Delicious Math

I find a certain amount of arrogance develops after you learn the kitchen fundamentals. To be more correct, I have developed a certain amount of arrogance since my days in cooking school, particularly regarding recipes. What tends to happens is once you understand the underlying principles all recipes start to look like variations on a theme. Their are of course huge exceptions to this – I would no more go off page in most baking endeavors then I would drive without GPS (and trust me on occasions where I have done either calamity has ensued). But generally in the kitchen many things become a fill in the black exercise. Let me illustrate with ice cream.

Ice cream is a flavoured frozen custard (Custard + Flavour Agent + Freezing Mechanism = Ice Cream). Custard (for our purposes here) is sweetened cream (of varying fat content) thickened with eggs (Eggs + cream + Sugar + Heat = Custard ). Flavour agent is pretty self explanatory. It can include anything from fruits, chocolate, spices to, well, anything. The sky (and your good taste) is the limit.

So my internal template for ice cream reads,

Ice Cream = (Egg(s) + Cream + Sugar + Heat) + Flavour Agent + Freezing Mechanism

Now this is where you begin to experiment. The ratio of eggs, to cream, to sugar, for the custard has to be chosen, which you can do pretty intuitively after making a few times. The fat content of the cream is another choice. High fat content equals richer end result, with a smoother mouth feel. Sometimes that’s a good thing; other times the goal is a lighter product. And, of course the type and amount of flavour you chose to inject plays a huge role in what you end up with (will it whisper or scream?). All these decisions come into play, and are in fact are fun to play with, once you understand the basic underpinning of the dish. Recipes often give you new insight into how to alter the variables, but are not a necessity in the creation of the dish.

This is why when asked by my mother for my recipe for a given dish I often respond with a blank look. Somehow I don’t think she’d be impressed with,

Blueberry Ice Cream = (2 Eggs + 1 cup of Milk + 1 cup of 18% Cream + 1/3 cup Sugar + Heat) + 1 pint puréed Blueberries + Kitchen aid mixer w/ Ice Cream attachment