01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3 days ago | prev | next |

Too bad dairy is subsidized, my ice cream is so expensive

voisin 3 days ago | root | parent | next |

I am confused by this statement which appears to be a non sequitur. If it is subsidized then shouldn’t it be artificially inexpensive? Can you clarify?

pfdietz 3 days ago | root | parent |

Milk prices are artificially inflated in the US, by a formula based on the distance from Wisconsin, I believe.

aziaziazi 3 days ago | root | parent | prev | next |

How that subsidy work?

A. If closer to W: subsidize to lower the price down. Ice cream cheaper in W and at its original price further away

B. If further to W: tax to inflate the prices. Ice cream is at its original price in W and more expansive further away

I cannot see how you could have subsidies AND inflated prices at the same time. Maybe A and B are used simultaneously? More clarification would be appreciated :)

medler 3 days ago | root | parent |

Milk pricing in the US is enormously complicated, but as I understand it, there is effectively a floor on the price of drinkable milk. This keeps some milk producers in business who would otherwise exit the market. As you may know, price floors lead to oversupply, so the government sometimes steps in to buy the excess supply, or will just pay producers to dispose of it.

So yes, as counterintuitive as it sounds, milk is both subsidized and sold at inflated prices

pfdietz 3 days ago | root | parent |

The US government has an enormous cheese stockpile.

https://www.farmlinkproject.org/stories-and-features/cheese-...

aziaziazi 3 days ago | root | parent |

Wow crazy indeed. What a waste.

> Though demand is declining, production is not. It has risen 13% since 2010. In 2016, the American dairy industry dumped a whopping 43 million gallons of milk

> The dairy industry received 43 billion and 36.3 billion dollars in 2016 and 2017, respectively, from the federal government.

> It is important that special interests do not acquire billions annually for an industry that knowingly overproduces, not to mention pollutes the environment, in the face of declining consumption

zabzonk 3 days ago | prev | next |

Yeah, the secret of a good ice cream is the egg and cream custard, and churning while it freezes. Which does make it a bit of a pain, but well worth it.

irons 3 days ago | root | parent | next |

My go-to ice cream book is Jeni Britton-Bauer's https://jenis.com/products/jenis-splendid-ice-creams-at-home (which won a James Beard award), and her base for all but a few custard recipes is milk, cream, sugar, starch, and cream cheese. I love eggs, but they are not a required element of top-shelf ice cream.

zabzonk 3 days ago | root | parent | prev | next |

starch has no place in home-made ice cream, though it is there in various forms in commercial ones. cream cheese might be a good idea though. i once made smoked salmon ice cream (intended as a starter) which i could imagine being improved with a bit of cheese.

yareally 2 days ago | root | parent |

I think he means corn starch (which is also common in gelato made without eggs). There's better stabilizers out there, but Jeni suggested in her book the most common people can find.

The cream cheese is for adding more milk solids and most cream cheese has some stabilizers in it as well.

Something like a 4:2:1 ratio of locus bean gum, guar gum and lambda carrigean makes a good stabilizer. About a gram of LBG per quart

Jeni's books have some great ideas for recipes, but if you're interested in the science behind ice cream making the recipe book by Dana Cree is much more informative

Most (but not all) good recipes also measure in mass (grams) instead of volume. Super easy to measure and less dishes to wash when you put the bowl on a scale and keep hitting tare after each inclusion.

https://www.amazon.com/Hello-My-Name-Ice-Cream/dp/0451495373

alpha_squared 3 days ago | root | parent | prev | next |

> the secret of a good ice cream is the egg and cream custard

For French-style ice cream that's a must, but American ice creams index heavier on the cream/fat content and don't use a custard base.

For American ice creams, I've found a good fat percentage is around 27% fat. That's a blend of about two cups heavy cream (@40% fat) for every cup of whole milk (@3% fat).

yareally 2 days ago | root | parent |

One can also use sunflower or soy letchin instead of eggs. Letchin is the protein that provides the emulsification properties for eggs.

You still get the creamy texture without the egg taste. It's beneficial for fruit ice creams or anywhere you don't want the egg taste to overpower everything else. Letchin also does not need to be tempered like eggs so I toss it in with the rest of the dry ingredients.

Are you sure you're using 27% butterfat? Even ultra high premium ice cream is only 15-18%. I'm using about 15% for non fruit ice cream and I'm not using eggs, just letchin.

https://www.dreamscoops.com/ice-cream-science/fat-in-ice-cre...

yumraj 3 days ago | root | parent | prev |

I always worry about uncooked eggs in ice cream, so don’t use it.

Not sure if the fear is justified.

alpha_squared 3 days ago | root | parent | next |

Custard-based ice creams will often include some cooking so that you're not using raw eggs, but something closer in cooking to runny eggs (e.g. sunny-side up).

zabzonk 3 days ago | root | parent | prev |

so you would not eat home-made mayonnaise? or a sunny-side-up egg? classic French omelet (raw egg in the middle)? custard is always cooked, just slowly.

aziaziazi 3 days ago | root | parent |

> classic French omelet (raw egg in the middle)

Are you referring the omelette baveuse (drooling)? They’re not supposed to be totally raw, you just stop the cooking a bit earlier, maybe 10 seconds before a normal omelette. Don’t add raw eggs at the end.

I’m not a cook but that’s my local experience in restaurants and my kitchen during three decades. Perhaps a regional recipe?

zabzonk 3 days ago | root | parent |

Everyone has their own best omlette recipe - Elizabeth David :)

mine is hers, except i whisk the eggs more before putting them in the pan

aziaziazi 3 days ago | root | parent |

Haha true! Googling Elizabeth’s raw eggs seems absent but probably some people do that. By the way she call it "omelet Molière" but I can’t find that recipe in any French cookbook, I guess it’s her creation. However "œuf (egg) Molière" is a classic, but has nothing in common with an omelet but the egg.

zabzonk 3 days ago | root | parent |

you don't put extra raw eggs in it, you simply don't fully cook it on the reverse side of the pan and then fold it so the uncooked egg oozes out somewhat.