About a month ago I bought my friend (who is also my housemate) an ice cream maker for his birthday. In truth, I actually bought the ice cream maker on sale and then spent several days debating whether it was appropriate for me to give this as a gift because I wanted it just as much if not more than he did. This winter he had mentioned that he was thinking about getting one but I told him to wait and I would try to find a used one. As I mentioned in a previous post, ice cream makers are one of those things that ends up on wedding registries, used once (if that), and then sent to the basement for that fateful day of spring cleaning. Spring/early summer is the perfect time to snatch one up from Craiglist.
It was May and I hadn't seen one on craiglist yet....and here was one on sale on Rue La La (See note at bottom of post). I wrapped up the box and gave it to him - feeling a little guilty about the win-win of the situation. If he liked it, I would be eating ice cream all summer, if he didn't, I would still have access to an ice cream maker and could make my own ice cream.
Any doubt about whether he liked the gift was erased the weekend after his birthday. He made 3 batches of ice cream for himself (I was away for the weekend!) - vanilla, strawberry, and coffee. He has pretty much continued with making at least one batch of ice cream per week. And ice cream has a way of getting rid of negative feelings, including my guilt of indirectly giving myself such a wonderful gift for my friend's birthday - a gift that keeps on giving....to me.
A few weeks ago I had my first go at making ice cream - Kahlua Chip Ice Cream. The basic recipe for ice cream calls for whole milk, heavy cream (or half and half if the recipe combines them), and egg yolks. You bring the whole milk and heavy cream to a boil and typically add your base flavor during this process. Then you slowly and gradually add the milk/cream mixture to the egg yolks, making sure you don't "cook" the eggs. Once the eggs are diluted and warmed up, you can add this back to the remainder of the hot milk/cream mixture and heat it back up to a custard state. You cool the mixture in the refrigerator and then add to your ice cream machine. If you are adding any chunks (brownies, cookies and cream, peanut butter chunks, chocolate chips, etc), you mix them into the frozen ice cream, just before you place it in the freezer for the last bit of freezing. From what Kevin has learned in his first 10 or so batches, avoiding cooked eggs and reaching the custard consistency is the hardest part of making ice cream.
My first ice cream attempt was somewhat of a fail, but it looks good in the photo, right? Yeah, it's tough to fully fail on ice cream, but I definitely have room for improvement. The problems I faced:
1) It took forever to freeze up in the ice cream machine. think there were two reasons for this. Too much custard in the ice cream machine which will just take longer. I think the alcohol lowers the freezing temperature of the custard, especially if you have added it after the custard has chilled.
2) Adding "water" in the form of alcohol and coffee/expresso affects the custard consistency and increases your chance of forming more of an icy ice cream.
3) Pouring warm chocolate syrup into your ice cream will melt it even more! This whole process seems problematic. Since I was having trouble getting the ice cream to freeze and already had too much custard in the machine, adding the melted chocolate made everything worse. Melted ice cream did not hold the chocolate in the custard. Instead all the chocolate fell to the bottom. Sad face.
4) Chocolate daggers? Yes, that is what is created when you pour melted chocolate into ice cream...even if you try to just drip it in. This was concerning at first. Especially with all of the chocolate falling to the bottom.
Fortunately, I rescued a small amount of ice cream that hinted at what this recipe could be. As I was adding the chocolate, I actually removed some of the custard and put it directly in the freezer to make room for more chocolate. Since this was still slightly frozen, it stayed creamier, and not as icy. It also kept the chocolate dispersed in the ice cream. The chocolate daggers were thin enough that they break up with any slight pressure of your spoon or your tongue. Hearing the chocolate breaking as you scoop out the ice cream is a really cool sound.
Anyway, for what it's worth, here is the recipe. I'm sure I've convinced you to try it! I'll try another ice cream recipe soon and let you know what else I learn.
Side note about Rue La La: Rue La La is a website that has three day sales, featuring items from a range of different designers and high end kitchen and houseware companies. If you are interested in joining, send me a note and I will send you an invite and will get a credit for the referral).
Kahlua Chip Ice Cream
Adapted from: Food Network
Ingredients
8 large egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1 quart half-and-half
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup brewed double-strength espresso, cold
1/2 cup Kahlua or other coffee liqueur
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
Instructions
Place a large mixing bowl in the freezer. In another large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale yellow. In a saucepan bring the half-and-half to a boil, let it cool down to a warm temperature about 125 F. Gradually add a small amount of half-and-half into the egg mixture, whisking really quickly. When you've added enough half and half into the egg mixture to warm it up and dilute it, you can slowly add that back into the pan of half-and-half. A tedious process, but this helps to prevent the egg from "cooking." Heat the half-and-half mixture up until the sugar dissolves and the mixture becomes a custard consistency, about 145 F. When a custard consistency, the mixture will coat a spoon, as shown in the photo. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla, cold espresso and Kahlua. Place plastic wrap on top of the custard liquid to avoid the formation of a thick film while chilling. Place in the refrigerator to chill. Pass through a fine strainer. I started with a combination of a mesh strainer and a tea ball - but quickly gave up on the tea ball. The idea is to strain out any accidentally cooked egg pieces.
Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. (Depending on the size of your machine, you may wish to process in two batches.)
When the ice cream is nearly done, melt the chocolate over simmering water. Transfer the frozen ice cream into the chilled bowl from the freezer. Pour in the melted chocolate, stirring and mixing vigorously with a wooden spoon. (Perhaps this is one area where I might have gone wrong, I totally skipped this and poured the chocolate into the spinning ice cream maker! Doh!) Transfer to a container and freeze until firm.
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