How to Make Culinary Foams (8 Steps)

Culinary foams are used in gourmet cooking to add flavor and pizazz to a dish. A nitrous dispenser traps air bubbles into a liquid to create a light, frothy and foamy texture. Once a technique reserved for fancy restaurants, culinary foams can now be made in your own home in just a few steps. The nitrous dispenser and nitrous oxide chargers required to make the foam can be purchased online or from specialty kitchen stores.

Things You'll Need

  • Nitrous oxide dispenser
  • Nitrous oxide cartridges
  • 3 gelatin sheets
  • Mixing bowl
  • Whisk
  • Smooth fruit juice (any flavor)
  • Water

Instructions

  1. Pour half a cup of warm water into the mixing bowl. Drop three gelatin sheets into the water, and leave for five minutes to fully dissolve.

  2. Pour two cups of smooth fruit juice into the dissolved gelatin mixture and gently stir.

  3. Place the mixture into a refrigerator and leave to set for one hour. The mixture should now look and feel like Jello®.

  4. Remove the mixing bowl from the refrigerator. Take the whisk and vigorously stir the Jello for five minutes until the mixture has broken into small pieces.

  5. Unscrew the lid of the nitrous oxide dispenser and fill with the mixture. Screw the lid tightly back onto the dispenser.

  6. Unscrew the charging cylinder and insert a new nitrous oxide cartridge, turn the whole dispenser upside down and screw the cartridge into the dispenser. Keep the dispenser turned upside down and let the nitrous oxide settle for one minute. Unscrew the cartridge and dispose of it.

  7. Repeat the above step two more times, so that the mixture is fully charged. Shake the dispenser up and down five times.

  8. Point the dispensing valve downwards and squeeze gently to discharge the culinary foam onto the desired area.