Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
In addition to the cherry bars, I also baked up a lattice-top peach pie using a filling from Chukar Cherries that I spruced up with some fresh fruit and spices (however the crust was completely homemade). With both the pie and the cherry bars, I wanted a basic, but still delicious, vanilla ice cream that our guests could scoop on top. The best part about making this ice cream for the party was that it is supposed to be done several days in advanced, which left me time to devote to my other baking projects.
You have to use fresh vanilla bean in addition to high quality vanilla extract to get the best vanilla ice cream or else it will taste like a crappy grocery store brand of ice cream, and we wouldn't want that. No skimping on that!
Vanilla bean ice cream wasn't the only frozen treat our guests got to sample. More on those soon!
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz
- 1 cup milk (I used 2%)
- 2 cups heavy cream, divided
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
- 6 egg yolks
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a medium sized saucepan, mix the milk, 1 cup of heavy cream, sugar and salt over low heat. Stir until sugar dissolves.
- Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk mixture. Add the vanilla bean as well. Remove from heat and allow vanilla bean to steep for 1/2 hour.
- In a medium sized bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly add the slightly cooled milk mixture into the bowl and then return all contents of the bowl back into the saucepan.
- Heat the saucepan on medium, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture begins to thicken and forms a custard.
- Pour custard through a mesh sieve into a large bowl and stir in remaining cream. Discard vanilla bean.
- Allow the mixture to come to room temperature. Then cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but overnight works best.
- Process according to ice cream maker's instructions and transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze until desired texture is reached (overnight is once again best).