Ice Cream!

This week I wanted to put homemade ice cream on the dessert menu for dinner, but I ran out of time! With really good ice cream it is important to let the creme anglaise "rest" over night or for 12 hours..

Here is a recipe that I have used several times...it makes great ice cream...and one thing I have learned is to use cream AND milk...I tried a recipe that called for cream only and I felt it tasted kind of cheesy but maybe that was just me...

1 pint whole milk

1 pint cream

10 egg yolks

10 oz sugar

vanilla bean

2t vanilla extract (pure)

What I do first, is whip the egg yolks and sugar until very pale..

Then I heat up the cream mixture over a bain marie until hot(steaming)

Next, I temper the eggs by adding a bit of hot cream to the eggs, stir and then add egg mix to cream...

Now, if you want to make vanilla ice cream, you slice the vanilla bean in half and simmer with the cream, you can also add the extract to the egg mix before tempering...at this point you have to let the creme anglaise rest for 12 hours or overnight...

For my ice cream I wanted to try two flavours...

A plain ice cream with a chocolate swirl, but as soon as I added the melted chocolate to the cold ice cream it seized up! Duh! Hot and cold don't mix, so I have to work on that swirl trick...

The second was a plum and lavender. I added lavender buds to the creme anglaise over night,

and stewed the plum with honey and a small bit of water...I strained the lavender buds out of the creme anglaise, started freezing in ice cream maker then, when it was half way finished, I added the plums...tasted good...the colour was beautiful and it tasted like lavender and plum! Yum

Eggs getting ready to be whipped

whip until light and thick

in the ice cream maker

the finished product, plum and lavender....