My White Whale

I can deal with failure. I’m actually pretty good at it. What I have trouble with is dealing with “near success.” I tried making ice cream again last night after my first attempt didn’t go well (to say the least). The first time I made something that looked like ice cream, but tasted like frozen sewer water. This time, it went the exact opposite.

When I was cooking together all of the ingredients I made sure to be as careful as humanly possible, I was bound and determined to avoid another failure. I measured everything carefully, I watched the temperatures, and I kept exactly to the suggested times.

After I let the mixture cool down in the fridge (for exactly two hours) I took it out and put it in the ice cream machine to let it mix and freeze. The suggested time to leave it in was between 20 and 40 minutes. I wanted to be careful so I checked it at twenty minutes, it was still soup. I checked again after thirty minutes of spinning in ice, completely liquid. After forty minutes, it hadn’t set even a little bit. Everything from this point on was outside of the time recommendation. After fifty minutes, nothing. Sixty, the same. An hour ten? Nope. After a full hour beyond the recommended time the ice cream was still completely liquid, not even a little frozen.

I was livid that I had managed to fail even worse than the first time I tried making beer ice cream. I was getting ready to just dump my sugary soup down the drain when I decided to try a little. The taste was incredible. It had the same dark, deep coffee and bitter chocolate taste of the Raccoon River Brewing Stonecutter Stout, but it was balanced perfectly with the custard and vanilla. I poured my liquid ice cream into a Tupperware and stuck it in the freezer for the night. Although yes, it did freeze, this is not ice cream. It has no air whipped into it and it is much harder than your standard ice cream, especially homemade ice cream. The only way I can get any is to slowly scrape it out and eat it dime-sized bite by dime-sized bite. I didn’t make too much so it probably works out better that I can barely get any because with a taste like that I might power through it all in one night.

If I failed again, I would have given up. I got SOOO close though. The flavor was there. The first time, the texture was there. Now I just need to figure out how to split the distance. I know I’m close to figuring out a way to make this work, I WILL be making it work.

Today I came home from work to grab a bite to eat for lunch and saw an interview with one of the organizers of Cityview Brewfest this Saturday at Principal Park in Des Moines. If you don’t already have tickets, get them now! If you buy in advance they’re only $23 instead of $28. Yeah, I’m excited. I’ll see you out there!