So, not sure if it was a request from one of my friends for coffee ice cream or if I decided to do it on my own but I pulled the following recipe from a website titled Simply Recipes (and want to try some of the other recipes – the pictures are amazingly appetizing!) a couple months back in the height of my ice cream making frenzy and never got around to making it (Minnesota has been unseasonably cold this summer – I actually turned on my HEAT today, IN AUGUST, IN MINNESOTA – what the heck is going on here!). Well…tomorrow night is “Girls Night In” and this is going to be my contribution.. I have added my comments preceded by ***
Method ***these are NOT my pictures, my camera was full
1 Heat the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan until it is quite warm (***this is a bit objective but I got the gist) and steamy, but not boiling. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
2 Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set on ice over a larger bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top of the bowls. Set aside. ***be aware that if you double (or more) this recipe that your strainer may not be big enough, unfortunately I did not foresee this problem
3 Reheat the milk and coffee mixture, on medium heat, until again hot and steamy (not boiling!). (***at this point my milk/cream mixture was kind of curdled-I started to panic thinking I had just wasted over an hour of my evening and would have to start over but I forged on – all was OK.) In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk and coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
4 Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating (***be aware when your “run” your finger across this spatula that this mixture is H-O-T – I have a small blister to prove it) and have the coating not run. This can take about 10 minutes. ***All right…10 minutes is a long freaking time when you are stirring constantly. Now I love to bake and make desserts but I usually am not one for the tedious type of crap (except Christmas time when I go a bit overboard). I even adjusted my grandmothers 7 hour long strudel recipe to be able to utilize my bread machine to cut the work in more than half. So… I am stirring and my arm is going to fall off and NOW my dogs is whining at such a decibel that makes it hard to keep my eyes open because she needs to go outside and my repeated “just a minute!” exclamations are not getting through to her. I take a 15 second break to let the dog out and the cat promptly takes advantage of the open door and bolts. I am looking from the door to the stove, door to stove – UGH! I have too much invested in this freakin’ ice cream – I hope the cat comes back.
5 Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream (***again, make sure you have a strainer big enough, I had a MESS, my picture definitely would not have been this pretty). Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible. Then discard the beans. Mix in the vanilla (***Ummm, yeah – apparently was too focused on the beans and ice cream base dripping and spilling all over the place that I missed this part, good thing this had to chill) and finely ground coffee, and stir until cool.
6 Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (***I plan on doing this overnight), then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
Makes one quart. (***If you don’t double it)
Now I obviously haven’t tasted this yet so I will post an update tomorrow.
PS – for those of you wondering, the cat came back (after I called him, anyone else have a cat that comes when called? Certainly surprises the neighbors or a random passerby when I am standing at the front door calling here kitty, kitty kitty and a cat actually comes running from out from under the neighbors bushes) when I was done with this post.
Update…the coffee ice cream was D-A-M-N G-O-O-D, even made better with a drizzle of Kahlua (or Amaretto as others had). DEFINITELY a keeper.
