06/26/2015

Food Failures: I Scream, You Scream…When We Ruin Our Ice Cream

17:00 minutes

AHC My Sweet Honey; credit Lucy Schaeffer
Ample Hills Creamery’s Sweet as Honey ice cream. Photo by Lucy Schaeffer

Did you know that ice cream is technically a foam? A delicious, fatty, frozen foam that can be pretty tough to make on your own. Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks (O’Reilly, 2010), returns for another edition of Food Failures to provide some hacks for homemade ice cream. He discusses how much fat you need for your concoction to even be considered ice cream, how to control your ice crystals, and when to add the ingredients for your favorite flavor. With a few science-backed tips, you could soon be scooping smooth, velvety ice cream out of your own freezer, rather than cleaning up a melting mess on the kitchen counter.

Segment Guests

Jeff Potter

Jeff Potter is the author of Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food — Second Edition (O’Reilly, 2015) and a software engineer in New York, New York.

Brian Smith

Brian Smith is the owner of Ample Hills Creamery and co-author of Ample Hills Creamery: Secrets and Stories from Brooklyn’s Favorite Ice Cream Shop (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2014) based in Brooklyn, New York.

Meet the Producer

About Becky Fogel

Becky Fogel is a newscast host and producer at Texas Standard, a daily news show broadcast by KUT in Austin, Texas. She was formerly Science Friday’s production assistant.