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I was invited for another gelato masterclass! This time by Qype. What a lucky girl am I? I've been to two gelato making classes now! Click here and here to read about my previous lesson. I took a lot of pictures. Click here to see them all.
Dri Dri Gelato opened on Portobello Road in summer 2010. They use organic and seasonal ingredients to make authentic Italian gelato. Even though I've already been on a class the two places are different and I learned a few new things!
Dri Dri serve their gelato in a traditional pozzetti counter. This type of counter is strictly temperature controlled. The gelato contains no emulsifiers or thickeners and would melt in the usual open case freezer you typically see.
They also serve coffee and traditional Italian hot chocolate. I love this stuff. It's so thick and chocolaty.
Gelato is apparently a more healthy choice than ice cream. It uses milk rather than cream. Gelato is 6% fat compared to ice cream at 18-24%
For our class we were making Granny Smith Apple Sorbet.
Roughly chopping up the apples
The apples are then thrown into a juicer. Obviously, I was too excited about all that gelato to remember to not turn my camera so if you have a laptop flip the screen around!
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The apple juice, lemon juice and sugar mixture are all whisked together with some water.
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The mixture is then poured into the gelato maker.
Adriano has an authentic 1960's Italian gelato makeer which was pretty cool.
It's cool how it churns. It only takes about 20 minutes for the gelato to become thick and creamy!
But how to get all the gelato out of the machine? A giant paddle of course!
There's Eamon who works at Qype giving it a go.
The finished product! It tasted amazing. The flavor of the apple was so clean and crisp. It really did taste natural.
Adriano was nice and let us pretty much taste every flavor. The William and Kate was not only cute it was also one of the best tasting! My only regret is not tasting more gelato! I left hungry and not stuffed like I had hoped.
I enjoyed my class at Dri Dri. It's a cute shop that has a nice friendly neighborhood feel. It's more expensive than your average ice cream shop but you can taste the quality and it's worth a trip to Notting Hill if you're ever in the area. The gelato flavors change with the season so expect to be amazed!
Thanks to Qype and Adriano for inviting me! Can't wait for more Qype food events!
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My friend sent me a Nordicware ice cream cone cupcake pan for Christmas. It's amazing, they're perfect for making cupcakes with a little surprise inside as there's more space for filling than a normal cupcake.
I used the Peach Melba recipe from the Love Bakery book. My last post was a review of my visit to the shop in Chelsea and I wondered if the cake in the book was just as good as what they sell. After making this I can say a firm yes. The cake was just as fluffy, moist and tasty as the cake in the Rhubarb and Custard cupcake. I would strongly recommend the book.
I had a little batter left over to make a few cupcakes
I love this flavor combination. The fruit is lovely and tart which is a great contrast to the rich mascarpone frosting. Don't skimp on the strawberries! They absolutely taste incredible with the frosting and give it a special decoration. I don't think I'll ever make cream cheese frosting again. I've never had mascarpone before but it's a little more rich and easier to whip than cream cheese.
This would probably make a better summer cupcake. Peaches were £3.99 for 4 at Waitrose right now so I used canned peaches paired with fresh raspberries for the center. The only thing I would change is to make more frosting about one and half to two times more than the single batch I made. It just wasn't enough to pipe even 8 cakes.
Peach Melba Cupcakes
adapted from Love Bakery (makes 6 cones or 12 cupcakes)
Ingredients
125g of unsalted butter at room temperature
150g caster/superfine sugar
2 tbs peach syrup (from a can of peaches)
2 eggs at room temperature
175g self rising flour, sifted
1/2 tbs baking powder
3 tbs milk
strawberries cut in half for garnish
1. Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F and grease your pan with shortening and then sprinkle with flour. Cream together the butter, sugar and peach syrup on medium high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time beating until each is incorporated.
2. Add the flour, baking powder and milk and beat for two more minutes.
3. Fill each cone two thirds full and bake for 20-24 minutes (for a cone or a cupcake). After a few minutes turn pan upside down and cones should fall out of the greased pan. Place on a cooling rack to cool completely. I had trouble getting the cones to stand up but once I placed them in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes they stood up fine.
Mascarpone Frosting
(consider doubling if you want to pipe swirls)
(consider doubling if you want to pipe swirls)
Ingredients
250g mascaropone
80g icing sugar
1. In a large bowl whip together the mascarpone and the icing sugar until stiff peaks form. Chill until your ready to use.
Peach Melba Filling
1 can drained peaches
large handful raspberries
1. Throw the peaches and raspberries into a food processor and pulse a few times. It should still be chunky not pureed.
To assemble cut a cone shape in the middle of each cake fill with 2 teaspoons for filling. Cut off the long portion of the cone and place the top back over the filling. Frost and serve with a strawberry.
I put my cupcakes in the refrigerator as I'm not sure if mascarpone needs to be kept chilled. Remove from fridge 20 minutes before serving.
I made these for breakfast on Boxing Day. The apple cinnamon compote in the middle takes a little time but it is so worth it. Almost better than eating apple pie!
