Vanilla Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart
From the River Cottage Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 1/2 cup superfine sugar
• 2/3 cup water
• 4 large egg yolks

Directions

1. Scald the cream (i.e., bring it almost to boiling, then remove from the heat) and add the vanilla bean. Leave to infuse until the cream is completely cool. Scrape out the tiny seeds from the bean and leave them in the cream.
2. Over low heat, dissolve the sugar in the water, then turn up the heat and boil rapidly to get a light syrup (it's ready when a little dropped onto a cold plate forms a thread when stretched between finger and thumb. Let the syrup cool for just a minute.
3. Place the egg yolks in a bowl and begin whisking (ideally with an electric mixer), trickling in the hot syrup as you go. Continue whisking until the mixture is thick and mousselike, then whisk in the cream.
4. Pour the mixture into an ice cream machine and churn until frozen.

Notes

We've never used superfine sugar, just regular granulated sugar (ours is some kind of blonde organic kind and it works fine, isn't gritty). When we make this we usually put the container that's going to hold the finished ice cream in the freezer while we prepare the batter and run the ice cream maker. Also, cooling the batter in the fridge first for a while before pouring into the ice cream maker seems to work better.

Variations: We've replaced the vanilla bean with a tablespoon of rather strong cinnamon, which made an almost hot cinnamon ice cream. Next up we're going to try melting in some chocolate chips.

Sara (talk) 08:52, 2 June 2014 (PDT)