Sweet corn gelato

A golden, milky-sweet ice cream that tastes of boiled corn. The vegetable flavour nobody finds strange.

Corn is the gentlest way into vegetable ice cream: it sits close to vanilla and caramel in flavour and its colour frightens nobody. Technically, though, it is work — the kernels are three-quarters water, so on their own they only dilute the mix. The answer is extra milk powder and plenty of sugars; then you get a gelato with a full 38 % solids and a flavour that genuinely recalls corn simmered in milk.

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

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 200 g sweet corn (kernels) (kernels from two cobs, or drained canned corn)
  • 430 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 100 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 60 g skimmed milk powder
  • 130 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 45 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 1.5 g locust bean gum (carob gum, E410)
  • 1 g guar gum (E412)
  • 2 g salt

Making the mix

  1. Put the corn kernels in a pan with the milk and cream. If you are using fresh cobs, add the stripped cobs too — they hold a lot of flavour — and remove them after cooking.
  2. Bring almost to the boil and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Take the pan off the heat and infuse, covered, for another 10 minutes.
  3. Remove the cobs and blend the mix smooth with a stick blender. Pass it through a fine sieve, pressing the solids well — they have no place in the gelato.
  4. Mix the locust bean gum and guar gum with the granulated sugar, dextrose and salt. Return the strained milk to the pan, heat it to 40 °C and whisk in the sugars with the gums.
  5. Add the milk powder, stir, and heat the mix to 85 °C; hold it there for 1–2 minutes, stirring.
  6. Cool below 5 °C in iced water, cover and 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 fill line. Churn for 30–40 minutes, until it thickens and clings to the paddle.
  3. Transfer to a chilled tub, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Total time: 8 h 53 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.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the mix thickens to a soft cream. There is no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Transfer to a chilled tub, cover with cling film and leave to harden in the freezer for 3 hours.

A freezer bowl only partly freezes the mix, so the ice cream takes longer to harden and tends to be slightly less smooth than from a compressor machine. A thoroughly chilled, properly aged mix helps.

Total time: 9 h 43 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Pour the chilled mix into a CREAMi tub up to the MAX line, put the lid on and freeze it level for 24 hours.
  2. Put the tub in the machine and run the Gelato program.
  3. If the result is crumbly, add a tablespoon of milk and run Re-spin.

Programme: Gelato

Total time: 30 h 23 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
28 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
5 h
Churning
35 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
8 h 53 min

Plan: what to do and when

The whole recipe takes 8 h 53 min, of which 48 min is hands-on — the rest is waiting you can spend elsewhere.

The day before (6 h 18 min)

  • Prepare the mix (weigh and stir the ingredients) — 20 min
  • Cook the mix — 28 min
  • Cool the mix down — 30 min
  • Let the mix age in the fridge — 5 h

On the day of serving (2 h 35 min)

  • Churn in the machine — 35 min
  • Let it harden in the freezer — 2 h

Serving and storage

It thrives on contrast: squeeze over some lime and dust it with chilli, or add salted caramel. It is also excellent with blueberries or crumbled salty crackers. Gelato is served at −11 to −13 °C, warmer than cream ice cream. Move the tub to the fridge 15–20 minutes before serving and work it with a spatula before scooping.

In a sealed tub with cling film pressed onto the surface it is best within a week; after that ice crystals build up.

Tips

  • Frozen corn works just as well as fresh and is available all year. Canned corn is a little weaker — give it five minutes longer to infuse.
  • Do not skip the sieving. The kernel skins are tough and read as grit in the finished gelato.
  • Want a stronger flavour? Toast half the kernels in a dry pan until golden before simmering — it adds a roasted, caramel layer.

Why it works

Two hundred grams of corn bring only about 48 g of solids, and about a third of that is starch and fibre — solids that neither sweeten nor raise the PAC. Left uncorrected, the gelato would turn out thin. Hence 60 g of milk powder instead of the usual 30–40: it lifts milk solids non-fat to 10.4 % (range 7–12) and total solids to 38.4 %. The corn starch released during simmering also thickens the mix slightly, so only a minimum of stabiliser is needed.

Related recipes

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  • Salted caramel gelato

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

  • Chocolate gelato with chilli and cinnamon

    A dark chocolate gelato with a quiet warmth at the finish. The heat arrives after the cold, not before it.

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

Sources