Philips HR 2300 manual Fruit, Alcohol, Syrup, Decorating and serving, Sauces

Fruit

•Fresh fruit makes the tastiest ice-cream which is very nutritious too. However, fruit from a jar or tin is also suitable. Make sure the fruit is well drained before puréeing.

•Summer fruits (e.g. strawberries, raspberries, peaches) are simple to freeze so that you can use fresh fruit all year round. Frozen fruit can be stored for 8 or 9 months in a deep freeze or in the freezer compartment of a yyy or yyyy refrigerator.

•Uncooked fruits easily discolour when they are puréed. To prevent discolouring, sprinkle some lemon juice on the pieces of fruit (apple, banana, pear, plum) before puréeing.

•If you wish to add pieces of fruit to the ice-cream, sprinkle them with some sugar to prevent hard ice crystals from forming inside the pieces of fruit during the freezing process.

Alcohol

•Ice-cream mixtures containing alcohol must be processed somewhat longer. The ice-cream will not become as stiff as ice-cream without alcohol.

Syrup

•If you make sorbet ice-cream frequently, you can prepare the syrup in advance and keep it in a tightly sealed bottle in the refrigerator.

To make syrup you need:

-a (stainless steel) pan;

-a stirring spoon;

-for 300 cc (103⁄4 fl. oz) syrup: 200 cc (7 fl. oz.) water and 200 g (7 oz.) fine sugar;

-for 450 cc (16 fl. oz.) syrup: 275 cc (10 fl. oz) water and 275 g (10 oz.) fine sugar;

-Put the sugar and the water into the pan and stir well.

-Put the pan on low heat while stirring constantly to dissolve the sugar. Skim off any froth that forms on the surface.

-Boil the sugar mixture for approx. 1 minute.

-Take the pan off the heat and allow the syrup to cool.

Decorating and serving

•The quantities serve 4-5 persons, depending on the presentation and the type of ice-cream.

•You can serve ice-cream in metal or glass coupes, on metal, glass or crystal bowl or on dessert plates. Depending on the type of ice- cream, you could also use fruit cut in halves and hollowed out, such as melon, pineapple, orange, lemon or grapefruit.

•It is advisable to chill the coupes, bowls or hollowed-out fruit in the freezer just prior to serving, so that the ice-cream will melt less rapidly when served.

•Some types of ice-cream (e.g. coffee, mocha and chocolate ice-cream) are less dense than other types. It is best to take these types of ice- cream out of the Ice-Cream Maker and chill them in the freezer half an hour before serving.

•You can make ice-cream balls using an ice- cream scoop. The scoop must be perfectly clean. Dip the scoop in water before scooping out the ice-cream and the balls of ice-cream will be nice and smooth. If you wish to present the ice-cream in a coupe, it is best to put the balls of ice-cream in the freezer for half an hour. This will prevent the ice-cream from melting during the decorating process.

•Ice-cream lends itself well to combinations with pastry, such as profiteroles, cake, meringues and crèpes.

•Decorate the ice-cream with e.g. whipped cream, beaten egg white, sauces or custard.

•Mix the whipped cream with some finely chopped nuts before decorating.

•Take more fruit than indicated by the recipe and use this to decorate the ice-cream. You can also use candied fruit, cocktail cherries or soaked raisins. The taste of the fruit is improved if soaked in a liqueur.

The ice-cream can also be combined with a suitable liqueur.

•Ice-cream can be decorated with chocolate leaves, grated chocolate, nougat, bonbons, shredded coconut or chopped nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, slivered almonds, pistachio nuts).

•The ice-cream will look even more festive if you decorate it with one or more wafers, biscuits, macaroons or rolled wafers.

Sauces

•Sauces and syrup add a nice touch to the ice- cream. There are many different possibilities: sweet sauces, fruit sauces, fruit syrup.

•There are many types of ready-to-use sauces on the market. But, as is true for ice-cream: home-made sauces are tastier.

•Sauces can easily be prepared a few days in advance and stored in the refrigerator or freezer.

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