Monday, May 28, 2012

It's Time for Ice Cream!

Another summer holiday weekend, another post about homemade ice cream. It's becoming a little predictable, no?! But, hey...it's a post! I had really good intentions about hitting you (the 5 readers I have left) with a bunch of posts this weekend. Posts with breakfast ideas for the long weekend, our recent trip to Paris (!) and thoughts about pregnancy as I enter my third (!!!!) trimester.

Well, you know what they say about good intentions.

The truth is, after the craziness of the last month and the craziness that is to come in the next few months, I really needed a break-- a three day weekend with no feelings of obligation. Just rest, relaxation and doing things that I felt like doing. Things like making homemade ice cream.

Previous ice cream posts have focused on seasonal fruit, but this time around we decided to do something different. I was having a hard time making up my mind about what kind of ice cream to make, so I let Jason be in the driver's seat. We perused our ice cream bible, and he picked out a recipe for tin roof ice cream, a traditional custard-based vanilla ice cream with fudge ripple and a chocolate-covered peanut mix in. I was in! We ended up foregoing the chocolate-covered peanuts-- our local grocery store is "temporarily closed" (no word on why or when it will be reopening) and we were surprised to discover that the Trader Joe's near our house does not carry such confections. So we ended up with a fudge ripple ice cream which was just as delicious.

It's going to be a good summer!



Fudge Ripple Ice Cream
Adapted slightly from David Lebovitz

Ingredients
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt
1/2 vanilla bean
4 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Fudge Ripple (recipe below)

1. Warm the milk, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup of cream in a medium saucepan. Add vanilla bean to hot milk mixture. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the 4 egg yolks and set aside. Pour remaining cream in a large bowl; place a metal strainer over top of the large bowl and set aside.
3. Rewarm the vanilla mixture. Once warm, slowly add to egg yolks whisking constantly (so as to avoid scrambled eggs). Pour mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan, until mixture coats back of the spatula or spoon.
4. Pour through the metal strainer into the cream. Remove vanilla bean from the strainer, wipe off any bits of egg, and add back to mixture. Add vanilla extract. Chill over an ice bath. Refrigerate until cold (I let mine stay in there overnight but a few hours will probably do the trick).
5. Freeze in an ice cream freezer. When transferring to another container, alternate layers of fudge ripple and ice cream (don't stir together). Freeze until hard/ready to eat. Enjoy!

Fudge Ripple
From David Lebovitz

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
6 TBL cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Whisk together sugar, corn syrup, water and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium and bring to a low boil, whisking often.
2. Boil for 1 minute, remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
3. Let cool. Refrigerate until ready for ice cream. Make sure it is cold when you mix it in to the ice cream.