Apricot milk gelato

A summery milk gelato made from ripe apricots — sweet, fragrant and gently tart.

Apricots have a short season, but gelato can capture the whole summer. The ripe fruit is blended raw into the chilled milk base, just as for strawberry gelato. Soft, fragrant apricots from a home garden are better than hard ones from the shop.

Type: Italian gelato · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Easy

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 350 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 100 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 55 g skimmed milk powder
  • 130 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 40 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 2 g locust bean gum (carob gum, E410) (or 3 g of ready-made gelato stabiliser)
  • 1 g guar gum (E412)
  • 380 g apricots (ripe, stoned (about 450 g whole))
  • 10 g lemon juice (fresh)

Making the mix

  1. Mix the locust bean gum and guar gum thoroughly with the dry sugars (granulated sugar and dextrose). On their own they would form lumps as soon as they get wet.
  2. Pour the milk, cream and milk powder into a pan and heat while whisking. When the mixture is lukewarm (about 40 °C), gradually add the sugars and whisk until they dissolve.
  3. Heat the mix to 85 °C (check with a thermometer) and hold it at that temperature for 1–2 minutes, stirring constantly. This pasteurises the mix and fully hydrates the stabiliser.
  4. Stand the pan in a bowl of iced water and cool the mix below 5 °C as quickly as possible, stirring now and then.
  5. Cover and leave the mix to age in the fridge for 4–12 hours, ideally overnight. Meanwhile the proteins and stabiliser bind water and the mix thickens.
  6. Just before churning, blend the apricots with the lemon juice until smooth and stir them into the aged base.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch the ice cream maker on 5–10 minutes in advance so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Give the aged mix a quick blitz with a stick blender and pour it into the bowl, no higher than the max line.
  3. Churn for about 30–40 minutes, until the gelato is thick and glossy and clings to the paddle. Then switch the machine off — churning any longer would only whip in unnecessary air.
  4. Transfer to a chilled tub, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 1–2 hours.

Total time: 7 h 35 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the bowl, frozen for at least 24 hours, out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the well-chilled, freshly blended mix — filling the bowl no more than two-thirds full.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the gelato thickens to a soft-serve consistency. There is no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Transfer to a chilled tub, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2–3 hours.

A freezer bowl only partly freezes the mix, so the gelato needs longer to harden in the freezer and tends to be slightly less smooth than from a compressor machine. A well-chilled, properly aged mix helps.

Total time: 8 h 25 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Pour the aged mix into the CREAMi tub up to the MAX line, put the lid on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  2. Fit the tub into the machine and run the Gelato programme (if your model doesn’t have it, use Ice Cream).
  3. If the gelato is powdery or crumbly, run Re-spin, and a second time if needed (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).
  4. Serve straight away. Level off whatever is left, refreeze it and process it again before the next serving.

Programme: Gelato

With so little fat, CREAMi gelato tends to come out powdery after the first spin. The adjusted recipe has more milk powder — the extra solids hold the block together and one Re-spin is enough.

Total time: 29 h 5 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
10 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
7 h 35 min

Plan: what to do and when

The whole recipe takes 7 h 35 min, of which 30 min is hands-on — the rest is waiting you can spend elsewhere.

The making itself fits into a single day — start at least 7 h 35 min before serving.

  • Prepare the mix (weigh and stir the ingredients) — 20 min
  • Cook the mix — 10 min
  • Cool the mix down — 30 min
  • Let the mix age in the fridge — 4 h
  • Churn in the machine — 35 min
  • Let it harden in the freezer — 2 h

Serving and storage

With toasted flaked almonds or alongside almond gelato. Gelaterias keep it in the display case at −11 to −13 °C, while a home freezer runs at −18 °C — straight out of it, gelato is hard. So move the tub to the fridge 15–20 minutes before serving (or leave it at room temperature for 8–10 minutes) and work the gelato with a spatula before scooping, just as they do in a gelateria.

Artisan gelato is made to be eaten fresh: it is best on the day you make it and within 3–5 days. In a closed tub with cling film pressed onto the surface it will keep in the freezer for up to two weeks, but it gradually hardens and ice crystals build up. Fruit gelato loses its aroma faster — eat it within three days.

Tips

  • Simmer less ripe apricots with the lemon juice for 5 minutes and chill — the flavour becomes softer and fuller.
  • The skins can stay on; blended thoroughly, they disappear and add colour.
  • Peach gelato is made the same way — peaches are less acidic, so use 15 g of lemon juice.

Why it works

Apricots contain about 9 % sugars (mainly sucrose), which add to the added sugars. Total solids come to around 33 % and fat to about 4.5 % — a light, refreshing gelato. Anti-freezing power (PAC) tells you how much water stays unfrozen at a given temperature — the higher it is, the softer the gelato. Dextrose has almost twice the anti-freezing power of granulated sugar but is about a third less sweet, which is why gelaterias combine the two sugars.

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Articles that mention this recipe

How we calculate the composition · What PAC and POD mean · Balance this mix in the calculator

Sources