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The Batter Thickens

A food blog balancing sweet treats & healthy eats.

Lemon Olive Oil Gelato

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I spent last week in Germany, and like any good trip to Europe includes, I had a few gelatos. There’s something about gelato that is just superior… it’s hard to put a finger on whether it’s just being in vacation mode, or whether it’s hugely different. I decided while I was there that I needed to do some research. The Lemon Olive Oil Gelato is the first step of that research.

My initial findings were somewhat inconclusive. I read that gelato uses only milk, and has no cream or eggs. But every recipe I clicked on had eggs in it! Some even had cream. So it was unclear what actually sets gelato and ice cream apart… Were those recipes just wrong?

I eventually found some sources that said some gelato does use eggs, because there needs to be an emulsifier or thickener. You can you cornstarch, but that’s apparently a specifically Sicilian version of gelato. I may wind up trying that version too! So it seems the two big, consistent things that make gelato different from ice cream is the lack of heavy cream and that gelato is churned at a slightly higher temperature. Mostly, this was not too different from making a frozen custard.

I wanted to do lemon olive oil gelato because it felt like a very European flavor. I also wanted to emulate the lemon infused olive oil flavor from Pumphouse Creamery that I tried last year that was very very good. I also added in some Fiori di Sicilia extract since I have been wanting to use it more and it fits really well with the citrus flavor. Although, perhaps I should have used that for the Sicilian gelato, given the name!

It’s amazing to me how rich and creamy gelato can be, sometimes even more so than ice cream, without there being any cream in it!

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Lemon Olive Oil Gelato

  • Author: Audrey
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Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
  • 3/4 cup whole milk
  • Large pinch salt
  • 1/8 tsp fiori di sicilia (optional)
  • 4 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

  1. Put the sugar in a bowl and zest the lemon into it. Massage in the lemon zest until all the sugar is fragrant.
  2. In a medium-size saucepan stir together the sugar, water, milk, and salt and heat until bubbles form around the edge of the pan. In a separate bowl beat the egg yolks until frothy. Continue beating whilst pouring in the combined liquids in a thin stream, then return the mixture to the pan. Carry on stirring with the pan over a low to moderate heat until the custard thickens to a loose custard sauce consistency or reaches 185 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. (Take your time and take the pan off the heat, if needed, because you don’t want to scramble the egg). Immediately pour the custard into a bowl and set the bowl in an ice water bath. Stir until the mixture is cool. Transfer to a lidded container, and refrigerate overnight.
  3. Whisk in 1/4 cup olive oil in a thin steady stream — the mixture should thicken and turn smooth. Taste the mixture and decide if you want to add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil — the oil flavor will become more prominent as the ice cream ages, so keep this in mind. Churn in an ice cream maker following manufacturer’s instructions. Eat right away, or transfer to a container and freeze until ready to eat.

Notes

Adapted from Food52

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