You wouldnt happen to have a picture of the lemon sorbet, would you? Does it have a great satiny smooth texture? How quickly does it melt? What is the mouth feel like? The recipe sounds great. I do not have the lemon davinci but I may be able to pick up the torani locally. I also have some baja bobs lemon martini mixer, think that might work?

Ya know, strawberries AREN'T in season, unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere... what state do you live in, anyway?

And no, no pic, sorry, it all got et PDQ.

The texture wasn't bad at all, perhaps not QUITE as silky as I would have liked, I briefly considered beating and refreezing, but it was too good to bother ...

Like all screams and sorbets, it melts quickly. What can you do? Well, you could freeze the dishes. The one thing I would change is I would blanch the zest for longer, it needs to be tender.

The Torani is acidic and thin, as it says in the recipe (like lemonade base almost) the DaVinci more syrup and not acidic (one of their claims to fame in the barista world is that they won't curdle milk), so that depends on the Baja Bob's texture. Is it sharp and acidic or is it sweet and syrupy? Could make your own syrup with the pdx and zest and extract, I would think. Matter of fact, in this recipe, you practically already are, so I would manage without it if you want.

These recipes are quite flexible really.

I am in sunny CA. San Jose specifically. Its been between 60-70 degrees here just about every day this week.

Its churning!!! I love it! The machine is so pretty! Its bigger than I expected it to be. I love everything about it. The recipes it comes with sound great!

I have to say I am in love with this machine! The hazelnut gelato was sublime. I have been playing around with it. So far I threw in some CC chocolate milk and 2T cream and I had chocolate ice cream! I threw in some crystal light lemonade and I had something along the lines of a frozen lemon slurpee. It is so easy to play with. I just throw whatever I want in there. Its so wonderful. My boyfriend is already suggesting that I get the larger size, but to be honest, this makes plenty! One of the best purchases I have made. I cannot stop raving about the machine. I want to make some gazpacho in it tomorrow.

Toldja! I'm happy that someone else LOVES this great toy even more than I do!!

As long as you're eating them pretty much the same day, you don't need to bother with the pdx and the glycerine and such. Those are very helpful, however, if you need to make a quart and stash it in the freezer for a few days or a week or however long you can stand it. VERY much improves the scoopability, especially in the sorbets and "water ices".

Rock On! (and post about the gaspacho, k?)

The gazpacho sorbet was odd. My boyfriend loved it but I wasnt crazy about it. Then again, I am not crazy about gazpacho and I dont think the recipe the book provides is the best gazpacho ever. I have another gazpacho recipe that contains balsamic vinegar that I like much better. Next time I think I will try that recipe instead. Now I am working on making cardamom ice cream with a chai caramel swirl. I made a strong chai concentrate with 6 tea bags and some water and then I added pdx and sweetzfree and let it cook into a chai/caramel syrup. Now I am steeping cardamom pods and a vanilla bean into the cream/cc milk combo. I will make a cardamom custard using about 6 yolks. Then in the last 5 min of churning I will add the chai/caramel sauce and hope that it will swirl in. Either that or I will just use it as a caramel sauce on top of the ice cream.

My experience has been that an ice cream machine paddle doesn't swirl exactly, it blends (as is designed). If you DO decide to try that method, do it in the last one minute max, or it's all blended in.

I'd consider just folding it in, once you have emptied the canister into a bowl.

Sounds absolutely yummy, BTW; I just adore spices!



ps: I made your flourless chocolate/cheesecake swirl recipe for my mom's birthday, last weekend. Wow. Nice. I boosted the chocolate and egg a little (since you don't seem to measure much ) and added a chocolate glaze. One fat candle in the middle and unsweetened whipped cream on the plate. Thanks for the recipe!

The cardamom ice cream was amazing. My boyfriend was raving over it. I think I liked the flavor of the hazelnut more since I adore hazelnut anything but the texture of the cardamom was great. I ended up using 2/3 of the polyd/chai sauce in the custard and folded in the rest after it was done. My biggest criticism is that I used chai tea bags and it had a distinctive assam tea flavor and I think next time I will just steep it in cracked whole spices and strain them out.

Glad you liked the flourless chocolate cake. It has been ages since I made it. Sorry about the measurements, I need to measure more, I just move around the kitchen so quickly I just throw things in without paying attention. I have never made it with a sweetener other than shugr, what sweetener did you use to make it?

Well, I guess it's fairly fruitless for me to ask for your ROUGH measurements for the chai syrup and ice cream ingredient proportions? It sounds SO good, I can't resist asking...

I am guessing in the end I had about a cup and a half of syrup and I used about 2/3 of that in the mix and the rest on top. I dont know how much I started with. I started making the chai concentrate (probably 2c water or so and 6 tea bags) then I let it steep and cool, then I reheated and I added the polyd and I turned it into a caramel syrup and just let it sit there, then I decided to reheat it again since I wanted a richer flavor and so I threw in about 1T of salted butter and about 1oz of heavy cream (more like a chunk of butter and a splash of cream but I am trying to be good and give measurements) and let it go just over the soft ball stage on a candy thermometer (that I actually used!) and then after cooling I poured it into a 16oz glass and I would say it probably took up 12 oz maybe a bit less. I think I used about half a cup of polyd but I honestly cant remember.

For the ice cream I used 2c cream 1c cc milk but I decided that I like the 1.5c cream, 1.5c cc milk and 6 egg yolks even better.

Thanks, I'll see what I can do with that!

Also, can you say how many cardamom (green, I presume, not smoked/black) pods you soaked in your dairy mixture, either whole or just the seeds' worth? Add any other spices? Or was ALL the flavour from the Chai Tea?

Ta!

I think I used about 5 green cardamom pods. The rest came from the chai concentrate though I suggest using whole cracked spices instead of the chai since the assam tea took away from the spice flavor, I felt. I did also add around 1T of ground cardamom since I didnt think the pods infused enough flavor. I did try to strain it all out as much as possible through a poor excuse for a chinois.

I tell ya, nothing beats a very well worn and clean teatowel and using the chinois for a holder!