Friday, July 18, 2008

The Original Daiquiri Ice - clone recipe

My husband's favorite Baskin-Robbins item is the Daiquiri Ice. Unfortunately, in 2007, we learned that the recipe had changed. It is now LIME Daiquiri ice, and has a LOT more lime flavor, and is WAY too tart.

I searched high and low for a clone recipe, but there were none. So, I came up with one of my own. It’s a pretty good clone of the original recipe, and a light, refreshing dessert for a hot summer day.

BASKIN-ROBBINS DAIQUIRI ICE CLONE VERSION
(this is NOT Lime Daiquiri Ice)

The key to getting the right tartness level is the citric acid powder. Usually, 1 teaspoon does the trick, but may need to be adjusted up or down depending on how sweet (or sour) your limes are. Err on the side of tartness, but not so much so that it makes your mouth involuntarily pucker. Of course, if you prefer things sweeter, use less powder to taste.

2 cups water
1 cup sugar
Juice of 1 lime (fresh squeezed, a little pulp is fine)
1 tsp imitation rum extract
Between ½ and 1 ½ tsp citric acid powder (sold under the brand name FruitFresh. Or you can go to a health food store or online for generic food grade citric acid)
1 drop green food coloring

Heat sugar and water just until sugar melts. Remove from heat and add ½ teaspoon citric acid. Stir until dissolved. Let mixture cool a couple minutes, then add rum extract, lime juice and food coloring. Taste, and add more citric acid powder as needed, a quarter teaspoon at a time. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Churn in an ice cream machine for 25 minutes. Spoon ice into freezer-safe bowl, and move to the freezer for an hour before serving.

Note: The recipe only makes a little over 2 cups, so you may want to double the ingredients.

I posted this on an anonymous food forum about a year ago. So, if you come across this recipe somewhere else on the Internets, it’s mine. This is a completely original recipe developed by looking at the ingredient list of the original Daiquiri ice, and by referencing Shirley Corrhier's Cookwise for information on how to set up a basic sorbet recipe.

Consider this recipe Creative Commons. Feel free to repost and redistribute, but please link to my blog or credit me if you do.

29 comments:

Laura said...

OMG thank you! That was my favorite ice cream flavor too & I haven't been able to find it no matter which BR I went to. Now I know why. I'll have to do some shopping & try your recipe out.

Carrie P said...

Glad I could help. That's exactly why I created the clone.

Definitely play around with the recipe and see what works for you. Because each lime is a little bit different, you may need more or less lime juice. Start with the base recipe and go from there.

The good news is they bring back the original Daiquiri ice during the summer as a seasonal flavor, during the summer. So you should be able to find it any day now.

See here for details

http://www.baskinrobbins.com/IceCream/seasonalflavors.aspx

Thanks for stopping by, you have truly made my night.

Florida Girl said...

I've been searching for a copycat recipe for several years. This is my husband's absolute favorite flavor! I made it tonight, and he just said that it was almost exactly the same...the difference being that this was actually better!!! Thank you SO much!

suzanne said...

Tastes good, but not like B and R flavor. What brands of ingredients did you use?

Carrie P said...

Suzanne,

I used fresh lime juice, store brand (Kroger) rum extract, and citric acid powder, generic, from the bulk foods store.

I went to find the ingredients today, and Kroger did not have rum extract. They may no longer sell it, which worries me.

I will do some testing and see if I can find some substitute ingredients. I know "Fruit fresh" is a lot easier to get, and I'll need to check out other rum extracts.

This is one of those recipes where you may need to adjust and taste before you freeze, since limes are not always the same flavor. Some are sweeter, some are tarter.

If you come up with something closer, let me know...

Stephen said...

Friut-Fresh is actually sweetened ascorbic acid (vitamin C), not citric acid. It's much less tart than the latter, so you'll need to adjust the amount depending on which acid you use. Fruit-Fresh is in the home-canning section of my local store, but I had to go to Williams-Sonoma to get citric acid; it's also available from many online sources.

Dr. Steve

Carrie P said...

Thanks, Dr. Steve! I appreciate your accuracy and precision.

I finally found some rum extract, so I will be reworking the recipe this week. My plan is to see if I can get it to work with Fruit Fresh, and to try a few other, easier-to-find citric acid substitutes.

Carrie P said...

OK, I did a little re-work on this, and unsweeted Kool-Aid, lemon and/or lime flavor, worked fairly well. I added lemon to get the tartness, then a little bit of lime for color.

It still wasn't nearly as tart as I wanted, but closer.

So, the unsweetened Kool-Aid powder may be a better substitute than Fruit Fresh. YMMV.

Ms.Nae said...

You have no idea how excited I am that you posted this. This was my all time favorite ice cream and I can't baskin and Robbins to sell for the life of me. I just bought cusiart ice cream maker and I can't wait to try this. I will keep you posted on what I find out. Thanks again!

noreen said...

