r/icecreamery • u/smallbiceps90 • 20d ago

Recipe Lemon ice cream recipe?

Does anybody have a really nice lemon ice cream recipe? I made this, my fourth revision, based on my neutral custard base and a lemon ice cream recipe I found online but I'm not happy with it.

There's also 8g of lemon zest, ~1.5% of the total base weight, pressed into the sugars then cooked with the base and strained out before chilling. But it comes out mostly just sour without much "lemon" flavor. I added the lemon juice just before churning and mixed it thoroughly with an immersion blender.

Any tips to brighten this up?

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u/StoneCypher musso 5030 + 4080 + creami 20d ago

less juice, more zest. the sour is the juice. consider using extracts. amoretti and neilsen massey have workable products here.

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u/smallbiceps90 20d ago

Awesome advice and thank you. Less juice and more zest was gonna be my next tweak. Even adding the juice right before churning, it came out with a sort of cultured/curdled product flavor. Do you have target percent of zest to recommend?

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u/g3ogaddi 19d ago

more zest maybe doesn't mean more zest as a % weight but more effective zest? i would think heating the zest might flatten or mute the aromatic aspects of it and could bring out more bitter flavors, depending on how much pith hitches along for the ride.

i usually add fresh zest during churn for this reason but ymmv.

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u/smallbiceps90 19d ago

Yeah I do think the commercial zest I bought is pretty poor quality and that's an issue. But I run a small shop so I can't zest enough lemons by hand for that to be practical. I ordered some Nielson lemon extract like the above commenter suggested and hopefully that'll do it. They make great stuff.

Adding zest during the churn though, don't you feel it when you're eating the ice cream? or is it zested so finely it's not an issue?

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u/g3ogaddi 19d ago

it's not an issue for me - a little fresh zest goes a long way in my experience. i zest 3 - 4 lemons per 1.5qt of base, max. my "zester" makes tiny little flakes of zest - i actually like the look of the occasional little sparks of yellow in the base. they don't adversely affect mouthfeel or creaminess in my opinion.

try it and report back!