If you don't have an Ebelskiver pan don't worry. The filling for these would taste great on any kind of pancake or waffle. You could use it to jazz up some Ego's too! We ran out of maple syrup so I had mine with vanilla ice cream!
If you don't have an Ebelskiver pan don't worry. The filling for these would taste great on any kind of pancake or waffle. You could use it to jazz up some Ego's too! We ran out of maple syrup so I had mine with vanilla ice cream!
Ebelskivers are Danish pancakes that were traditionally filled with jam and served at holidays or celebrations. The ones of today are versatile and filled with sweet or savory items.
Vanilla Pancake Batter
from Ebelskivers by Kevin Craft
Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs separated
1 cup milk
2 tbs melted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Then stir in the egg yolks, milk, melted butter and vanilla with a wooden spoon. The batter will be lumpy.
2. In a small bowl whisk the egg whites until stiff. Fold in one third to lighten the batter and then fold in the rest.
Apple Cinnamon Filling
Ingredients
2-3 apples (I used Jazz) peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tbs sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
1. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir to dissolve the sugar about 3 minutes.
2. Add the apples and cook, stirring often, until the apples are tender about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
3. Place the ebelskiver pan over medium heat. Brush each well with a little melted butter and place a tablespoon of batter in each.
4. Place a tablespoon of the filling in each well.
5. Place a tablespoon of batter on top of the filling.
6. After about 2 minutes using two wooden skewers flip the pancake over so the other side can cook. It will be a little liquid still but will fuse together when flipped.
7. Place in a warm oven until ready to serve. Dust with icing sugar.
This recipe is inspired by the gelato I had in Milan, a recipe from the TOTAL Greek Yogurt site and my visit to Gelato Mio workshop last week.
I made the frozen yogurt with double cream this time instead of whipping cream (click here for strawberry frozen yogurt). The whipping cream in my opinion gave a more ice cream like taste and the double cream gave it a creamy mousse taste. Chose whichever you prefer.
This frozen yogurt/mousse is really easy and quick to make. There are only about 3 steps!
This frozen yogurt/mousse is really easy and quick to make. There are only about 3 steps!
Ingredients
300ml double cream or whipping cream
1 jar of lemon curd
1 cup TOTAL Greek Yogurt
generous handful of basil leaves
1. Beat the cream until it becomes thick and creamy using an electric mixer. Fold in the lemon curd by hand.
2. Chop the basil leaves very finely or blitz them in a food processor. Fold them into the mixture.
3. Pour the mixture into a flat bottomed contained and freeze for minimum 2 hours. If frozen overnight thaw for 15 minutes before serving.
Last night as part of the Gelto workshop (click here for those details) at Gelato Mio we advised Carlo on his new Gelato Cupcakes! It was pretty much the reason I was invited. Carlo knows everything about ice cream so now he wants to know everything about cupcakes.
When I got his email asking me for my opinions on a gelato cupcake I thought I'd died at gone to heaven. If you read my blog frequently enough I've mentioned several times that my three great loves are ice cream, cupcakes and tea. Combining two of them together is just genius.
I say "we" as I wasn't the only food blogger there that night. He invited several and Andrea was there with me at this session. We were the first to get a glimpse which is very exciting!
A tray of cupcakes that the resident pastry chef had prepared
There she is. I won't embarrass myself trying to spell her name. We suggested which decoration techniques worked the best. For only researching cupcakes for 3 months she did a really great job.
The cupcakes were prepared in these beautiful chocolate cases
Chocolate cake for the bottom layer
or vanilla cake
They've developed a chocolate frosting that doesn't freeze. Which I think is really nifty. It tasted really great and with a few minor tweaks will be ready for the final product.
Cross section of the strawberry cupcake the pastry chef had made. I made the chocolate peanut butter one at the very top.
I got to make a few of my own gelato cupcakes! I started with a layer of cake on the bottom
A scoop of peanut butter ice cream next. Carlo took all the ice cream out of the freezer as we were making them. It was a bit hard so we didn't want to press it in and break the shell.
Decorated with chocolate frosting on top!
Cupcake with vanilla cake, biscotti gelato and chocolate frosting
With a blue marshmallow frosting. It's also interesting that marshmallow frosting doesn't freeze so it's great on these cupcakes.
The mess afterward...
I had such a great time during this part of the workshop! I think the idea of a gelato cupcake is really clever as the amount of combinations and decoration possibilities are endless.
I would say that Carlo and his team are nearly there with these cupcakes. A few tweaks here and there and I'll be the first person in line to get one when they're released! I can't wait to see what final decisions they make.
I hope our advice helps them make a great final product for their customers. I think he's put in a lot of effort to make a genuine cupcake. I find that some places offer inferior cupcakes and get away with it since people in the UK aren't as familiar with them.
Click here for all the gelato photos.
I hope our advice helps them make a great final product for their customers. I think he's put in a lot of effort to make a genuine cupcake. I find that some places offer inferior cupcakes and get away with it since people in the UK aren't as familiar with them.
Click here for all the gelato photos.