Friday, June 15, 2007

Honey & Spice Ice Cream

This ice cream tastes like Christmas. I love my honey ice cream and was curious about this variation. I am enjoying it, but with every bite I imagine evergreen wreaths decorated with red bows and cinnamon sticks, oranges hung with cloves and gingerbread men. This would be excellent with gingerbread cake, or even a tart apple pie. I am going to have to eat the rest of it with ‘summer’ food in order to brand it in my head for warm weather.

I thought it would show small brown specks from the spices, but there was hardly any. It looks suspiciously white, which adds to the surprise of the strong flavour. It is sweet, and both the cloves and cinnamon are each discernible.

Honey & Spice Ice Cream
2 C milk
20 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 whole egg
3 egg yolks
¼ C sugar
¼ honey
1 ¾ C heavy cream

1. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan with the cloves and cinnamon sticks. Heat to simmering. Remove from heat and allow to infuse for at least an hour, or overnight.
2. Beat the egg, egg yolks and sugar and beat until frothy and thick.
3. Heat the spiced milk to the scalding point.
4. Beating the eggs all the time, pour the hot milk into the eggs.
5. Pour the egg and milk mixture back into the saucepan. Cook over medium low heat, stirring all the time. When the custard coats the spoon, remove from the heat. Stir in the honey. Allow to cool.
6. When cool, strain the custard through a very fine sieve, removing the spices.
7. Cover and refrigerate overnight or until thoroughly chilled.
8. Stir in the whipping cream. Churn in an ice cream maker.

4 comments:

Shayo said...

Hmmm, I'm also suspicious of this variation. I love honey ice cream and cinnamon but I don't know about the cloves...

Nerine said...

The cloves are nice. And I bet that adding ginger would complete the Christmas feel. But I still prefer the straight honey option as my day to day choice. I'm a no frills ice cream person.

Sharon said...

ok.... I want a proper ice cream maker (instead of this hand crank thing I have that doesn't work!!)

Zeb said...

I think its important to chill the newly cooked custard in an ice bath lest it over cook(from carry over cooking).

I think its useful to include the cream with the milk in order for it to receive more infused flavour, and also the depth of the scalding.

Also you could add the cold cream to the newly cooked custard to quickly lower the temperature.