Ilene’s Creamery: Fresh Summer Peach Gelato

by ilene on August 3, 2012 · 0 comments

(This is part of a series I wrote on ice cream making. See full list of posts here.)

Fresh peaches and nectarines are one of my favorite summer time treats. There’s nothing I love more than sinking my teeth into a juicy, plump white peach this time of year. One of the best things about our move to California is all the fresh, organic produce we get out here! No matter the season, there is always a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables to be eaten. At the Ferry Building farmer’s market San Francisco, I once got a $3 white peach that rivaled the size of my face! Peach frozen yogurt is up there as one of my favorite summer desserts. The sweet peaches combined with cream makes it a classic summer dessert.

I took a break from churning ice cream to make gelato. The main difference between ice cream and gelato is that gelato uses a greater proportion of whole milk to cream, thus, gelato has a lower percentage of fat. Also, this can’t be replicated with your home ice-cream maker, but gelato is usually churned at a slower speed than ice cream, so it’s denser because not as much air is whipped into the mixture. Another difference is that ice cream is typically served frozen, gelato is typically stored and served at a slightly warmer temperature, so it’s not quite completely frozen. You can actually eat it fresh right out of your ice-cream maker! Jeff and I fell in love with gelato when we took a two week trip around Italy last summer. In fact, we were more interested in finding the best gelaterias than seeing the sights!!

I found my peach gelato recipe from Making Artisan Gelato. The recipe actually requires a lot of pre-work because I had to make a peach puree and make macerated peaches. Both needed to sit about 2 hours before making the custard base.

To make macerated peaches, I diced the peaces and combined with sugar. Cover and chill for a few hours and you get this gooey, syrupy fruit: