the freezer to my closet after months of no-use. Using the mixing bowl meant freezing the bowl to a minimum of 16 hours or at least until the inner coolant was solidified from sub zero temperatures. Putting the Cold Mixing bowl in the freezer took me 2 days because the first night the coolant was not solid enough! I had to remove all the other old frost-bitten meats out of the way to place my cold mixing bowl to the far back where the vent was in order to get adequate freezing. This waiting time took another 8 hours because I had to come back from work to start the churning process.

My first mistake was not having the mixing bowl cold enough. My second mistake was not reading the recipe to the tee. I completely overlooked some of the steps and missed creating a chocolate ice cream base for my freckled chocolate ice cream. Missing this step ultimately wasn't too terrible as it created somewhat of a balance in my palette. The cream to chocolate ratio wasn't too bad; because of the lack of chocolate ice cream base, my family was able to enjoy the chocolate freckles without being overwhelmed by an additional chocolate base.

My third mistake, a criticism that I received, was that the ice cream was too...salty. I used flaky sea salt per the recipe but perhaps I used too much of it. I believe that I used a generous grab as opposed to a light pinch. I was also supposed to use the salt in creating the chocolate base but instead it was mixed into the chocoolate freckling. The chocolate freckling was made of about 5 ounces of nestle dark chocolate chips, 4 teaspoons of fine granular sugar, 4 teaspoons premium olive oil, and a generous 'pinch' of sea salt melted in a metal bowl sitting atop a pot of lightly boiling water. This chocolate freckling never quite turned liquid enough and eventually has to be set aside for a couple hours because the freezing bowl was not cold enough.

Basically, my freckled chocolate ice cream is simply a basic ice cream base with a salted dark chocolate freckling.

I wasn't criticized too harshly; My family enjoyed it but some of them experienced a saltier-than-normal aftertaste. Me personally, I really enjoyed the texture and thought it was well balanced.

SO. Notes to self: READ THE DIRECTIONS. DON'T ADD TOO MUCH SALT. MAKE MORE ICE CREAM BASE AND DON'T WAIT TOO LONG. FREEZE THE BOWL IN THE BACK OF THE FREEZER, NOT THE FRONT.

Most importantly...keep trying, and don't give up. Let's continue the small stuff but lets start to think about how to push the envelope.