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Tuesday 3 January 2012

Summertime Means Ice Cream!

Happy New Year! What a busy few weeks I've had, and after I get my best friends wedding done and dusted this weekend, I will have my weekends back! I'm also going to get together with my sister in law once every couple of weeks to do something crafty and fun, so that should hopefully mean many more recipes and other crafty how to's.

Well, this past week the hot weather has well and truly arrived, and for me, that means ice cream. Lots and lots of it. I'm quite new to ice cream making (after a few failed attempts years ago, I was scared to try it again) but, after a wonderful success yesterday, I can foresee trying many many flavour combinations over the coming months. I started with just a basic vanilla, but it is so creamy and has such a lovely vanilla flavour, that it really can hardly be called 'basic' at all.

Ingredients

300ml thick cream
300ml milk
1 vanilla bean
6 egg yolks
175g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Combine the cream and milk in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds, add these, as well as the pod, to the milk and cream. Bring this to the boil, then remove from the heat and allow the mixture to infuse for about 10 minutes.



Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks, caster sugar and vanilla until the mixture is pale. About 3 minutes.



Remove the vanilla bean pod, and carefully pour the milk over, and then return the whole mixture back to the saucepan.

Cook the mixture over a low heat, stirring, for about five minutes, or until the mixture has thickened slightly.

Set aside to cool, and then refrigerate for 30 minutes - 1 hour. If you have an ice cream maker, churn according to the manufacturer's directions, if you don't have an ice cream maker, place the mixture is a plastic container in the freezer until frozen at the edges, then remove and beat with an electric beater, and re-freeze. Repeat this process two more times.




This recipe is a great base for other flavour combinations, but it so delightful, it's hard to not eat the entire batch in one sitting. I found myself getting out of bed last night to grab a giant spoonful!

2 comments:

  1. I hope to try this one day but I guess it will all be gone by the time we see you next (unless you bring me some on Saturday- why don't you?)

    ReplyDelete