Hi friends!
So last year on my birthday, the sweetest bunch of University friends bought me an ice-cream machine. Okay, I’ll admit that I asked for it (heehee they asked me what I wanted), but they really didn’t need to get it. It was the perfect present – I’d wanted an ice-cream machine since I was young but my mom said that if I ate too much ice-cream, I’d become fat. Also, she said that ice-cream wasn’t healthy and there was no need to have a machine to make our own. Since it was an indulgent food, we could just go out and buy it as and when we wanted to (aka hardly ever).
However, as excited as I was to receive the ice-cream machine, this was the first time I used it. It has been a good 8 months since I got the machine. Oopsie daisy!
Since the machine isn’t a large-scale professional one, it requires a pre-freeze of the bowl fro 24 hours before I can churn my mix. That was probably one of the things that set me back since our refrigerator is rather tiny & hardly ever has space for me to freeze my bowl.
Making ice-cream was a totally spontaneous decision in the middle of the night (2am or so?). I considered making a new creative flavour of macarons or cinnamon buns or just something completely new. Sitting in my living room, I was feeling all warm and uncomfortable and really just wanted a scoop of ice-cream. That’s when it hit me – Ice-cream! Perfect!
Mom had bought me some organic vanilla beans from her trip to Australia and this was another chance to use some of the ingredients I had on hand. I’d seen this recipe from David Lebovitz for quite a while and finally decided to get down to making his ice-cream. The end result was perfect – creamy, rich & exactly how ice-CREAM should be. If you’re looking for something low-fat, then sorry, this is not for you.
According to the instructions on that came with the machine, I should have been able to just eat the ice-cream straight from the bowl after half an hour. However, I think Singapore is a lil bit too hot or my bowl wasn’t frozen enough because after half an hour of churning, the ice-cream wasn’t freezing up. I decided to just go ahead and pour the thickened mixture into the ice-cream container & freeze it till it was firm enough to eat.
The ice-cream turned out to be really good, although it melts pretty quickly. I’m guessing this is just something that comes with homemade ice-cream, given that there are no stabilizers whatsoever.
Vanilla Ice Cream
Makes about 1 litre of ice-cream
Adapted from David Lebovitz
Ingredients:
- 1 cup (250ml) semi-skim milk (David Lebovitz used whole milk – probably gives a much richer flavour)
- A pinch of salt
- 3/4 cup (150g) sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
- 2 cups (500ml) heavy cream
- 5 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions:
1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat, and infuse for one hour.
2. To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a small bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.
4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.
5. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Preferably overnight.
6. Remove the vanilla bean and freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Enjoy the luscious goodness
xx
Eugenia
