Candy Cane Ice Cream, Parte Une

Ah, holiday times!  I had put my ice cream maker away for the season, but after our holiday cookie party, where Marya had picked up some Molly Moons, I was inspired to create some holiday ice cream flavors.  Egg-nog (check), gingerbread, spiced cider sorbet, cranberry sorbet and candy cane were all on my list.  And I needed taste testers.  Becca generously volunteered all of SlamFam (her and her roomates).  So I decided to start experimenting.

My first idea was to take the base Phildadelphia Ice Cream and at the end of the freezing process, sprinkle in ground and bits and pieces of candy cane. 

The end result

Philadelphia style ice cream from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 4-6 normal sized candy canes, crushed lightly in a coffee grinder, mortar & pestle or plastic bag
• Red food coloring (optional)

I omitted the vanilla/extracts because I wasn't sure how it would affect the flavor of the candy canes. 

Prepare the Philadelphia Ice Cream as follows:

Pour 1 cup of the cream into a saucepan and add the sugar over medium heat.  Stir to mix. 

Remove from the heat and add the remaining cream and whole milk.  Stick in refrigerator to cool completely - generally overnight. 

Churn the ice cream per usual (I usually do it for 30 minutes)

In the last 10 minutes of churning, drop in a few drops of red food color.  (optional)

In the last 5 minutes of the churning, slowly sprinkle in your candy cane bits/pieces/grounds. 

Ending Notes:  This was a nice, fluffy ice cream.  Some sample taste testers said they liked that it was not overbearingly candy cane-ish.  I noted that the larger pieces of candy canes were a bit hard to, um, chew.  Because your normally don't chew candy canes you eat them slowly! My thinking was that it would be like the coffee oreo ice cream but candy canes are harder eat than crushed oreos are. 

Per usual, I attempted something first and then I started searching for recipes on the internet.  More candy cane (with GLITTER) to come!