Transcription
When I first bought my Ninja Creamy last May, I had to mess around with it a couple of times before I posted my first recipe. My first recipe looked like this; honestly, it tasted okay, but it was not my best work. It was just a bit icy and didn't really have the consistency that I was really looking for. But I kind of thought that that was how it was going to be; I didn't really know the tips and tricks yet to perfect the perfect pint.
But now that I'm the proud owner of a Ninja Creamy for over a year, I want to help you guys out. Hi, if you're new here, I'm Amanda, AKA Food AE, and today we're going to be going over 10 tips and tricks to help you perfect the perfect pint with your Ninja Creamy. So if you're excited to see this video, please give this a like, subscribe, and share it with your friends, as it really helps the channel. And I post new videos every week. And with that, let's get started.
Tip number one sounds like an obvious one, but most people actually don't do this, and it's to actually freeze it for 24 [Music] hours. I know it's a long time to wait, and it can be, but there's a reason that they say this, like literally in the instructions. So if you spin it around like the 16 to 20-hour mark, which I have several times, it still works, but you risk it coming out chalky. Basically, it's going to yield the best results if you keep it frozen for at least 24 hours. And yes, I said at least because I think a lot of people think you have to keep it frozen for like exactly a day, but you can keep it frozen for like 48, 72 hours; like it's still going to be fine. Better to do that than to keep it frozen for like 12 hours.
Tip number two is one that I only recently learned, and that's to use this thing called xanthan gum. So xanthan gum is a thickener. I use Bob's Red Mill brand, but you could use whatever you're able to find; could also purchase it on Amazon. Basically, it's a thickener, and it makes the ice cream less icy. It makes it blend a lot better, and overall, it just makes the pint like come out perfectly every single time. So you'll see in the most recent video that I posted, like Ben & Jerry's part two, that's when I started using the xanthan gum, and I noticed the ice cream just comes out way better, way more blended like throughout. I don't need to like scrape the sides or anything like that. But again, like I really only started using this recently, so if you don't have it on hand, you don't need to use it, but I would highly recommend getting your hands on this. If you don't have xanthan gum, then using fat-free pudding mix is probably the next best thing; that's what I've been doing before I used xanthan gum. I would add about five grams. Another thing I'm going to say with xanthan gum: a little goes a long way; like don't add more than two grams, otherwise it's going to be too thick and not churn out very well.
Tip number three is to know which mix-ins to use, cuz some turn out better than others. What I found is using like mini chocolate chips, for example, those do not blend well throughout; they just end up kind of like sitting at the top. Whereas if I put like a brownie, something like thicker and better, it blends really well into like chunks throughout the ice cream, which is really what you want. So just experiment and see which works better and what tastes better. One tip that I've seen with the mix-ins—I haven't really implemented this that much, but I've seen it, and it seems to work well—is like digging a hole in the middle to put the mix-ins in.
Tip number four is to soak the pint in hot water for 30 seconds before you put it on the light ice cream setting. So basically, once you take it out of the freezer, run your hot water and kind of like go around and soak the pint. This helps to make it less icy and basically like separate the mixture from the side so that it's not stuck to the sides. This particular tip, honestly, I haven't implemented it that many times, but I put a question box on Instagram, asking you guys for your best tips, and a lot of you swore by this.
Number five, kind of like relating to that, is to kind of scrape the sides after you use the light ice cream setting before you do the mix-in or the re-spin. Again, when I've used the xanthan gum, I found that I don't really have to do this, but if you're not using the xanthan gum and you're just using the fat-free pudding mix, that's what I used to do, and I find it makes a big difference with separating the ice cream from the sides. Also, I know this probably goes without saying because I do it in all my recipes, but you're going to use the light ice cream setting first, and then even if you're not putting in mix-ins, you do the re-spin after. So you're either doing light ice cream, re-spin, or light ice cream, mix-ins.
Tip number six is to use a combination of dairy and plant-based milk to yield a creamier ice cream, or even just using all dairy-based if you can. Using all plant-based just isn't going to yield as good of a result; not going to be as creamy, not going to be as nice. But of course, if you have a dairy allergy, if you're vegan, I'm sure you could adapt this.
Number seven, kind of an unfortunate tip, but try to eat the pint all in one go, or share with a friend or roommate, whatever, because I find that, let's say you eat half and you put it back in the freezer and then like re-spin it another day, it just doesn't taste as good. One thing you could do, though, is just like leave it on the counter; like let's say you eat half of it and you want to eat the other half like the next day, instead of re-spinning that half, just leave it on the counter to like thaw out and eat it. But of course, you have to be patient for that.
Tip number eight is to make the ice cream sweeter than you think you want it because freezing it takes away some of the sweetness. So I always make sure to add the monk fruit sweetener or like any zero-calorie sweetener, even though I'm using protein powder that's flavored and like Jell-O pudding mix or whatever else I put into it, cuz I just want to make sure it's sweet. I love sweet ice cream.
Number nine is something I've learned the hard way: be careful with the parts and just like the Ninja Creamy in general. And I know this sounds like self-explanatory, but listen for a sec. Basically, one of my pint containers, the edge of it was like kind of—you might not really be able to see it—but basically one of my pint containers, it's not like a perfect circle along the edge; like this part is kind of like pushed in a bit and like messed up. I don't really know what happened; I think I might like pressed it too hard or something. But anyway, this no longer works; I should really throw it out. Like this no longer works in the Ninja Creamy, and it sucked because I made a recipe in there; like I waited 24 hours for it to freeze, and then I put it in the machine, and it didn't work because like basically it didn't screw on, and I couldn't get it—get it in the Ninja Creamy machine. Like the Ninja Creamy machine, it's very, very sensitive, so if any of the parts are like dented in any way, it's not going to work. So just like be careful; be more careful than I was.
And finally, the last tip is to follow my recipes. I know when I first started, I really had like no idea what I was doing. I was kind of like looking at other people's recipes for inspo. I would say rather than like wasting ingredients kind of figuring out what's going to work and what might not work, just look at a creator like myself who has a bunch of recipes posted. These are all tried and true, so you know they're going to be delicious, and I can assure you there's something for everyone, and there's going to be more recipes coming, by the way. If you want to request a certain flavor for me to make in the Ninja Creamy, say it in the comments down below.
And those are all the tips I have. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you have any more tips, leave them in the comments below. If you clicked on this video, I'm sure you're looking for Ninja Creamy recipes since you probably own a Ninja Creamy. So I'm going to link a couple of recipes up here that you should watch next. And please give this video a like, subscribe, and share with your friends, as it really helps the channel. And I post new videos every week. And with that, I'll see you guys next time. Bye.