Ice Cream's

Here are some of the ice creams that I make for folks that seem to be thoroughly enjoyed.  I hope you enjoy them as much.  Be creative and add your own ingredients to these to make them your own.

Vanilla Ice Cream Base

Ingredients

   ½ cup milk

   3½ cup heavy cream

   9 large egg yolks  (save the whites for Pavlova they can be frozen)

   9 ounces sugar

   1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Place the heavy cream into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to 165 degrees, stirring occasionally, and remove from the heat.

In a medium mixing bowl whisk the egg yolks until they lighten in color. Gradually add the sugar and ½ cup of milk and whisk to combine. Temper the cream mixture into the eggs and sugar by gradually adding small amounts, until about 1/3 of the cream mixture has been added. Pour in the remainder and return the entire mixture to the saucepan and place over low heat. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon and reaches 170 to 175 degrees F.   Be careful not to caramelize the sugar on the bottom of the pot.

Pour the mixture into a container and allow to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Stir in the vanilla extract. Place the mixture into the refrigerator and cool.

Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's directions.  Remove and package for freezing.  This is the basis for all of my ice creams.  There may be some slight differences so read the recipes carefully but whenever I refer to the Ice Cream Base this is it.

Lou's Chocolate Ice Cream

Directions

Make the vanilla ice cream base however, add 1 1/2 cups of Ghiradelli 100% unsweetened Cocoa and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the cream and mix well prior to heating.  This will give you a decadent chocolate ice cream that you'll have a hard time matching anywhere else.

 Lou's Chocolate Mocha Ice Cream

Directions

Make the chocolate ice cream as above but, add 1/2 cup of ground espresso beans to the ice cream mixture after returning it to the pot for the second heating.  The beans must be ground very fine and then strained out.  Follow the remainder of the recipe as written.

Wine Ice Cream

Directions

First pour 1 bottle of white Zinfandel wine into a saucepan and bring to a simmer to reduce to one cup. This will take some time so you might want to do this in advance.

Make the ice cream base however, add the reduced wine to the mix with the vanilla extract.   I did two of these using a white zinfandel and a merlot.  In order to get the full flavor of the merlot I had to add an additional half bottle of wine directly to the mixture without reducing.  The white zinfandel came out fine per the recipe.  I would try this again with a blackberry merlot.  Should prove very nice.

Lou's Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream

Directions

Make the ice cream base but add 1 15 ounce can of pumpkin and 4 tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice to the whipping cream before heating.  Follow the remainder of the recipe as written.

Lou's Piña Colada Ice Cream

Directions

Make the ice cream base but substitute 1/2 cup of cream of coconut for 1 cup of the cream.  Add 1 15 ounce can of crushed pineapple to the mixture at the second heating.  Follow the remainder of the recipe as written but add 1 cup of shredded coconut along with 1 ounce of rum flavoring and 1/2 ounce of coconut extract when placing the mixture in the ice cream maker.