Transcription
All right, so just like every other human being on this planet, I love frozen desserts. They're all good. Oh, dear God, ice cream, frozen yogurt, gelato, sorbet—I'll take them all. But I have one problem: I've never been able to figure out a good process of making them at home. After 15 years of trying out different appliances, different ice cream makers, none of them have really fit right with my cooking lifestyle. They're either too big and bulky, they're too slow, or they just don't give me the results that I'm looking for. That is until this machine right here, the Ninja Creami. Let's just say it has solved all of my problems and completely changed my life over the last few months. And today, I'm going to be demoing the versatility of this machine and showing you how it has opened up a whole new world of frozen desserts in my life. I want some more ice cream, please.
So before I start using this machine, I want to tell you how it works. And thanks to Chris Young, former founder of ChefSteps and now founder of Combustion Inc., he made an incredible longer video all about this topic, and I'm just going to sum it up for you in like 1 minute. So to understand what the Ninja Creami does, we first have to look at the PacoJet, which is basically the original invention. They do the same thing, except this is very big, super hefty, and very expensive. They cost around $6,000, and they're an industrial machine made for restaurants, which is why you've probably never heard of them. So, so a traditional ice cream maker works by taking a liquid base, pouring it into an ice cream machine, which is constantly freezing an outer layer of that liquid, and then some mechanism is continuously scraping off that layer. The PacoJet actually works in reverse. What you do is you take a liquid base, pour it into a container, freeze that container, so you have a solid frozen base, and the machine is basically the same thing as a drill press, like you'd find in a tool shop, with a spinning blade on the outside that slowly moves down, blending up that chunk of ice into a creamy product. Now, PacoJets have been used in restaurants for like the last two decades, and it wasn't until a few years ago that the patent actually ran out, and the Ninja appliance company jumped on it to create a home consumer version. And they did a great job with the original Ninja Creami, which is around $180 US, and then recently they came out with the Ninja Creami Deluxe, which is the version that I bought, which comes in at $250 US. And both versions are totally viable options, depending on your budget. The Deluxe is just a little bigger; it's got a few more settings on there and just a few more upgrades from the original version. And this machine works exactly like the PacoJet. It even has pretty much the same blade. The biggest differences being that it's not as powerful as the industrial version, so the results aren't going to be as good as the PacoJet, but you'll see they are pretty damn impressive.
To demonstrate the versatility and power of this machine, I'm going to be sampling three different styles of frozen desserts today. So I'm going to start things off with some frozen yogurt, probably the easiest recipe that I'm going to show you today. And I went on a big Trader Joe's run before this video, and they actually had some goat yogurt that looked intriguing, so that's what we're going to be using. That's good. And one of my favorite flavors is mint chip, and I actually had some fresh mint growing in the garden that just started sprouting up, so I chopped a few sprigs of that. And to extract the flavor, I'm going to pour a little bit of homemade almond milk into the saucepan, and you can, of course, sub for any milk product. And I'll get that heating up, and I'll throw in that milk, and I'll throw in that mint. And what I'm basically doing is just steeping it, like you would be steeping a tea. And these are the Ninja Creami containers for the deluxe version; they're a little bigger, and you can see they have a freeze line right here, which you don't want to go above. So I'm dumping that yogurt just a little bit below to leave room for that minty almond milk, which is now cooled down. I'll pour that over with just the tiniest pinch of salt to bring out the flavors. And then to sweeten this up, I'm using maple syrup; you can use any sweetener you want, and just a few spoons will get me to the level that I'm looking for. And then I'll freeze that container overnight, making sure that it's freezing on a level surface, which is very important for the Ninja Creami to blend properly.
