The Best Vanilla Ice Cream Ever

In my spare time, I search for ice cream recipes.  Though I do love vanilla, I usually search for something more exciting.  UNTIL I found a recipe through food and wine - I was intrigued because the recipe didn't use eggs but claimed to be fluffy and yum.  I'm always game for trying something fluffy and yum.

Vanilla Ice Cream, recipe from Food & Wine

Serves Jyoti only and no one else

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 tbsp. and 1 tsp. cornstarch
• 3 tbsp. softened cream cheese
• 1 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp. light corn syrup
• 1 vanilla bean, seeded and scraped
• 1/8 tsp. kosher salt 

In a large bowl, prepare an ice bath.  In a separate smaller bowl, mix 2 tbsp. of the whole milk and the cornstarch.

In another large bowl, whisk the cream cheese until smooth.

In a large saucepan, combine the remaining milk, heavy cream, sugar, light corn syrup and vanilla bean and seeds.  Bring the mixture to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves and the vanilla flavors the milk, about 4 minutes.

Turn off the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture.  Return to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the mixture slightly thickens, about 1-2 minutes.

Gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture into your whipped cream cheese, whisking to combine until smooth.  Whisk in the salt.  Set the bowl in the ice water bath for about 20 minutes (I left mine for about 30 minutes).  I then put my mixture in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.

Pour the mixture into your chilled ice cream canister and churn for about 45 minutes.

Ending Notes: Um.  BEST VANILLA ICE CREAM EVER!  We've had my egg nog and sweet potato ice cream in our freezer since Thanksgiving, but this vanilla ice cream hardly lasted a few hours!

Sidenote: Apparently I hit my quota limit for photos and now have to upload through photobucket, which seems to really destroy image quality.  I will find a solution to this, so in the meantime I apologize for the crappy looking pictures.

Holiday Dinner

Our version of Christmas is putting up a tree and exchanging gifts, but we did want to make something fancy schmancy for dinner.  I browsed my mom's Gourmet cookbook to see what type of game we could eat that wasn't turkey.  Squab, quail, duck...and of course we had to include foie gras! Yes! My favorite! So we decided to prepare foie gras, risotto, and cornish hen.

For Christmas, my sister gave me a little lump of black truffle, so we wanted to determine a way to incorporate this into our meal.  We decided to make a mushroom risotto dusted with black truffle, and cornish hen marinated in a black truffle sauce.  My sister wanted to make a lavender creme brulee as dessert since my mom recently purchased a lavender plant, so we had a really delectable meal ahead!

Egg Nog Ice Cream

I don't think I've ever even had egg-nog.  But, for the holidays - why not? I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of flavor, but I am pretty sure that any and all ice cream with loads of egg yolks and full fat dairy products will be hommy nom nom.

Egg Nog Ice Cream, recipe borrowed from Ice Cream: 52 Easy Recipes for Year Round Frozen Treats by Sally Sampson


Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

• 3 cups half and half
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg
• zest of 1 lemon
• zest of 1 orange* (I only included a little bit of this - not the whole orange)
• Vanilla bean, split and scraped (Thanks Mai!)
• 8 large egg yolks at room temperature
• pinch of kosher salt
• 1 tbsp. of grand mariner
• 2 tbsp. of bourbon* (The original recipe called for 2 tbsp. each of sambuca, amaretto, and grand mariner.  I did not have all these on hand, so I subbed in the bourbon, and also cut out most of the alcohol as I was worried about the flavor being too strong)

Place the half and half, 1/4 cup of the sugar, nutmeg, lemon and orange zest, and vanilla bean seeds and pod (now empty) in a small pan and cook over low heat.  Whisk the mixture from time to time and heat it till it is warm, about 175 degrees. 

Place the egg yolks, 1/4 cup of sugar and salt into a medium sized metal bowl and whisk until combined. Add 1/4 cup of the warmed half and half mixture to the egg mixture, whisking the entire time.  Continue to add the half and half mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, until you have added about 1 1/2 cups total.  Be sure to whisk the entire time. 

Return the mixture back to the original saucepan and continue to cook until it reaches about 185 degrees (be sure it doesn't boil!!).  

Once it has reached 185 degrees, pour the mixture through a strainer into another bowl.  Discard the solids and bring the mixture to room temperature.  Stir in the alcohol, and then refrigerate at least 8 hours, but preferably over night. 

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to directions.  I used about 30 minutes here. 

Ending Notes:  So even though I used less alcohol than the recipe recommended, I still felt the alcohol flavor was too strong.  I'd probably just do 2 tablespoons of whatever alcohol I selected.  Otherwise, the texture and flavor of this ice cream were what I was expecting.  I still need to try a normal egg-nog drink and then see how this one compares.

Mulled Wine Sorbet

Another wintery inspiration from the beverage I served at Thanksgiving.  Another drink turned ice cream that is perfect for drinking/eating in front of the fireplace at your chalet in Chamonix (or your digital fireplace DVD).

I made this for the AIF NYYP holiday party at Rahul's place. It accompanied Meghna's cookies as dessert. 

Mulled Wine Sorbet, recipe adapted from here and here

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1/2 of a bottle of red wine - I used Purple Moon Merlot from Trader Joe's.  At $4 bucks a pop, can't go wrong!
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• Juice from 1 fresh squeezed orange
• Juice from 1 fresh squeezed lemon
• Lemon zest from that same lemon
• 2 cloves
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Combine the sugar, water, wine lemon zest and spices into a medium saucepan and let it simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes stirring occasionally.

Let it cool to room temperature and stir in the orange and lemon juices.  Strain the mixture, cover the mixture and let it chill in the fridge from 4 hours to overnight. 

Churn in your ice cream maker per directions - I churned it for about 20 minutes. 

Ending Notes:  The ice cream was of course very flavorful, and received rave reviews by all taste testers.  I think most testers appreciated the fact that this sorbet wasn't laced with heavy cream and whole milk and just some wine and freshly squeezed citrus fruits.  Try this one before New Years!

Apple-Scented Fondue

I'm telling you.  Fondue is the ice cream of winter.  I think I've made it like 4 times in the past month alone.  I was watching Rachel Ray randomly while waiting for Alton Brown to start and she made this yum looking fondue (well...let's be honest...ALL fondue looks yum).  Asmi was coming over for dinner for some fondue so I figured this would be the best time to try it out!

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.

Candy Cane Ice Cream Parte Deux

So I wasn't totally enamored with the first batch of candy cane ice cream I made.  I liked it...but I didn't love it.  It wasn't candy-caney enough to remind me of my toddler days when I would take the candy cane ornaments off of our fake tree and eat them "secretly" (let's be honest...my mom knew what I was doing).  

The next step was to use actual peppermint extract as this I figured this would add the best flavor.  First I started with the basic Philadelphia Style Ice Cream.  I know you have all seen this one mentioned tons of times.  If there were an awards ceremony for my blog, this one would receive honorable mention since I have in fact used it to the start of many of my bases.  In any case, I've included the recipe below if you guys forgot.  

Candy Cane Philadelphia Style Goodness!

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp. peppermint extract
• Red food coloring (a few drops)
• Red edible glitter

Pour 1 cup of the heavy cream into a medium saucepan and add the sugar and the salt.  Warm over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining cream, milk and the peppermint extract.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the fridge.  When ready to churn, freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker per directions.  In the last 5 minutes, drop in a few drops off the red food coloring and use a pastry brush to tap in the red edible glitter.  I churned it total for about 30 minutes.  

Taste testers voted more in favor of this one when compared to version parte une.  I think it was because the flavor was pronounced, and, let's face it, who doesn't love red glitter?