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Dondurma (Turkish Ice Cream)

Hands holding a bowl and showing how stretchy the ice cream is with a spoon.
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4.2 from 5 reviews

Turkish ice cream has a chewy and stretchy texture with a natural aromatic flavor coming from salep powder. No ice cream maker is needed for this recipe!

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 liter milk
  • 1 and ½ cups sugar
  •  1 tablespoon salep powder

Instructions

  1. Combine milk, sugar and salep powder in a large saucepan. Whisk well with a hand whisk. 
  2. Put it over medium heat and cook it until sugar dissolves, stirring continuously. 
  3. Reduce the heat to the lowest and keep cooking until it gets thicker in consistency. This might take 15-20 minutes.
  4. Transfer it into a freezer-safe container. Let it cool completely.
  5. Cover it with plastic wrap and put it into the freezer. 
  6. Remove it from the freezer after 30 minutes and mix with a fork for 2-3 minutes. Make sure to fold in the icy bits on the edges of the container. Put it back into the freezer. 
  7. Repeat this 5 or 6 times every 30 minutes. You will see how it gets stretchy in the end and it will get really hard to mix. This shows that your ice cream is almost ready. 
  8. Keep it in the freezer until serving time, at least for 5 hours. 
  9. Take it out 15 minutes before serving. Then you can easily scoop it and serve on the scone or on your desserts.

Notes

  1. Making it in an ice cream maker: After step 5, take it out of the freezer and freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Take it into an airtight container and freeze for at least 5 hours.
  2. If you can’t find authentic salep powder: It might be hard to find the genuine salep powder outside Turkey. Then you can buy salep mixture powder in sachets or packages at online markets like Amazon. Use one sachet (17g) for this recipe. 
  3. Make sure to mix it well each time you take it out of the freezer if you are not using an ice cream maker. 
  4. You can add a gum mastic flavor if you want. To do this: Freeze mustic beads(3g) for 10-15 minutes and then grind them well. Add in the ground mastic after the sugar dissolves in the heating milk.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://www.giverecipe.com/elastic-turkish-ice-cream/