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If you're waiting 24 hours after making your own ice cream in the Ninja Creamy, then you definitely don't want it to flop. So, here are 10 ingredients that you should not be using in your Ninja Creamies.
The first thing you should not use exclusively in your Ninja Creamy pints are high-fat liquids like heavy cream. Now, I didn't say you can't use heavy cream. I'm just saying don't use just straight heavy cream mixed with some sugar in your Ninja Creamy. The reason is because when it processes, the blades are going to be spinning so fast and it's basically going to give you like whipped cream/frozen butter if you process it a lot, especially. So, if you use a lot of just heavy cream or something that has a lot of oils in it, like straight coffee creamer, like some of the ones that have a lot of oils in it, then the finished mouth feel of your ice cream is not going to be very good. It's going to be a little bit greasy and it might taste a little buttery, which is delicious, but not necessarily for ice cream. So, instead of using just straight heavy cream, try mixing it with some other liquids such as milk or juice or something to kind of cut on that fattiness, like even coconut milk would work or almond milk. But just using straight heavy cream in a recipe is not going to be the very best.
Next is anything that has a high alcohol content. Alcohol does not freeze very well. So if you put in just like straight alcohol or something that has a very high alcohol content in your Ninja Creamy, then you'll probably end up with more of a slushy consistency versus a creamy or ice cream consistency. If you want to use alcohol or like have an alcoholic flavor to your Ninja Creamies, that's totally fine. But consider mixing it with something else that has a better freezing consistency if you want it to be more like ice cream.
Next is anything that has a very high sugar content. Just think about the last time you bought frozen juice concentrate. It's basically just sugar with some juice like concentrated into it and then you add the water. But you'll notice that it's not ever like frozen solid and it's more of a kind of a maybe sometimes even a gummy, chewy, or soft consistency. That's because it has a ton of sugar and sugar lowers the freezing point of liquids. So if you're using liquids or other mixtures that have a super high sugar content, you'll just want to be warned that you might not get a very scoopable texture to your ice cream. So maybe next time try using less sweeteners, less sugar, or mixing it with some other different kinds of sweeteners to find the perfect combination.
This is one I see all the time and it can actually be really dangerous/damaging to your machine. So don't use large chunks of fruit or whole fruit. All fruit, even small berries, need to be smashed or cut up into smaller pieces before they are frozen in your Ninja Creamy. The reason for this is because when the blades are coming down and it catches on a large chunk, that can be extremely hard on the blade and it can cause just like blade malfunctions. It can cause texture inconsistencies and it's not going to be as blended and smooth as if you were to just like completely blend it beforehand. You've got to remember that the Ninja Creamy is not blending everything like a blender would; it's just spinning and scraping the pieces of fruit. So, if you want it to be really smooth and scoopable like what the Ninja Creamy is kind of made for, then you need to make sure that all your pieces of fruit are cut up very small and smashed. So, even pieces of berries or bananas, it recommends to smash. So, I like using my little meat smasher thing that I have. It's usually made for like ground beef or other meats and stirring things, but this actually works really well in the Ninja Creamy pints when I like smash bananas, berries, fruits, anything. But make sure that you smash everything up before you freeze it.
Next, don't add raw egg yolks to your Ninja Creamy base. Using egg yolks and making ice cream is very, very common, but it needs to be cooked in order for it to turn into a custard base. If you just freeze egg yolk right into your your mixture and then you freeze it and then you process it thinking you're going to get a yummy vanilla custard, it's just raw egg. So, you need to make sure that you cook your base. You probably want to temper in the eggs. Just like if you were making a regular vanilla ice cream base, it needs to be cooked in order to become a custard. But don't use raw eggs in your Ninja Creamy, please.
