Salted caramel gelato

A milk gelato made with homemade caramel and a pinch of salt — a deep, faintly bitter sweetness.

Most of the sugar is first caramelised dry, then loosened with warm cream. The caramel gives a flavour no flavouring can match, and the salt balances it. Salt also lowers the freezing point, so this gelato is slightly softer. The recipe works without a machine, too.

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

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 170 g granulated sugar (sucrose) (120 g for the caramel, 50 g for the stabiliser)
  • 150 g whipping cream 33 % (warmed)
  • 600 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 40 g skimmed milk powder
  • 30 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)
  • 3 g salt (fine sea salt; 2–4 g to taste)

Making the mix

  1. Warm the cream (it must not be cold). Mix the locust bean gum (carob gum, E410) and guar gum with 50 g of the sugar and the dextrose.
  2. Put 120 g of sugar into a wide, heavy-based pan and let it melt over a medium heat. Don’t stir — just swirl the pan now and then.
  3. When the caramel is the colour of dark honey (about 175–180 °C), take it off the heat and carefully add the warm cream a little at a time. The caramel will bubble up violently and the steam burns — use a long wooden spoon.
  4. Stir until all the caramel has dissolved; melt any lumps over a low heat.
  5. Pour in the milk and milk powder; at 40 °C, add the sugar and stabiliser mixture and the salt.
  6. Heat to 85 °C and hold for 1–2 minutes, stirring constantly.
  7. Stand the pan in a bowl of iced water and cool the mix below 5 °C.
  8. Cover and leave to age in the fridge for 4–12 hours.

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 45 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 35 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

Total time: 29 h 15 min

Method — No-machine method

  1. Pour the aged mix into a deep metal or glass container (a baking dish, for example) and put it in the freezer.
  2. After 45 minutes, mix it thoroughly with a whisk or stick blender, stirring the frozen edges into the centre.
  3. Repeat every 30 minutes, 5–6 times in all, until the gelato is thick and smooth.
  4. Smooth the surface, cover with cling film and leave to harden for an hour.

Without a machine the gelato freezes more slowly and entirely at −18 °C, so the adjusted recipe has more dextrose (higher PAC). That way it stays scoopable even without tempering.

Total time: 9 h 40 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
20 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
7 h 45 min

Serving and storage

Drizzle with leftover caramel and sprinkle with a flake of salt; excellent with apple pie. 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.

Tips

  • A light caramel just tastes sweet; a dark one is bolder. But throw out burnt caramel (smoking and turning black) — the bitterness would taint the whole gelato.
  • Add the salt gradually and taste the cold mix; cold dulls the taste of salt.
  • Watch out for children: hot caramel causes serious burns, so keep them away from the hob while you work.

Why it works

Salt has a very high anti-freezing power in the mix — 3 g raises the PAC by about 2 points. Caramelisation breaks down some of the sucrose, so the actual sweetness is a little lower and the PAC a little higher than the calculation shows (treat the figures as approximate). 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.

Sources