All right, fresh out of the freezer, we've got our frozen block of sweetened yogurt. Smells good. Now, I'm still really trying to master this machine, but definitely best practice is letting the container sit out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes just to defrost a little bit. It's going to help creamify everything, or you could take it, just run it under hot water as well for like 30 seconds. And then this works pretty simply: you take that out, take off the lid, take off this lid, pop that in there, and you can see here is the removable blade. We'll lock everything back in place, pop it here, and this is pretty cool, by just twisting. So we're ready to go. So now we'll turn it on, we'll set it for full because we have a full container, and of course, we're going to the froyo specific setting here, and it's going to get really loud, and that blade will slowly go down, blend up this block of frozen yogurt, and it tells you the time; it's going to take 5 minutes. All right, we're almost there, and boom. Now, most likely we'll need a respin. Let's see, let's see what's under the hood. Yeah, so as you can see right here, this is pretty classic for the first spin; it actually looks like a powder. Let's give this a taste. Wo, so it tastes good, and when you push the powder together in your mouth, it creates a nice smooth texture. So in a PacoJet, it's a longer cycle, and it's more powerful; that's why you don't get a powder like this. But Ninja Creami is well aware that this happens, so that's why they added this button right here, which is respin. You could also add just like a little bit more cream or milk or yogurt that can help get it super smooth. We're just going to hit the respin button, which is only 2 minutes, and in the meantime, I'm going to chop up this chocolate bar so we get that mint chip [Applause] flavor. See what we got. Oh, there we go. Let's see what the texture is doing here. Oh yeah, nice and creamy. Quick taste before the chips go in. Mmm, wo, that goat yogurt got a funk to it, but the texture, it tastes like it's coming from a frozen yogurt machine; pretty perfect. Now, when you see reviews on the Creami, people are constantly talking about ice crystals, which I didn't really understand at first until you taste a sample, and you will get some of these ice crystals, which are just tiny chunks of ice, because this machine isn't $6,000 like the PacoJet; it's not perfect. So there's a few tiny little crystals or little pieces of ice in there leftover, but like on that bite, I didn't get any, so it's very, very minor. So now, since there's that hole in there, we're going to take these chocolate chips, boom shakalaka, we'll put back on the lid, and what is wonderful about this machine is you have a mix-in button. You can hear the motor is much slower, only 2 minutes because it's just mixing in those ingredients; it's not going to pulverize them, which I think is an amazing feature to have. And we're done. Let's see. Oh, dear God, that just looks amazing. All right, final taste test. Wow, that goat yogurt was a little stronger than I expected; sometimes they can be. It's a distinct change from a cow yogurt, but I don't mind it. This is different. I think I could have gone a little bit sweeter; it's a little bit more maple syrup, but the chocolate chips do help as well. Just look at that texture; perfect, barely any ice crystals either. I don't know, I just like machine fro-yo. For me, one of my favorite frozen desserts, and it was something that I really, I don't think I ever made at home 'cause it just didn't feel that accessible, even with an ice cream maker, for whatever reasons. But having that fro-yo setting, having this product, we're in the game, baby.
Next up, we're making a sorbet. And in this little recipe booklet the Creami comes with, they have recipes for canned fruit sorbet, which I've seen a few times online as well in some demos where basically you're just dumping a thing of canned fruit, freezing it, blending it up, boom, you've got sorbet. A little too basic for what I'm going for, but on the next page of the recipe book, they talk about fresh fruit sorbet. So I'm actually going to find a middle ground and do a little combination of both. So I've got these really nice canned peaches, and then I have some fresh pears. So first, I peeled about three medium pears, and then I sliced them up into chunks. I added a few canned peaches, followed by the fresh pears, and the peaches were actually canned in a white grape juice, so I just added that right on top, about halfway up. And then what I love about this process that makes it so easy is I can just take a masher or fork or, best-case scenario, an immersion blender and just blend that right up in that container. So you're really saving on mess, and you don't need to blend it up perfectly because the Creami blade will do a lot of the blending for you, but it doesn't hurt to get things super smooth before you send it through the machine. And then once it was done, I tasted it for sweetness; didn't need any additional extra sugars on top of the natural sugars in the fruit. And then it's just freezing that sorbet mixture overnight.
Right, 24 hours later, that's what we're looking like. Been defrosting for 10 minutes out of the freezer. Pop it in. This one, I'm very excited for; I have not tried anything quite like this. Boom, we're going to turn it on full, and we're going to set it specifically for [Music] sorbet, and we're done. See, yep, okay. The defrost was the key 'cause I didn't have to respin that. You can see that is a perfect texture. I'm not even going to taste that; I'm just going to serve it up right now. Sorbet, come on. I love that texture; silky smooth out of the scooper. Look at this; that's incredible. This one's very exciting because of the simplicity; took me like 1 minute to blend up all those flavors, and now we're eating sorbet, which again, I just don't think was really possible before a machine like this; versatility right here. Wow, wow. Okay, okay, now we're talking. I tried the sorbet before with banana; it came out more like ice cream 'cause the banana is so thick. That is sorbet; honestly, perfect sorbet. I'm not getting any ice crystals either. Holy crap. So if you're a sorbet fan, I mean, worth the investment. Holy.
