Penney’s Palate

The time came this week to make another batch of ice cream.  We finished up the last ice cream about 3 weeks ago, and then Tommy put the core in the freezer about 2 weeks ago, and was sure to give me a verbal reminder (as if I didn’t notice the core taking up 1/4 of our freezer!) that the core was ready for some more ice cream making.  When trying to think of what flavor ice cream I wanted next, I thought through all of the exciting and delicious ice creams I have made so far: buttermilk chocolate, cranberry-lavendar-cardamom, strawberry, coconut, nutella, pistachio… And then I realized, that I have yet to make a “normal” ice cream (I think the strawberry was the closest to normal as it got).  So this time around, I decided I wanted to make vanilla ice cream.

I remembered Melanie’s blog post about a vanilla ice cream that she made way back when, and I put my Google Reader search engine to work until I found it.  I had whole goat’s milk and heavy cream to use up, so I used those instead of half-and-half and heavy cream.  I also had 1/2 of a vanilla bean hanging out in my pantry, so I used that in addition to some of the vanilla.  I scaled the recipe down a bit more, and came out with a nice rich vanilla ice cream.

It was very soft soft-serve consistency right out of the ice cream maker,  but then hardened up slightly in the freezer over night.  I was afraid of it becoming too hard and “crystally”, but it never got to that stage.  It was most definitely, as Melanie put it, happiness in a cup (or bowl).

Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups goats’ milk (or whole milk)
1/2 vanilla bean
4egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Preparation
Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean.  In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat milk, vanilla bean and seeds until very hot, but not boiling, stirring frequently. Remove from heat , remove the vanilla bean, and set the milk mixture aside.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks and sugar.

Very gradually, while still whisking, add heated milk and mix until blended.

Return milk mixture to saucepan and cook over medium heat until small bubbles form around edge and mixture is steamy and slightly thickened, stirring constantly. Do not boil.

Transfer milk mixture into a large bowl. Stir in heavy cream, vanilla and salt.

Cover and chill thoroughly, at least 8 hours.

Assemble ice cream maker according to directions. Start up ice cream maker and add mixture slowly. Churn until thick, soft-serve consistency is reached.

Remove from ice cream maker. Either freeze for further “ripening” or serve immediately.  I ate some immediately and saved the rest for further ripening.