A rich, creamy and eggy ice cream from Wisconsin. Here's how to make about 2 litres of it:
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of double cream
- 1 cup of baking sugar / castor sugar
- 1 cup of full-cream milk / whole milk
- 2 teaspoons of your finest vanilla extract, sir
- 1/2 teaspon of salt
- 6 large egg yolks!
'ere we go!
In a large stainless pot, heat the milk, cream and sugar and bit of salt to around 50°C while constantly stirring, until the sugar is dissolved: don't let it "catch" on the pot's bottom, it tastes bad.
Separate the 6 yolks from the eggs and keep the egg whites to making ice cream cones, waffles, nougat, or a bizzare omelette. Beat the egg yolks until a smooth.
To prevent the egg mixture becoming a scrambled eggs dish, you need to "temper" the eggs by stirring in a little of the hot milk into eggs until it has been incorporated. Stir in a little more hold milk, and repeat until half the dairy mixture is incorporated into the egg mixture.
Pour the egg mixture back into the stainless steel pot that holds the remaining dairy mixture. Now is a good time to also add the vanilla extract. I use the expensive stuff, or sometimes the insides of a whole vanilla bean including the bean's outer. Carefully heat it all to just under 80°C while stirring, or when you can draw a clean with your finger on the back of a mixture-coated spoon. You can't walk away during this steep, you need to keep stirring the fucker, or there'll be hell to pay.
Strain the mixture while it is still hot through a fine sieve. There will be some egg curds - discard them, do not squeeze them through the sieve. You now have a perfect mixture to make that Midwest frozen custard.
Great things happen to the fats and the proteins in the custard mixture if it stored in a refrigerator for a few hours, or even overnight, and your ice cream maker will churn it into ice cream faster too. But, you could skip this step and just let it cool down if you are in a hurry.
Pour the custard mixture into an ice cream maker (don't overfill!) and let it churn. When ready, scoop into bowls for the immediate consumption of the "Best Ice Cream Ever", or be boring and scoop it into sealable foodware and freeze.