Water-based chocolate gelato (cioccolato all’acqua)

Equipment

• Compressor ice cream maker
• Freezer-bowl ice cream maker
• Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

Ingredients

• 640 g water
• 60 g cocoa powder (10–12 % fat)
• 100 g dark chocolate 70 % (with no milk in the ingredients (check the label))
• 125 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
• 60 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)
• 0.5 g salt (a pinch)

Making the mix

1. Sift the cocoa and mix it with the sugars, stabiliser and salt.
2. 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.
3. Pour the water into a pan and heat while whisking. When the mixture is lukewarm (about 40 °C), gradually add the sugars and whisk until they dissolve.
4. 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.
5. Take the pan off the heat, add the chopped chocolate, leave for a minute, then blend with a stick blender until the mix is glossy and smooth.
6. Stand the pan in a bowl of iced water and cool the mix below 5 °C as quickly as possible, stirring now and then.
7. 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.

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 32 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 22 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

Without milk proteins the CREAMi block is brittle. The adjusted recipe replaces some of the sugar with maltodextrin — it adds solids without sweetness, so the gelato holds together better after spinning.

Total time: 29 h 2 min

Stages

Preparation

15 min

Cooking

12 min

Cooling

30 min

Ageing in the fridge

4 h

Churning

35 min

Hardening in the freezer

2 h

Total time

7 h 32 min

Serving and storage

Try it with orange zest, raspberry sorbet, or a drop of olive oil and a flake of salt. 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

• Choose a vegan dark chocolate — some 70 % chocolates contain milk fat or milk powder.
• Dutch-process (alkalised) cocoa gives a darker colour and milder flavour; natural cocoa is fruitier and more acidic.
• You really do need the stabiliser here: without milk proteins, larger ice crystals would form. The alternative is 20 g of cornflour (cornstarch) simmered with the mix.

Why it works

The milk solids are zero on purpose — this is a water-based mix. The total solids (about 34 %) come from the sugars and cocoa, and the fat (about 5 %) is purely cocoa butter. Cocoa fibre and starch bind water much as milk proteins do. 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

• Carpigiani Gelato University
• Ice Cream Science (Ruben Hofmann): Stabilizers in ice cream
• Wikipedia: Gelato