SWEET + SALTY salted caramel gelato with salted caramel praline

Salted caramel seems to be all the trend here in Sydney, with café menus abundant with salted caramel milkshakes, tarts and of course, gelati and ice cream!

I made this salted caramel gelato for some lovely lady friends of mine. I became friends with these girls during our university days, eating Chicken Rolls at Tropical Green (Eat to Enjoy, Drink to Relax!) and surviving many late nights sanding blue foam models for our demanding design course. But since then, our latest common interest is our shared passion for food. We get together regularly to have food adventures across Sydney - we've even labelled it as the 'Get Fat Movement'! 

I finally got around to organising a Hot Pot night and I asked the girls what gelato they'd like me to make. SALTED CARAMEL, the girls replied immediately. I thought it would be easy enough but how wrong I was! This gelato was THE most time-consuming gelato I've ever had to make. I think it took about 2 hours, plus churning time! Usually a gelato will take about 30 to 45 minutes to make. The problematic part is adding the cream to the caramel, which lowers the temperature of the caramel and therefore hardens it. So you have to continuously stir over a low heat to re-melt the caramel-cream mixture to make it runny without burning it!

One thing I didn't perfect was the salted caramel toffee. I made 2 batches, because I got a bit greedy and wanted lots of toffee. I used rock salt and the first batch I used was too coarse and didn't completely dissolve. This left the toffee a bit uneven and too salty in some bits of toffee. I learnt my lesson in time for the second batch and put the rock salt in the blender so that there were finer grains. It worked a treat and the toffee had an even and slightly-salty flavour.

Despite the time and effort that this gelato took to make, it tasted fantastic and the girls loved it, so it was well worth it!

SWEET + SALTY
Salted Caramel Gelato with Salted Caramel Praline based on David Leibovitz's Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream recipe

Makes about 1 litre

Ice Cream Ingredients:

For the salted caramel praline (mix-in)

• ½ cup (100 gr) sugar
• ¾ teaspoon sea salt

For the salted caramel gelato

• 2 cups (500 ml) whole milk, divided
• 1½ cups (300 gr) sugar
• 4 tablespoons (60 gr) salted butter
• scant ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cups (250 ml) heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

Caramel Praline Method:

• Spread the sugar (100g) evenly within a medium-sized saucepan and prepare a large sheet of baking paper for the praline to set.
• Heat sugar on medium setting until the edges begin to melt, then start stirring the melted sugar until all (or most of) the sugar is dissolved. Stir infrequently whilst cooking (it shouldn't take too long) until you start to see smoke and it smells like it's about to be burnt.
• Sprinkle the salt and then immediately pour the caramel onto the prepared baking paper sheet.
• Quickly put down your saucepan and start moving around your baking sheet, holding it by the edges (because it'll be super hot) and tilting it around so that it forms a thin layer.
• Leave it to set and harden and try not to eat it all. It's hard but it'll taste amazing in the gelato, trust me!

Salted Caramel Gelato Method:

• Caramelise the sugar (300g), like in the second step in the Caramel Praline Method.
• Remove from heat, then stir in the butter and salt. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cream and half of the milk (1 cup) over low heat.
• As the temperature has dropped, the mixture will harden, so continue to stir and re-melt the hard caramel.
• In a small separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and gradually add it to the caramel mixture whilst stirring continuously until the mixture thickens.
• Pour the custard/caramel mixture through a strainer into a bowl of the remaining milk (1 cup) and stir through vanilla. 
• Refrigerate mixture until well chilled, then pour into ice cream bowl, then into your ice cream maker and set to desired setting to churn.
• During the churning stage, break up the praline into little pieces, using a rolling pin or mortar and pestle and stir through about 1 minute before the gelato is finished churning.