Ice Cream Success Stories or Don't Touch My Pile of Gum!

Ice cream. It makes you think about being a kid. I think back on the different flavors of ice cream that I used to enjoy as a young child. I think my favorite was the bubble gum. It was the brilliant pink color that I now associate with medicine. It was filled with tiny pieces of gum. I used to save those pieces until I was done and then I would chew that gum. It was excellent. I haven’t seen bubble gum ice cream with gum pieces in it in a long time. Perhaps because it is totally gross. Maybe because putting gum, something you are not supposed to swallow into ice cream, something you are supposed to swallow is not the greatest idea. At any rate, my ice cream tastes have evolved. Thank goodness. I can’t imagine sitting around with adult friends with my pile of half sucked gum pieces just waiting to be chewed.

Since receiving my ice cream machine five months ago. (Thanks Mom!) I have made many different flavors. Some great, some not so great. I started simple: Chocolate. It was very good. Then I found a bottle of mint extract in my closet and made mint chocolate chip. I got adventurous and made a batch of bourbon peach - not a favorite. My first batch of vanilla came out tasting more like whipped cream, which  was excellent on rich chocolate cake. The second batch with more vanilla was perfect. I have made earl grey ice cream, good, but has a limited audience. My latest success was the blueberry muffin ice cream. I actually made blueberry muffins just so I could crumble them into ice cream. Success!

Yesterday I outdid all of my ice cream successes with Mexican Vanilla. It was about as perfect as ice cream can get. For those of you who don’t know Mexican vanilla, it is different from the vanilla we usually use (unless you are in Mexico I suppose.) A slightly different vanilla flavor and super delicious.

I must confess that I instructed the adults in the house that the Mexican Vanilla ice cream was not to be fed to the kids. Give them the peanut butter that we all felt had a little too much peanut butter in it.

Here is my recipe:

Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

5 egg yolks

⅔ cup sugar

1 tablespoon Mexican Vanilla

1. Mix one cup of cream with the yolks.

2. Add in the second cup of cream and the milk.

3. Add in the sugar. Mix well.

4. Add the Mexican Vanilla and stir.

                                      

5. Put in your ice cream machine and wait. My machine takes about 25 minutes to get the ice cream churned properly.

6. Put it in a container. I use Chinese take-out soup containers, I also use large yogurt containers.

7. Wait some more. I would say at least 4 hours for the ice cream to set.

A few notes on ice cream:

If you are squeamish about raw egg yolks you can cook the custard mixture to 140 degrees. Then you must strain the mixture and then cool it for another 4 hours before putting into the machine. I have done this both ways, it really depends on how fresh the eggs are for me. If I am cooking the custard anyway I will cook it to 140 to cook the yolks.

You don’t have to use 5 egg yolks, you can use less. I happened to already have five in my fridge. Egg yolks make the ice cream extra rich, you can make ice cream without them completely, but it will not be as rich.