Pistachio Gelato

Pistachio Gelato


One of the most requested recipes has been a pistachio gelato! This has a great pistachio flavour with a natural colour and smooth texture.

Pistachio paste is an expensive ingredient, so you can make it yourself, but you’ll need a high-powered food processor and some really good quality bright green pistachios, like Sicilian ones! 

A high end gelato/ice cream machine is really important here too, as the built-in chiller will maintain a constant cold temperature to ensure small ice crystal formation while the mixture churns. I use the Musso Lussino 4080.

 


 


 

Ingredients


Pistachio Gelato
 670 g Whole Milk
 50 g Skimmed Milk Powder
 145 g Caster/White Sugar
 50 g Dextrose
 100 g Pure Pistachio Paste
 2 g Ice Cream StabiliserI use Locust Bean Gum
Equipment & Ingredients

Method


Pistachio Gelato
1

Into a small bowl, add 20g of the caster/white sugar and the ice cream stabiliser. Stir these together to combine and set to one side.

2

Add the remaining caster/white sugar, pistachio paste, dextrose, skimmed milk powder and whole milk to a medium saucepan.

3

Place the pan onto a medium heat and whisk until it reaches 45C/113F. Once at temperature, add in the sugar/stabiliser mixture and keep whisking.

4

Cook the mixture until it reaches 85C/185F the immediately remove it from the heat.

5

Pour it into a clean bowl and blend with a hand blender for a minute to emulsify.

6

Get the bowl into a sink full of ice water and stir it occasionally for around 15 minutes to cool it down. Cover the surface with cling film and refrigerate the base overnight to mature it.

7

The next day, if you are using an ice cream/gelato machine with a chilling unit, turn it on about 15 minutes ahead of time to get the bowl cold. If you are using a stand mixer freezer bowl there is no need to do this - although note you will not get the best texture with one of these as they cannot chill the gelato to the correct temperature.

8

Blend the pistachio gelato base one more time and then pour it into your machine to churn. It will take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on your machine.

9

The gelato should be a scoop-able texture but depending on your machine, may need to go back into the freezer for a few hours to firm up. Scoop it into a container and freeze it. Ideally this needs to be churned and served on the same day so up to 6 hours in the freezer is long enough. As the gelato freezes, the sugars begin to re-crystallise which makes the gelato go icy. As the recipe has a stabiliser in it along with skimmed milk powder, we are doing everything we can to trap as much water too, but eventually the texture will deteriorate.

Ingredients

Pistachio Gelato
 670 g Whole Milk
 50 g Skimmed Milk Powder
 145 g Caster/White Sugar
 50 g Dextrose
 100 g Pure Pistachio Paste
 2 g Ice Cream StabiliserI use Locust Bean Gum
Equipment & Ingredients

Directions

Pistachio Gelato
1

Into a small bowl, add 20g of the caster/white sugar and the ice cream stabiliser. Stir these together to combine and set to one side.

2

Add the remaining caster/white sugar, pistachio paste, dextrose, skimmed milk powder and whole milk to a medium saucepan.

3

Place the pan onto a medium heat and whisk until it reaches 45C/113F. Once at temperature, add in the sugar/stabiliser mixture and keep whisking.

4

Cook the mixture until it reaches 85C/185F the immediately remove it from the heat.

5

Pour it into a clean bowl and blend with a hand blender for a minute to emulsify.

6

Get the bowl into a sink full of ice water and stir it occasionally for around 15 minutes to cool it down. Cover the surface with cling film and refrigerate the base overnight to mature it.

7

The next day, if you are using an ice cream/gelato machine with a chilling unit, turn it on about 15 minutes ahead of time to get the bowl cold. If you are using a stand mixer freezer bowl there is no need to do this - although note you will not get the best texture with one of these as they cannot chill the gelato to the correct temperature.

8

Blend the pistachio gelato base one more time and then pour it into your machine to churn. It will take anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on your machine.

9

The gelato should be a scoop-able texture but depending on your machine, may need to go back into the freezer for a few hours to firm up. Scoop it into a container and freeze it. Ideally this needs to be churned and served on the same day so up to 6 hours in the freezer is long enough. As the gelato freezes, the sugars begin to re-crystallise which makes the gelato go icy. As the recipe has a stabiliser in it along with skimmed milk powder, we are doing everything we can to trap as much water too, but eventually the texture will deteriorate.

Notes

Pistachio Gelato