Dondurma

Dondurma is the stretchy Turkish ice cream, and it is the most ambitious project here. Its chewy pull comes from salep, a precious powder made from orchid bulbs, and its light cedar-like taste from mastic, a brittle resin from trees on the Greek island of Chios. Churn it in the machine until the mixture turns stretchy; the stretch comes from working the mass, which traditional makers pound and pull at length. Some makers outside Turkey use cornstarch to mimic the thickening, but the texture differs, so salep is worth tracking down if you can. Make it when you want a dessert nobody at the table has had from a tub.