A DAY AT MESSINA'S

"Cause I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way and with a golden ticket it's a golden day."  

(Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971)

I know exactly how Charlie Bucket felt when he visited Willy Wonka's infamous chocolate factory, because I went to visit Australia's best makers of gelato yesterday. Although instead of a golden ticket it was an email confirmation... 

We gathered at the Surry Hills store on an early Saturday morning, where a shuttle bus was waiting to take us to their tiny factory in Rozelle, right next to Adriano Zumbo's. 

Donato Toce, the head chef and co-owner (pictured below) gave us a '101' on how to make gelato and shared some of his secrets and science behind their creations. Donato gave us a few demonstrations on how to make a Tiramisu gelato and a lychee sorbet which we got to taste.

Their factory is bursting at the seams, where they produce something like a tonne of gelato and up to 110 gelato cakes a day!  MIND BLOWN! Check out their To Make list on the whiteboard behind Donato - 180 litres x 9 flavours! With two of those being salted caramel, their most popular flavour. You can see why they are soon moving to a larger factory based in Rosebery, where they will be setting up a factory outlet! Woohoo!

All of their gelato originates from that tiny factory and is distributed throughout their numerous stores across Sydney and their store in Melbourne, where they are chilled and churned on site. We were told about the upcoming expansion of the Messina empire with future stores being developed in Miranda (NSW) and Coolangatta (QLD). 

Meanwhile we were fed a 5 course degustation menu all featuring gelati.
First off the bat was the Strawberry and Rhubarb fields forever, featuring caramelised rhubarb, compressed strawberries, baby basil, strawberry sorbet and dry caramel powder.



Second was the BHP, with a banana mousse, burnt honey gelato, fresh pear and pate sable. This was my favourite, the flavour combinations so subtle yet so complementary. 

Then we Oooh and Aaah'ed over the bowls of the Crunchies, which was so decadent and delicious and left us giggling looking at each other's gold-stained lips.

Another degustation delight was the Roll it and Fold it with a smooth mango sorbet, a refreshing apple and orange blossom creme leger, croissant crunch and croquant. 

And the final item on the menu was the Fra...what's going here... - which was probably the most interesting (but least visually enticing, if I have to be picky) of the lot - with a Pecan gelato, radish cream served on a Japanese sponge.

We watched on as the head pastry chef prepared his final touches for  the Willy Wonka inspired Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom gelato cake. I was mesmerised by the oozing red glaze being poured over the hemisphere of chocolate gelato. Isn't it just divine?!

If any of my nearest and dearest are reading this, let it be known that my birthday is coming up (cough cough HINT HINT HINT wink wink... (Hmm, subtle)

A cross section diagram  of Messina's amazing creation (Image from Gelato Messina)

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.

Reuben Hills

What sends a girl all the way from Castle Hill to Surry Hills on a rainy Sunday? Why, the ice cream sandwiches at Reuben Hills, of course!

We were looking forward to a long, lazy lunch at the Reuben Hills cafe,  but the line flowed out the door and onto the street. So we devised a cunning plan to get take-away for the famous ice-cream sandwiches.

There are 2 options, the Doggs Breakfast - a vanilla ice-cream in a chocolate sandwich with a generous serve of salted caramel sauce; and the Give a Dogg a Bone - a raspberry ice cream in a chocolate sandwich with a berry foam (although I think they have now changed this to peach foam, since my visit).

These delightful creations will set you back $9 each. A bit steep in price, but not as steep as the hill going up to Gelato Messina!

By the way, I've been super busy, creating some fabulous new pages for you! Check out the About, Friends and Contact pages, underneath The Gelatosmith header.

The Doggs Breakfast (above)

Give a Dogg a Bone (above)

GOLDMEMBER peanut butter gelato with salted caramel crumble

I've been so addicted to peanuts lately, munching on them ever since my Indonesian friend made us an amazing Peanut Sambal for dinner the other night. So I thought I'd channel this addiction into the form of a Gelato.

I based this recipe off this Peanut butter & salted caramel ice cream, but my salted caramel ended up turning into more of a crumble. I used a raw sugar, rather than a caster sugar, so the granules were larger and didn't melt as easily. I panicked when trying to melt the sugar, madly throwing in a dash of cream and knob of butter to try and rescue it. I was pretty happy with the accidental result, although I'd recommend making it while your ice cream is cooling, otherwise you'll probably have none left by the time the ice cream is ready. It's so more-ish!

Goldmember 
a salty peanut butter gelato, with a salted caramel crumble

Ingredients:
300g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter
300ml thickened cream
5 egg yolks
500ml full-cream milk
6 tbsp smooth peanut butter (or crunchy, however you like it!)
pinch of salt

For the salted caramel crumble:
100g raw sugar
dash of cream (1 tbs)
knob of butter (1 tbs)
a large pinch of salt


Method (Gelato):

• Heat the sugar in pan over medium heat until it melts, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon.
• Once sugar has melted and caramelised, add the butter and cream and stir, re-melting the mixture until smooth.
• Whisk egg yolks in large mixing bowl and pour cream mixture slowly whilst whisking.
• Whisk in milk
• Using a strainer, add mixture into a clear pan and heat mixture for about 5 minutes on medium-heat, until the mixture thickens slightly. Be careful not to overcook!
• Take off heat and stir in the peanut butter until smooth.
• Cool mixture in fridge (or freezer if you can’t wait!) then churn in your ice cream maker, mixing in crumble before serving.

Method (Salted Caramel Crumble):

• Melt the sugar in the same way.
• Once caramelised, remove from heat and add the salt dash of cream and butter and stir rapidly.
• Pour onto baking sheet-covered tray and leave to cool. Mix into ice-cream.