Handcrafted Ice Cream Anyone Can Make
This ice cream really doesn’t need an intro. It’s good. It’s reeeeeally good.
Here is the base recipe I use for all my flavors.
2 cups cream
1 cup whole milk
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
pinch of salt
vanilla ( I typically scrape and steep half a bean but you can use vanilla extract too. I don’t really measure, but do it to taste.)
You will need an icecream maker for this! I have a Cuisinart and I love it. Before you start make sure your icecream bucket has been in the freezer at least overnight to be thouroughly frozen. And go ahead and pop in your metal cake pan in there too if you are intersted in flash cooling your mix when it’s done so you can get to churning it faster!
This is what you will need!
1) Cream your egg yolks, salt and sugar in a glass bowl with a whisk.
2) Pop your saucepan (or double boiler) on medium heat and pour your milk and cream in with the vanilla. You will heat and constantly stir this till it is nice and steamy.
Note: Here is where you can tweak. You can do all cream, which I have done and it is amazingly rich. Like too rich. So do that if you want gelato like ice cream. This time around I actually tried half-and-half instead of milk and loved the result.
Also, at this stage, if I am using a vanilla bean I steep it a little longer to get that awesome flavor to come out more. Say if you are doing savory ice cream you could also do any infusing of things like herbs at this stage.
3) Turn off your heat and Temper your egg mixture. Use about half of your cream mix to do this before adding back to the saucepan.
If you don’t know how to temper, go look it up on YouTube. It’s not hard, but easy to mess up if you haven’t done it before. If you do it too fast and your cream is too hot you will cook your eggs and your custard won’t be usable. So, slow and easy.
4) Turn your heat back on and while stirring slowly add your tempered mix to the pan for 5-8 min or till it can almost lightly coat a spoon.
That’s basically it! This is where you can also add more flavors depending on what you are going for. Here I tried a Lemon Cream, so I added some fresh lemon juice and zest. Perfect for a summer day. If you are going for deep chocolate, sift in your cocoa and chocolate bits and maybe some cayenne for some kick!
5) Flash cool. This is optional. I’m impatient so I pour my custard in my chilled metal pan and pop it in the freezer and stir every 5 min. Otherwise cover and put in the fridge till completely chilled. No one wants sloppy icecream. It will take at least 2ish hours, but don’t let it chill so much that it turns into pudding. You want it runny. Cold but runny.
6) Churn. I put a weighted cover on to help seel the cold air in.
You know it’s done when it starts pushing up over on the sides and looks like this. You’re gonna want to eat it straight from the bucket but if you want to save some for later I recommend buying some containers with silicone lids. I grabbed mine from amazon and they are great. This is the time you would want to add more stuff!! Like caramel swirls, or candy bits, fresh fruit, or marshmallow fluff. Get creative!
This is everything an ice cream should be. Rich. Creamy. Free from artificial. This lemon cream is perfect for a summer day and would be the best mate for a blackberry pie. I didn’t have blackberries so I made a sugary, crunchy pie top! Who needs a cone. (Recipe : Martha’s Perfect Pie Crust )
I’ll be posting some instructional videos on my Highlights spot on Instagram so if you want some live action ice cream shots head on over later this week to my account @spectrumhandcrafted!
Cheers my friends!!
-Julia