Level: Scoolinary Team

Hi Mohammad, thank you so much for sharing your question. It’s great to hear that you’re taking the ice cream course, and I completely understand your concerns.

I can see that you’re currently enrolled in several of the ice cream-making courses we offer on the platform, and each one focuses on different aspects of gelato and ice cream. That’s probably why not all of them go in-depth into the use of specific machines like the blast freezer or batch freezer, or into balancing recipes when working with more complex ingredients like bananas or cake pieces. Let me give you a quick overview of where you might be able to find those answers:

▪️ In the Artisan Italian Gelato course:
This course focuses on making artisanal gelato without additives or preservatives, using natural ingredients and professional techniques. Besides recipes like classic cream gelato, lemon sorbet, dark chocolate gelato, and a savory salmon gelato, it also covers the essential equipment needed to get started in the gelato business, such as the pasteurizer, batch freezer (mantecadora), blast freezer (abatidor), and aging vats. This course might help you better understand how to use the machines you mentioned.

▪️ In the Fundamentals of Artisan Gelato course:
This one goes deeper into defining what gelato is and how to formulate it properly. It covers important concepts like overrun (the amount of air incorporated) and the ideal ratios of each ingredient for a balanced recipe. It also introduces the essential equipment and applies these theories in real recipes. This would be a great course if you want to learn how to properly balance gelato bases, especially when adjusting recipes to include ingredients like banana or cake.

▪️ In the Avant-garde Ice Creams course with Jordi Roca:
This course dives into innovative textures and flavor combinations. Jordi shares his techniques for ice cream and sorbet bases, along with original toppings and ideas like sauces that stay liquid at low temperatures. While it’s not a classic formulation course, it’s a great place to learn how to incorporate elements like sponge cake, crumble, or fruits into your ice creams while maintaining control over texture and contrast.

▪️In the Artisan Ice Creams: The Value of Artisanal Gelato course:
This course highlights the importance of using natural products, ingredient balancing techniques, and parameters to create perfect ice cream textures. It explains how to balance sugars, solids, fats, and water content to achieve creaminess and prevent ice crystals — even when working with fresh fruits or solid inclusions. You’ll find examples of different techniques, like using egg yolks, chocolate, stabilizers for sorbets and cream-based gelato, low-temperature sauces, and more.

About the equipment you mentioned:

Batch freezer (mantecadora): the machine where the ice cream is frozen while air is incorporated to create the final texture.

Blast freezer (abatidor): rapidly lowers the temperature of the freshly churned ice cream to -18°C or below to stabilize its texture and avoid the formation of large ice crystals.

If your main question is how to adapt or balance a recipe with ingredients like banana or cake, it’s essential to understand their water, sugar, and solid content, and adjust the base accordingly. For example, bananas add more natural solids and sugars, so you might need to slightly reduce added sugars in the base or increase total solids to maintain a creamy texture. With cake pieces, it’s usually best to freeze them before folding them into the ice cream or incorporate them into sauces or ripples to prevent them from absorbing moisture.

Wishing you the best with your courses and thank you for your question, which I’m sure will also help other members of the community! 🙌🏻

Level: Scoolinary Team

Welcome to the Community, Chef Mohammad!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the gelato course—it’s great to hear you’re diving into it with curiosity and attention to detail! For more technical questions like using the blast freezer, batch freezer, or balancing ingredients such as banana or cake, we recommend posting them directly in our Community Forum so the team and fellow Scoolinars can give you tailored responses and follow up properly 👉 https://www.scoolinary.com/forums/forum/askaquestion

I hope Sussan’s answer helped you.

Here, in the Cooking Feed, we’d love to see your gelato creations! 🍨📸 Share your photos so we can celebrate your progress and plating!
You can earn Scoolipoints every time you share photos, win a Challenge, complete lessons, comment on other members’ posts and more! 🎖️
It’s all part of the Scoolinary Masters Game—where your passion for cooking turns into real rewards.
👉 Click here to learn more:
https://www.scoolinary.com/es/masters-game
Big hug! Hope to see you around, collecting points and flavor 🙌✨