Making Gelato at Home

vijayrnathan_87729

Hi everybody,

I'd like to make a classic Straciatella Gelato (with the chocolate shavings in it) at home and wanted to ask for your help. Through my research, have discovered a few things.

• Gelato has a lower milk-fat content than gelato, using mostly milk instead of cream, and usually doesn't contain eggs (though some recipes call for it)
• It has a lower air content than ice cream because it's churned at a lower speed, making it thicker but also just as stable at the warmer temperature at which it's served.

Since I'll be attempting this in a standard home ice cream maker (Cuisinart w/ a freezer bowl) where the only option is "on" and "off," I'm wondering how to recreate the properties above, specifically:

1. How can I mimic the lower air content of gelato made in a professional machine? 
2. Do I need to use a stabilizer like eggs or even something like guar gum?

Thanks very much!

merridith

I use the Chefsteps egg free vanilla gelato recipe often, leaving out the vanilla bean seeds and substituting other flavorings such as almond, coconut and peppermint. It works wonderfully in my Breville machine and gives me a gelato consistency. I doubt there is any reason you could not successfully add chocolate shavings to it to achieve a Straciatella - don't add the chocolate shavings to the gelato until it is about ¾ done, though, or it could get too well mixed in.