I just ordered citric acid but now I see the comments about unsweetened kool-aid.
How much did you use?
What is the exact recipe using the kool-aid?
Thank you so much for the recipe. It has been my favorite since I was a kid, now if I could only get the apple sorbet.sherbet recipe from Baskin Robbins, I never, ever see that one available.

Carrie P said...

Your best bet is to taste as you go and see what tastes right. For me, it took a lot more Kool-Aid than I thought to make it taste right.

CG said...

Thank you!

Otter said...

Made this for the family over the Summer and it was a big hit! Even my brother (a former B&R employee) agreed.

A million thank you's!

Lane said...

In 1978 Daiquiri Ice was my favorite ice cream, years later when my kids got sick, the treat was a quart of Daiquiri Ice to make the throat feel better. 2007 was a sad day when B&R took off the shelves and later changed it....until now.

Wow, thank you for the recipe.

Lane

Carrie P said...

Thanks for the continued love on this blog post! I'm glad that there are others who love Daiquri Ice as much as we do. I'm content having this be my Internet claim to fame.

Julie said...

I just found this - I am sooooooo happy!!!! Daiquiri Ice is the BEST B&R flavor. I questioned why they changed it... they said the Margarita flavor won in a taste test... oh how wrong they are! Soooo.... which recipe works best? Fruit Fresh or Kool-Aid?

Carrie P said...

Actually, the very best option is powdered citric acid, if you can find it. But that takes a trip to the hippie food store, which for me, is an hour round-trip.

Fruit Fresh is the next best, as it provides tartness without much extra flavor.

Kool-Aid will do fine too.

The trick is tasting as you go, and adding as much as you need until the flavor is right.

The sweetness or sourness of the limes will vary and influence the final flavor quite a bit, so you may need more, or less, from batch to batch.

Key limes are right out.

Unknown said...

I noticed Walmart has citric acid near the canning jars in housewares. Probably only have it in the summer.

Unknown said...

I noticed Walmart has citric acid near the canning jars in housewares. Probably only have it during the summer.

Carrie P said...

Jenny, thanks for the tip!

Unknown said...

Walmart carries the citric acid through the year in housewares along with the canning jars. Another source for it could be a local hardware store or Ace hardware, depending on size of the shop. I know my mom'n'pop Ace hardware carries canning supplies all year.

The only BnR near me closed about 7 years ago. It was such a sad day when I took the 45 minute drive into Pittsburg, KS to find it was no longer there. That was the ONLY reason I ever went there was to get my yearly fix of Daquiri Ice, whose appearance happens to coincide with my BIRTHDAY, so it was also one of my birthday gifts as well.

I found a copy-cat recipe in a magazine(the WWW wasn't as widely available then) and tried it but it fell far short of what I knew the flavor to be. I can't wait to try this though and have high hopes of being able to recreate it for my own guilty pleasure!

I recently took a trip home to L.A. and thank goodness my hometown(hood) BnR is still open and even though I was still stuffed from lunch I HAD to have a scoop of it since I figured it would be ages before I could taste the real thing again.

cgardener35 said...

Thank you so much! This is my favorite flavor, and unfortunately, there are no more Baskin Robins in Columbus, OH. I really appreciate that you came up with this recipe!

cgardener35 said...

Thank you so much! This is my favorite flavor. Unfortunately, there are no more Baskin Robins in Columbus, OH. Thank you for the recipe!

Cumerch@gmail.com said...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Daiquiri Ice ice cream- silly question ... Can you make this in a Vitamix instead of an ice cream maker??

Cumerch@gmail.com said...

Can you make this a vitamix instead of ice cream machine??

Carrie P said...

Probably.

I don't know enough about the vitamix to know how that would work. It's just an uber blender, right? So you'd freeze it into ice cubes then put the spurs to it? The worst you'd get is a slush rather than a sorbet.

Try it and let me know how it turns out, and remember to taste your base and adjust as needed.

Unknown said...

One cup sugar is 773 cals according to the web. For the six half-cup servings in this recipe that is 129 cal each. The current BR label for daqueri ice is 100 cal per serving. What do you think is causing the difference? I ask because I like feeling guilt free!

Unknown said...

The Web says there are 773 calories in 1 cup sugar. That equates to 129 calories per half cup serving in your recipe assuming sufficient growth during the freezing process to equal 6 half cup servings. BR advertises their daiquiri ice as having 100 calories per half cup serving as of 2 days ago. What do you think makes the difference?

Carrie P said...

My best guess is they use less sugar. I formulated my recipe starting with a basic sorbet recipe i found in one of my cookbooks. The BR folks probably tested and tweaked theirs to balance sweetness with calories.

Would be a fun comparison to try. I may do this weekend as it's the hottest day so far and some refreshing Daiquiri Ice would be perfect.