Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I was watching one of Discovery Channels spin off channels, probably an older show since it is hitting Asia now. They had a great program featuring Heston explaining ice cream and the problems with making it. A nice learning experience for me. But one segment of the show had him making ice cream with a newly invented machine from Sweden or Switzerland, I'm not sure which. The machine allows you to freeze your custard solid and then it "shaves" it in such a way that a very smooth ice cream is created. And apparently custards can be melted and refrozen, the machine creating a smooth ice cream each time. And it is this machine I'm curious about and trying to find info on. All my Google searches have resulted in nothing. Well, even worse than nothing.

Apparently Heston has his own ice cream machine in the works. An extremely high end unit, but not, as far as I can tell, the same as the one he uses in the Discovery Channel program. And that is the unit I want to get more info about. Has anyone run across this innovative European ice cream maker/shaver that he described as pumping air (not sure why) and shaving the solid frozen block of ice custard so finely the result is a smooth ice cream texture and taste.

Any ideas or pointers on finding this machine will be much appreciated.

It was likely a PacoJet he was using. I use one at work, and it's amazing. But, they cost about $4,000.

Amy

Thank you Amy! That is exactly the unit he used on the tv show. I found a copy of the show on the internet and watched it a few times to try and discern the maker, but to no avail, though Heston does say it is from Switzerland in his dialog.

What an amazing machine. And so very out of reach at the moment. Oh well, nice to know about. Back to saving up for that smoke machine you mentioned awhile back. Some day I hope I can get one of these to play with. After a sous vide machine and a couple of mixers, like a good metal gear Kitchen Aid and the larger (but home quantity sized) Electrolux DLX machine for pizza dough and breads, I will keep the PacoJet on my list.

As long as I don't sneak funds out of our house building funds to scratch my foodie itch, I think my wife will put up with it ... maybe.

Heh, just keep feeding her well. A year ago, she would've gave me some serious hell over an Sous-vide professional. She barely gave me the evil eye on a SVP and a chamber vac after eating delicious food for a year from my old set-up. It helped they I switched employment arrangements, but the real seller was the food.

Yeah, I hear you Paul, very good advice. She loves the semi-sous vide egg yolks we made earlier and I just need to keep the cuisine moving in that direction.

I ran into two seasons worth of Heston B's program "In Search of Perfection". And there was a program on pizza which immediately grabbed my complete attention. I loved the info on the sauce and I found his efforts with creating the temperature of a wood fired stove in his oven interesting but somthing I cannot replicate easily with my current kitchen. I was sorry to see the charcoal pizza oven fail, because I might be able to cobble up something on those lines. His bottom of the pizza heated by the pizza stone was up to temp when he did the charcoal bbq version, but the top of the pizza was not. I wonder if a second stone, preheated, and suspended above the pizza would work?

I'm sort of envisioning a side blower on a rectangular charcoal bbq-style unit. The blower would pipe air along the bottom to superheat the charcoal. My homemade brick baking stone would have to allow plenty of room for air to move and heat. A second stone built into the lid would heat when the unit is closed. Just playing with ideas.

I know this started as ice cream, and you can see that part of great ocean of cuisine I swim in. Pizza, Ice Cream, Hot Dogs and Sausages, with the occasional sea voyage to desserts (anyone watch Top Chef Just Desserts btw?) and lasagna.

Thanks for the info and pointers. Lots of fun reading the posts here and learning as I go. Like Fuzzy, I have a problem with clumping and mold on my spices. Dunno why I never thought of using desiccant. It makes so much sense.

Tatoosh

Tatoosh,

Look at my post in the Tutorials forum about Modernist Cuisine insights. I'm picking up my 1/2" aluminum today, and I'm going to try Myhrvold's pizza technique tonight. I'll report later.

Amy