Avocado and lime ice cream
Pale green, creamy avocado and lime ice cream — the avocado provides the creaminess instead of cream.
Avocado has about 15 % fat, mostly unsaturated, and thick flesh with fibre. In ice cream it replaces the cream: you simply blend it with milk and a sweetened syrup. Lime adds freshness and stops it browning. The healthier side: the fat comes from avocado instead of cream and the ice cream contains fibre; it has about 155 kcal per 100 g. The trade-off: it has about as much sugar as ordinary gelato (otherwise it would be hard), and it is best fresh.
Type: Italian gelato · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Easy
Equipment
Ingredients
- 400 g whole milk 3.5 %
- 35 g skimmed milk powder
- 110 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
- 50 g dextrose (glucose powder)
- 280 g avocado (flesh) (flesh of 2 ripe (Hass) avocados)
- 70 g lime juice (fresh) (about 3 limes)
Making the mix
- Mix the sugar, dextrose and milk powder with the milk, heat to 85 °C and hold for 2 minutes until everything has dissolved.
- Cool the syrup in iced water and chill it completely in the fridge.
- Blend the avocado with the lime juice until smooth and gradually blend in the cold milk syrup.
- Cover the mix with cling film pressed onto the surface and freeze within 2 hours — if it stands longer, the avocado darkens and turns bitter.
Method — Compressor ice cream maker
- Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes in advance so the bowl pre-chills.
- Pour in the chilled mix (no higher than the fill line) and churn for 25–35 minutes until it has the consistency of a thick cream.
- Transfer to a chilled container, cover the surface with cling film and leave to harden in the freezer for about 60 minutes.
Total time: 2 h 30 min
Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker
- Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours in advance. Take it out just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
- With the machine running, pour in the thoroughly chilled mix — filling the bowl no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
- Churn for 20–30 minutes until the mix thickens. Going on longer is pointless — the bowl has already warmed up.
- Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer.
Total time: 3 h 25 min
Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines
- Pour the mix into the CREAMi tub up to the MAX line (one or two tubs, depending on their size), put the lid on and freeze level for 24 hours.
- Put the tub in the machine and run the Gelato program.
- If the result is crumbly or powdery, add 1–2 tablespoons of milk and run Re-spin — with a very cold freezer even twice.
Programme: Gelato
Total time: 25 h 5 min
Stages
- Preparation
- 15 min
- Cooking
- 5 min
- Cooling
- 40 min
- Churning
- 30 min
- Hardening in the freezer
- 1 h
- Total time
- 2 h 30 min
Serving and storage
Fresh, with grated lime zest or pieces of mango. Surprisingly, it also goes well with dark chocolate.
Best on the day it is made; in a sealed container with cling film on the surface, 3 days at most — after that it changes colour.
Tips
- The avocado must be ripe, soft when pressed and free of dark fibres — you would taste them in the ice cream.
- Don’t heat the avocado; cooking makes it bitter.
- For a vegan version, replace the milk with coconut milk diluted 1 : 1 with water and leave out the milk powder.