Page 399 - YC Cooking School

Arm yourself with a whisk and spatula; scrape in a pattern with the spatula and mix with the
whisk. Alternate the two tools and don’t stop stirring until your ice cream custard has

reached the perfect consistency.

Keep stirring even after removing the pot from the heat
The base of your pot will still have a fair bit of residual heat and it would be a terrible shame
for your custard to burn at this late stage.

Do the line test
Your custard has reached the correct consistency when it coats the back of your spoon and
you can use your finger to draw a line across it that doesn’t instantly join again. With the
right heat source, it should take 5–8 minutes to get to this stage.

Make sure the ice cream custard is completely cold before you churn it
Don’t have an ice cream churn? Don’t worry – you can still make a great quality ice cream.
Just place the cold custard in a rectangular dish in the freezer, and give it a whisk to agitate
it and break up the ice crystals every 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream is frozen. This could

take 2–3 hours. If you’re using a churn, turning the custard to ice cream will take you 40–50
minutes.

Don’t add the praline to the ice cream too early
You’ll risk melting the praline into the ice cream and changing the consistency.

Top tips for the praline

What is a praline?

A praline is essentially a caramel with nuts in it. Any variety of nuts will work in a praline, but
you should roast the nuts before adding them to the caramel, as this gives it a beautiful
flavour.

Allow the sugar mixture to come to the boil
Dilute the sugar with a splash of water and bring it to the boil. Don’t stir or agitate the

mixture – it could clump up and form sugar crystals, and you want it completely smooth.

Take extra care when working with boiling-hot sugar syrup
When the sugar syrup has become a hazelnut colour, add the nuts, allowing the caramel to
envelop them. Pour the caramel out onto a slipmat or baking tray lined with baking paper.

Liquid sugar is extremely hot so take extra care here. Once the praline has hardened, you
can crack it into decorative shards or give it a whizz in the food processor and turn it into
glorious golden crumbs.

Top tips for the ganache

A ganache is made from just two ingredients: chocolate and cream. It’s a decadent delight
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