Next, something else that I don't recommend that you freeze in your Ninja Creamies are nut butters. Especially the natural ones where the oils tend to separate and there's like, you know, you know exactly what I mean when I say natural butters like peanut butter or this almond butter, they separate. And so, if you add that directly, just like a glob of it into your base, it's going to be very sticky. It's not going to blend super great. So, if you want it as a mix-in, that's totally fine. I would just recommend adding the nut butters into like the mix-in cycle after you've processed it or after you process your Ninja Creamy and it's a really good yummy scoopable ice cream texture. Then you can just add a scoop full of almond butter or peanut butter into your actual creamy and just kind of manually mix it in. Otherwise, it's going to be like completely peanut or almond butter flavored. I mean, if that's what you want, that's fine, but I prefer to have like swirls of it in my ice cream. The other thing about it is that if you add nut butters directly into your Ninja Creamy base, they can separate when freezing. And so, you're going to have a really oily, sometimes like a gritty texture with your finished product. So, you definitely don't want that. Just make sure that all of the ingredients are blended really nicely together first, like completely emulsified, or just mix it in at the very end.
Next is anything that is super fibrous or starchy, like vegetables or fruits, such as like pumpkin or sweet potato. I know a lot of people make like baby food puree type creamies in their Ninja Creamies, but if you want to use vegetables like that, that's totally fine. However, you're going to want to make sure that you cook your starchy vegetables before so then you don't have like long strands and stringiness in your finished Ninja Creamy. It can also be really dangerous because it's kind of like if you have a knob of ginger and you like grate it up, you know that it's very kind of it's very fibrousy. They almost look like hairs. And so if you have anything like that, like pineapple that has a lot of fibrous in it, then you want to make sure to either cut those pieces of fruit really small and smash them the best you can and even like blend them if you can, or make sure that you cook them through so then they're soft and they don't damage your machine.
The next one is chocolate chips. I do not recommend adding chocolate chips directly into your Ninja Creamy base before freezing because one, the chocolate chips are going to just fall to the bottom of your base before it can completely freeze. So then you're going to have this really hard layer of super solid frozen chocolate chips at the bottom of your Ninja Creamy and SL or if they are somehow suspended in your base when it freezes. When the Ninja Creamy processes, it's just going to really obliterate the chocolate chips and it's going to be very almost gritty. It's not going to be a very delicious like like a mint chocolate chip type of deal. So, I would recommend either using chocolate shavings or like a very soft chocolate after you've processed and kind of mix them in or you can use the mix-in setting with chocolate chips after the Ninja Creamy has been processed to preserve the integrity of and like the shape of those chocolate chips or chocolate chunks. But I definitely don't recommend freezing them in the base because they're just going to get obliterated when it processes in the Ninja Creamy. The pieces are also very hard. So, it's kind of like those large chunks of fruit or solid berries. It could damage your machine and we definitely don't want that.
The next one is very, very low-fat or fat-free products. I know this is like the complete opposite of the first thing we talked about, heavy cream, but if you use something that has very, very little fat, then you won't get a very creamy texture and instead you'll probably get a little bit more of an icy texture. So, you can still use a very low-fat dairy base, but I would recommend adding some kind of an emulsifier such as guar gum or xanthan gum. That can help a little bit. Even just like an eighth or a 1/4 teaspoon in your mixture, just completely emulsified, will really help the texture of that. Or what I also recommend is just adding a little bit of fat, like a splash of half and half, a splash of heavy cream, or something else that can give it a little bit of creaminess to help the texture in the end.
And lastly, this is something that takes a little bit of experimentation on, but it's using nondairy milks. Now, I know what you're thinking because the Ninja Creamy is actually incredible for making dairy-free ice cream because you can kind of make it however you want. And dairy-free ice cream at the store is extremely expensive. So, you can definitely make vegan ice cream in the Ninja Creamy, but you need to be cautious of using super low-fat, very highly water-based milk such as rice milk or soy milk. So, just kind of keep those in mind. And I would recommend adding an additional creamier non-dairy milk such as oat milk or coconut milk. And that can really help improve the texture of your vegan creamies. Otherwise, if you use a very watery base, like some almond milks and some rice milks, it can be extremely icy and kind of slushy and not creamy and enjoyable. And that is what you want when you have a Ninja Creamy. Make sure you watch this playlist next with all of my Ninja Creamy videos. There's tons of tips, tons of mistakes, and recipes that you can use with this playlist. Okay, we'll see you on the next one. Bye.