ALWAYS HAVE A GROWN UP HELPING YOU IN THE KITCHEN!
Today we got our Ice cream maker out, (maybe the LONG shopping trip yesterday was worth it after all).
Today I also had the best ice cream in the world!
I should have known, when my dad said "Would you like to choose some ice cream"? (while out) So I came back with a big 3 litre tub of Vanilla, dad frowned & said, "feel this, it's as light as air", (Never a good sign for good ice cream), "It should be thick & heavy when frozen", ..(light ice cream is cheating by the maker to sell you more air than ice cream)!
He looked at the price & said "we could make our own for this price & it would be better, richer & have real vanilla in it, Let's make some"...
If I didn't know better I'd say my dad planned this all along!
We have an automatic ice cream maker so it is pretty simple, but as I don't know how to make it (there are different ways) we decided to give it a go!
Dad got his Ben & Jerry's Ice cream book out just to check! ..& grabbed a recipe off the internet the other day we were watching Eric Lanlard's "Baking Mad" as he does really simple recipes, we were looking at making a sort of rich vanilla custard but then freezing it into proper ice cream, (dad always tries to make similar things with me so I can use up any special ingredients we buy & also to make me do the same processes over until i'm ok to do them by myself.
This time, i'm used to cutting, de-seeding & using vanilla pods, & i'm used to breaking eggs , & whisking things, ..which we do for cakes, scrambled eggs, & other stuff, ..but pretty much the rest is done by the Ice cream maker!
So today I have made proper custard! (yummy) ..then we cooled the custard & popped it in the ice cream maker..so I made Ice cream as well.
As we only use the yolk of the eggs i'm going to try to make some proper sticky meringues, but not before i've made some more ice cream, (it does keep ok in the freezer IF you can leave it alone long enough)!
here's what we did! in case you have an ice cream maker at home! (or are able to borrow one)
25 ml MILK
1 Vanilla Pod
200 grams Golden Caster Sugar
6 Egg Yolks (medium to large)
How to make "Eye Popping" Vanilla pod Ice Cream
- In a saucepan, heat the cream and milk (slow & low heat till it's bubbling, not boiling)
- In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and seeds of the vanilla pod until light and pale. Slowly add the hot cream and milk mixture, whisking all the time
- Return the mixture back into the pan and on a low heat keep stirring until the mixture thickens or coats the back of a spoon
- Pour the mixture into a bowl and leave to cool. Once cool, put the custard into the prepared ice cream machine bowl and churn until you get a lovely ice cream. Churn the mixture for 45-60 minutes and transfer into a container and put into the freezer.
- if you haven't got an ice cream maker pop the mix in a freezer proof container such as pyrex with a lid, & pop it into the coldest part of your freezer for 45 minutes, the edges will be hardening but the centre wil be soft, remove & whisk it again, repeat 2 or 3 times till it's all well mixed & solidified....
- SHARE with your friends & family, it is so creamy & intensely flavoured just have a little at a time. ..less is more!
We had lots of over-ripe bananas so had a look through the cupboard & found some chocolate chips.. we made a bit too much ice cream so we had a banana smoothie from what was left.
We made the custard base & mixed it up then added the banana (with lemon juice) & chocolate chips just as it became stiff so it held the dark choc chips in it without them sinking to the bottom.
We also tried a different recipe using half as many eggs, ..I don't think i'll ever have shop bought ice cream again!
Trust me, there is no such thing as awful homemade ice cream! (except perhaps dads bacon ice cream),..but we'll give that a try, he already has bacon on pancakes with ice cream so I guess he know's what he's talking about, ...I hope he's right!
What flavour would you make?
He also has a good website http://bakingmad.com/ which we use with Izzy to decide what we are going to learn about, cooking is a super skill to have!