All right, it is finally ice cream time. Now, I'm going with a traditional custard base ice cream for this recipe, and I'm starting off with four eggs, and I'm just looking for the yolks, so I'll crack those eggs and separate the egg yolks, and then give them a little whisk. And then what I love about making homemade ice cream is you control the sugar levels, so I'm adding half a cup, which is a little bit less than your traditional ice cream recipe, and I'll whisk that up until it's smooth. Then to a medium saucepan, I'm adding 2 cups of heavy cream, and just to lighten things up a little bit, I'm using one cup of that same homemade almond milk that I used in the fro-yo recipe, and I'll bring that to around 160°F, which is a little bit below an actual simmer. And then I'll start tempering my eggs, which is the process of pouring this hot creamy mixture slowly over the egg yolks so they don't scramble, just a little bit at a time, whisking that up until those egg yolks come up to temperature. And then we transfer that egg yolk cream mixture back into the pot, put it on a medium-low heat, and just keep that moving so the bottom doesn't burn for about 5 minutes. And again, you don't want this to actually bubble or boil; you're just slowly heating it up so those egg yolks thicken everything up a bit. And you can see we've got a nice creamy thick custard here. And then I'll just cool that mixture down in an ice bath, and once it's cool, I'll pour that into one of the Creami containers, leaving a little bit of room because I am flavoring this ice cream with some strawberries, and I just have a bag of frozen strawberries here that I let defrost at room temperature for like 20 minutes. I'll dump a bunch of those on, blend those up with the immersion blender, and then when that is nice and smooth, I just dump a few more strawberries on top, give them a quick blend so I get a little more strawberry texture in the final ice cream product. And then, of course, that is off to the freezer to freeze overnight so it's ready for the Creami.
Now the real test: what does this thing do against ice cream? We've got our strawberry base right here, defrosting 10 minutes. Pop and lock, set full. There's actually a regular ice cream and a light ice cream setting. This is definitely the regular. Oh, that's crazy; it's only 2 minutes. That's for ice cream. Oh, interested in what is going on here. Let's see. Ooh, pretty creamy. Now I might be defrosting like a little too long; this one sat out a little longer, starting to melt a little bit. Actually, before I scoop this, I'm going to put it in the freezer a little bit longer; I want it nice and cold. Ooh, that, oh nice, that's a pretty solid scoop. Strawberry ice cream. Here we go. Mmm, so that's smooth, I'll say that, but you can definitely tell—let me take that back—it's a little icier. I know that's not a word, but best way to explain it, just a little bit more texture than just full-on creamy, but still incredible. I am totally fine with that; that tastes like amazing ice cream. I can't stop. And one thing to keep in mind that Chris Young mentions in his video is that when you use a traditional ice cream maker, there's more air whipped in, and the air acts as an insulation, so you get ice cream that melts slower versus ice cream in the Creami is going to melt a little bit faster, but actually have a more intense pop of flavor like right up front, which I'm definitely getting, but we are melting on the bottom. So hopefully you got a better sense of what this is capable of. Honestly, I just think it opens up a whole world of versatility for me. Over the last 10 years, I never found one ice cream maker that I felt like I could just incorporate into my weekly routine easily, but just the way this works, to be able to freeze a bunch of these different flavors, throw them in the freezer, and then whip them out and make ice cream, to me it's just so much easier because I want to eat frozen desserts of different kinds, and there's not that many good ice cream places around me, if I'm being honest, especially ones that offer like a healthier option. And it's so easy with this machine to create healthy frozen desserts. Honestly, my kids have been loving it; it's been a game-changer for someone with two kids where I need to come up with interesting snacks for them, interesting desserts. Hopefully you enjoyed this video, and if you want more product reviews, click right here.