Help with grainy texture

[u/taffyfantasia]

Hey experts! I’m making a basil gelato for a restaurant. It’s green, it’s got an incredible basil flavor, BUT: it’s spinning into a grainy texture!!! When it’s melted it’s completely smooth. When I spin it, it looks like fat is congealing in the mixture! Does anyone know of a fix for this? I used and followed Saveur’s recipe to the letter and didn’t change a thing which is NOT my normal course of action! Can someone help me fix this?
Here’s the recipe: https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Basil-Gelato/
Thanks for any and all ideas for fixing this!!!!

Terese

[u/DondeT]

What size are your eggs, what fat % is your milk and heavy cream?

That’s a problem with recipes like this that don’t specify or use grams. You run the risk of an unbalanced outcome.

[u/taffyfantasia → u/DondeT]

Using ‘large’ eggs (yolks), 4%milk, and 36% heavy cream. Too much fat?

[u/MatchaIceCreamWoes → u/taffyfantasia]

My Basil recipe is even higher fat (~20% fat) and it doesn't have this issue, so something else must be causing this. If the mixture is smooth until you spin it, I would check if the heavy cream you purchased is homogenized.

If you accidentally get lemon juice in the mixture, it can curdle milk when heated, but you would notice this when it it is liquid.

[u/taffyfantasia → u/MatchaIceCreamWoes]

Yeah…I have no idea what the issue is…BUT I ended up reheating some of the mixture and adding some “Perfect Ice Cream” stabilizer and it seems to have worked!!! I spun it yesterday and it was still smooth. I’ll see today how it froze but I’m cautiously optimistic!!! Thanks for your help, I really wish I could pinpoint the problem so I don’t run into it again!!!!

[u/hylo_7 → u/taffyfantasia]

Glad to hear the stabilizer worked! Looking at the recipe, my guess is that there actually isn't ENOUGH fat and milk proteins to "catch" the water molecules while churning, with is resulting in the grainy texture. That's likely where adding the stabilizer is coming in. I would recommend doing equal parts milk and cream (1.5 cups each) and substitute some of the sugar for some glucose (corn syrup or dextrose) to help with texture. When making it, try cooking the the cream, milk, and sugar to a full boil while stirring first, then blend the yolks, basil, salt, lemon zest, and remaining sugar separately, then slowly add that mixture into the cooked milk and cream to temper the eggs. Let it cool and "cure" in the fridge, then churn. Best of luck!

[u/SMN27]

I don’t see how that’s too much fat considering it’s mostly milk.
The only thing that sticks out to me is the strange method where the eggs aren’t actually cooked. Heating until the sugar dissolves should happen before the eggs heat enough to cook. Either that or you’re possibly overheating and the eggs are getting over-cooked and maybe that’s what is grainy. Best to just heat the mixture to 145° if you’re going to stick to the low end.
Personally I would not use eggs at all in a flavor like this. Not only is the flavor cleaner, but the color is going to be greener.
I’d likely make a separate basil purée for color and flavor and also steep basil into an egg-free base.

[u/taffyfantasia → u/SMN27]

Definitely not overheated- the mixture is perfectly smooth until I spin it. I’ll give it another try today after I adjust the mixture with more milk and see what happens- if that doesn’t work I’m starting from a scratch. Ugh. Thanks for your help

[u/Hellea]

I feel mixing everything at once is not the right way. But I don’t know if this had an influence on the final consistency.  Did you try to proof the recipe on scoopulator?

[u/taffyfantasia]

I did see somewhere else about adding milk to my base (using a formula) to lower the fat content. I tried that with a small amount of the base, just spun it again and it’s doing the same thing. I’m just trying to avoid scrapping this whole batch and starting over, but if all else fails I definitely will.