Saturday, July 17, 2010

How To Make Ice Cream

Here's a wonderfully adaptable recipe for making your own ice cream.
You'll of course need an ice cream maker.
I prefer to use an electric model, one that doesn't require using ice or rock salt.

You will need:
2 cups of heavy cream
1 cup of whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
a pinch of salt
2 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk, beaten

Heat the cream mixture to almost a boil. Whisk a little bit of the hot cream mixture into your beaten eggs slowly, and then slowly add the heated egg mixture to your original cream mixture, in a slow stream, whisking the entire time.
Cook until slightly thickened. Do not let come to a boil.
Pour your custard mixture through a fine sieve and cool, stirring occasionally until cold. About 3 hours.
You can then pour this ice cream custard into your ice cream maker according to it's instructions.

Of course, this is a base recipe for making ice cream. You can add pretty much any flavor to this custard that you'd like.
Add a handful of chocolate chips or a few tablespoons of cocoa powder to the warm mixture for chocolate ice cream. Add a teaspoon of orange extract to that and you've got delicious chocolate-orange ice cream.

The possibilities of flavors are endless ~ from sweet to savory. Once you get the method of making the custard down, you can experiment with whatever you like.

Happy Ice Cream Making!