Homemade Ice Cream

I am a novice ice cream maker. My qualifications include: loving the taste of ice cream.

I’ve started to develop a favorite ice cream recipe that I adapted from Key Lime Ice Cream. In my limited experience, I’ve found that some recipes will produce an icy tasting ice cream, but this recipe keeps it smooth and creamy.

The mixins section has examples of different flavors that I’ve tried. I recommend researching other recipes to learn how to integrate other flavorful ingredients.

The recipe yields two pints.

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 ¼ cups white sugar
• 2 ¼ cups heavy cream

Mixins

For key lime:

• 1 T lemon zest
• ¾ cup lime juice

For coffee:

• 2 T instant coffee grounds

Directions

1. Whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, sugar, and mixins in a saucepan over medium heat until well-blended.
2. Continuously stir the egg mixture with a wooden spoon until thickened, 7 to 8 minutes. The mixture should be thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. (If you have a thermometer the mixture should reach about 170°F.)
3. Remove the mixture from heat and stir in the heavy cream until smooth.
4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve set over a clean bowl.
5. Cover and chill the mixture in the refrigerator, stirring occasionally until cool, about 1 hour.
6. Pour the chilled mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions, 10 to 15 minutes. The consistency should be like a milkshake.
7. Transfer ice cream to a lidded container and cover the surface with plastic wrap and seal.
8. Freeze for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Recommendations

I use these pint containers. The containers are great, especially for giving ice cream as gifts.

I store the pint containers in a freezer bag, I find that it helps keep the ice cream from getting freezer burnt.

For extracting egg yolks, I will crack the egg into a clean hand over the sink. I will coddle the yolk, but allow the egg whites to slip through my fingers.

When making coffee ice cream, you might want to consider decaf if you intend on eating ice cream before bed. (I’m a caffeine wuss, so the coffee ice cream had me buzzing.)