Friday, July 25, 2014

Cooking Cove: Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

I do not make homemade ice cream nearly enough. Thankfully I have wonderful friends who started a convo about homemade ice cream recently, that had me jonesing to break out the old Cuisinart and blow the dust off of her.


In the following recipe I use vanilla infused sugar. The next time you seed a vanilla bean, do not toss the husk. Grab an air tight container, throw a few cups of sugar in it, add the bean shells, cover and let sit. If you shake it up every now and then you will have the most aromatic and delicious vanilla sugar. It is nice in coffee. I also use homemade vanilla extract as well. All you do is add a couple of whole vanilla beans to alcohol and let it sit for a few months. Replenish alcohol as needed. I prefer spiced rum.


1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scrapped- use two if you want to be indulgent
2 cups of milk
7 egg yolks
3/4 plus 2 tablespoons of sugar- I'm telling ya, try the vanilla infused!
2 cups of heavy cream, chilled
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

- In a sauce pan over medium heat, combine the milk and vanilla beans (scrapings). Bring to a gentle boil then remove from heat. Cover and let the vanilla milk infuse (steep).

- Make an ice bath in a large bowl or in the sink, set aside. In separate mixing bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar on medium-high, using a whisk attachment if you have one. Beat until thick and pale.

- Return vanilla milk to the stove over medium-high heat and simmer. Slowly pour 1/4 up of the heated vanilla milk into the egg yolk mixture while beating on low. Continue to incorporate warm milk with egg yolks a little bit at a time.

- Once all the eggs and milk have been mixed, dump it back into the vanilla milk sauce pan you started with. Heat on low and stir with a wooden spoon until it is thickened enough that it coats the back of the spoon. This is custard!

- Remove from heat and stir in chilled cream. Pour custard mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl set in the ice bath you made earlier. Chill while stirring once in a while. Add vanilla extract. Pour into the ice cream maker and you are done!


 Hey! The stove got turned on this time! Progress, baby! Summer is slipping away but the ice cream maker got turned on. That is something. <3


12 comments:

  1. Wait, wait, wait. This sounds way too involved for me. I thought you just dumped stuff in ice cream makers and they did their thing? Or are there some quickie, cheater ones like that? *so confused*

    Make some again in the fall, but add cinnamon. Mmmmm!

    ~Deb

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    1. Yes it is slightly involved but it is really creamy vanilla bean custard ice cream! So yummy. It isn't too hard. I promise! I will do a fall one too. I have lots of recipes to try. Mmmmm... Cinnamon in this would be divine.

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    2. When we go to our favorite ice cream place in the fall, they have pumpkin ice cream. I love it, but sometimes we go there before they have it available. That's also where we get the cinnamon ice cream. =)

      ~Deb

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    3. I can't say I have ever had pumpkin ice cream. I should though! Maybe for Thanksgiving. Sometimes it is hot enough to warrant Thanksgiving Day ice cream.

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  2. I am so excited you got to make ice cream!! It looks so yummy. Did the girls have a good time making it with you?? <3

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    1. They did! And they enjoyed eating it :-) thank you for spurring me on. I should use it more often!

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  3. I need an ice cream maker in my life! There is definitely enough ice cream purchased to justify one. I'm with Deb --I thought it was easier!

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    1. There are certainly more simple toss-this-and-that into the mixer recipes. I will do an easier basic vanilla next time. I did not realize this one was too involved :-/ I had a recipe I used in middle school that was milk, sugar, vanilla and a pudding mix box. My weakness for vanilla beans and richness pulled me to this one. :-)

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    2. Well I just meant that I thought there were machines where you just add milk or whatever, and then maybe there is rock salt involved, and the machine stirs it till it's ice cream. Probably not nearly as rich and creamy, but that's the kind of machine I always think of.

      ~Deb

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    3. You can do that with this one. There is no rock salt with this particular one because you freeze the mixing bowl before hand, but you could just toss milk, sugar and flavoring in and have ice cream :-) I just chose something different.

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    4. Ahhhh, ok. Nothing wrong at all with your recipe or post or domestic goddess talents! I was just starting to wonder if I'd been under the wrong impression all these years. LOL

      ~Deb

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    5. Lol! I am one of those weirdos who likes standing at a stove for a few hours on occasion. I will do a much simpler "toss in" recipe before summer runs out. Purely for blogging purposes ;-)

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