Happy Halloween!!!

The other day I opened my freezer in search of a snack (ice cream) but couldn’t find one (I’m sure you’ve had the same experience). To remedy future treasure hunts I decided to make a delicious treat I know you’ll love: Gelato! Now, it may just be me but gelato is amazing. I’m sure you will be amazed as I was at how simple of a treat it is to make!

Everywhere you go in Italy you can find it and eat it. In Sicily, you might put it inside a brioche (I ate the one in the picture above, absolutely wonderful: sweet, creamy, smooth, and with a rich flavor). In Florence, you may eat it in a cone or in a bowl. Regardless of exactly how you eat the sweet treat, you always look forward to it when you go to Italy or the Italian sector of your city.

You’ll find that gelato can be made in minutes (about 30 if you have an ice cream maker: if you’re wondering what I used I have this one, but don’t worry! I made the grapefruit gelato without one too, it just took a little longer.) Whether you use an ice cream maker or not you’ll love the creamy taste.

Without further ado, let’s make some homemade grapefruit gelato!

Homemade Grapefruit Gelato

Not being a designer by any means I wasn’t sure how to present this, but then I remembered a treat I had at Costco once. Maybe you’ve seen it too. Real quick, close your eyes and imagine your favorite fruit ice cream (except strawberry, blueberry, well don’t imagine a berry ice cream). Now, imagine the fruit. Cut the fruit in half, and remove the delicious insides. Fill it with your fruit ice cream. Can you see it? I hope so if you choose banana I don’t think it would have worked very well. You know, I probably should have told you to imagine a coconut or something like that, but I didn’t want to force you to try to imagine coconut ice cream as your favorite (it’s good, but personally I’d rather go with strawberry but as I said before, strawberry wouldn’t work. I put myself into a hole in that description, but I hope you have it in mind! Aaand I hope you didn’t cheat by remembering the image at the top of the page… I should have thought about that before the strawberry!)

The absolute last word before we begin: You may wonder about the egg. I have a friend in Italy who works at the gelato factories (yes, they exist. In fact, they are so hidden that not even my Google search for Ternano Gelato made them appear: Ooo magic) in Terni, Umbria. He said that one of the main differences between Italian gelato and American ice cream is the egg, but the egg isn’t always used in gelato. We’ll be taking advantage of that today! Well, with that nice little set of rambles and perfectly formed fruity gelato in mind, let’s get moving!!!

Grapefruit Gelato: How to make it, for real this time (no asides)

First off, let’s grab those ingredients: 2 grapefruits, 160 g of sugar, 200 ml milk, 120 ml of heavy cream. We will harvest the remaining ingredients – 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of grapefruit juice, a pinch of finely ground grapefruit rind – from our grapefruits in the next step. (I’m embarrassed to say I got hungry and ate one of my grapefruits as a snack – I guess I didn’t make the gelato fast enough. You don’t actually need both, but to make it look like a fancy dish you will.)

The next step: take those grapefruits and cut them in half. Now the tricky part, we need to remove the grapefruit flesh (not sure what they technically call that stuff). Juice the pulp so we get our 3 tablespoons (45 ml). While you’re at it, grind a few pinches of the rind — or blend the grapefruit flesh and take what you need. I will warn you not to use too much of the pulp. If you do, it will be incredibly tart. With our harvest complete, put the grapefruit peels in the freezer.

In a bowl, mix the sugar and milk. Stir until the sugar dissolves. (This will prevent the gelato from having a crunch.) Then add our yearly harvest of grapefruit juice and bits of rind.

In a large bowl, whip the heavy cream until you have soft peaks. Combine the milk mixture with the beaten cream.

Before serving, you may have to let it warm up just slightly. You want the gelato malleable.

That’s it! A truly super easy, cheap homemade gelato recipe. I hope you loved it as much as I did!