Homemade vanilla ice cream being churned.
Homemade ice cream really rocks! If you’ve ever tried it, you know what I mean. Expensive boutique ice creams are all good, but homemade is great. I first learned how to make ice cream when I attended La Varenne Cooking School in Paris in the late 1980s. My ice cream repertoire has since expanded after working in a string of restaurants, the most memorable by far being a stint at Restaurant L’Arpege in Paris (then 2 Michelin stars, now 3!). During my two-week internship in the kitchen I was blown away by chef Alain Passard’s curry ice cream, made with an Indian-spice-infused caramel. Sweet, spicy, and cold all at the same time, it was magical.
Here’s my basic recipe for rich vanilla bean ice cream.
Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Makes about 1 quart
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
¾ cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
6 egg yolks
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Combine the milk, heavy cream, sugar, and salt in a heavy-based nonreactive saucepan. Using a paring knife, cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise, then scrape out the black seeds and add them directly to the milk mixture. Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring just to boiling point. Remove from heat and allow the vanilla bean to infuse the milk mixture for least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours. If longer than 15 minutes, reheat the milk again just to boiling point before proceeding.
- Prepare a heatproof bowl with a fine-mesh sieve placed over it; set aside. Place a quart-size metal bowl in the freezer for the freshly churned ice cream.
- Whisk the egg yolks in a heatproof bowl. Slowly pour 1 cup of the hot milk mixture into the bowl, whisking constantly. Transfer the egg yolk mixture to the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the custard thickens enough to leave a clean streak (sometimes called a ribbon) across the back of the spoon. This usually takes about 7 to 9 minutes.
- Strain the custard into the prepared bowl, and return the vanilla bean to the custard. Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.
- Remove the vanilla bean and freeze the custard in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the ice cream to the chilled metal bowl and freeze until set: this can take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours.
I thought I’d never see rhubarb in Malaysia, but today, I stumbled upon some in Hock Choon, a small grocery store specializing in imported goods. I was thrilled to find this vitamin-C-and-calcium-packed fruit (some will argue that it’s a vegetable), and particularly tickled to introduce it to my cook, Luann, who said that she had seen it before, but had no idea what to do with it (usually it’s the other way around…she’s introducing me to exotic foods). I rattled off a list of culinary delights made with rhubarb, from strawberry-rhubarb pie to a simple sauce for yogurt or ice cream. Luann made a batch of rhubarb sauce from my recipe in Eating for Pregnancy: The Essential Nutrition Guide and Cookbook for Today’s Mothers-to-Be. The kids devoured it on top of homemade yogurt sprinkled with a bit of homemade tropical granola. I call it tropical because I added bits of diced dried mango, orange rind, coconut, and walnuts to the honey-toasted oats…super yum! They were happy, and so was I.
Last night, I was snug in bed, lost in Kathryn Stockett’s fabulous book, The Help, until I came across a confection on page 38 called caramel cake: “I was fourteen years old to the day. I sat at the little wooden table in my mama’s kitchen eyeing that caramel cake on the cooling rack, waiting to be iced. Birthdays were the only day of the year I was allowed to eat as much as I wanted.”
Gooey chocolate cookies don’t get any better than this. Last week, I hosted a cookie exchange chez moi. It was a smash hit. I used every ounce of discipline I had not to sample every cookie on the table. We all shared recipes, so I thought I’d share mine with you. Warning: These cookies will fill your home with the most delicious chocolate smell, and if you or anyone else samples them still warm from the oven you might pass out from pleasure. P.S. I’m giving a bunch of these morsels to my children’s teachers as gifts, along with frosted sugar cookies and raspberry jam laced with rose petals.
The most beautiful pumpkin pie I ever did bake! I was paging through a back issue of Cook’s Illustrated (Holiday 2009) and stumbled upon this yummy sounding recipe for Praline Topping. I must admit I made my own crust and filling (using the recipe from the back of the pumpkin can with a few spice adjustments), but I couldn’t resist topping it this year. I hope you’ll become a praline-topping convert too. Here’s the recipe:
