Creme anglaise vs. eggless gelato custard

Gelato base with eggs

vs. our eggless gelato base with gums

When you prepare the recipes for the Sweetcycle’s eggless gelato custards, you don’t have to fear overcooking and curdling and thus ruining your custard bases.  Traditional custard recipes are made with cream, milk and egg yolks (crème anglaise), where the egg yolks have to be cooked and emulsified into the custard in a very specific way, at a set temperature.  If this is not done correctly, your custard is ruined and not usable.

Sweetcycle’s eggless gelato custard recipes are thickened with rice flour, locust bean gum and xanthan gum (sometimes I substitute guar gum and carrageenan for locust bean gum) , thickeners that can be simmered or boiled for 30 second, 2 minutes or even longer.  With these gums and starches as gelling agents, there is more variability in the cooking time and temperature range without risk of ruining your custard.

You don’t have to perform the infamous “wooden spoon test” used in an egg based custard and you don’t need to run your finger over the back of the wooden spoon to examine how the custard holds the “line”.  You don’t need a thermometer to test whether the custard is cooked.  You don’t have to worry about “tempering” your hot milk into your egg yolks.   These are all very intimidating tasks and observations for the home cook. 

In the Sweetcycle recipes, you will whisk your gums and rice flour into your hot cream/milk mixture and bring the mixture to a simmer (light boil) for 30 seconds and then take it off the stove.  Done.  And if you leave it on the stove for 45 seconds or 2 minutes, it won’t matter.  Your custard base will be fine, usable and delicious. 

Notes from Kate

See this recipe for Mint Gelato that we followed at the July 2019 Brooklyn Grange Gelato Workshop. In this post, I include a recipe for mint gelato using egg yolks as gelling agents and alternatively a mint gelato recipe using gums and rice flour as gelling agents to thicken the custard.