Purple Sweet Potato Gelato

Being a food blogger in Boston is way better than being a food blogger in Bermuda. Yea, I mean, beach BBQs and late night s’mores are pretty awesome, but the blogger community here in Boston is unreal. I get to go to parties where people just talk about food the whole time, complimentary brunches in picturesque New England towns, and fun dinners where the click of SLRs are almost as common as the clink of toasting cocktails.

I was lucky enough to be invited to one such dinner tonight at Stone Hearth Pizza Co. in Allston, Ma. Stone Hearth happens to be a customer of mine at my day job where I make gelato. I knew some of the most discerning tongues in the city would be tasting my gelato, so I wanted to bring something special. My blogger friend Bianca (who I knew would be at the dinner tonight) has been raving about “ube” ice cream, a frozen treat made with a purple yam common in the Philippines. While I couldn’t get my hands on purple yams, when I saw purple sweet potatoes at the Somerville Winter Market I jumped for them.

So make sure to check out Stone Hearth for their awesome pizza, and more importantly the gelato!  Yea, you’re not gonna be able to get this flavor, but you can be sure that every flavor is awesome and hand made in small batches, by me!

When making ice cream or gelato with something like sweet potato or pumpkin, it has the tendency to either get icy, or not be flavorful enough. This is because you need lots of potato to get flavor, but potato is full of water, and when you freeze water, you get ice. The secret here is to add some milk powder which turns the water in the potato into milk and makes your gelato super dense and creamy.