Homemade Ice Cream
Bacon and Egg Ice Cream - from Gourmet Magazine's TV Show - Diary of a Foodie
8 bacon slices (1/2 pound)
1 1/2 Tablespoons packed light brown sugar
2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
- Arrange bacon slices in 1 layer (not overlapping) on rack of a large broiler pan. Bake 15 minutes. Turn slices over and sprinkle evenly with brown sugar.
- Continue to bake, checking bacon every 5 minutes, until bacon is crisp and deep golden, 15 to 20 minutes more. Transfer to parchment or brown paper (such as a grocery bag or butcher paper; see cooks' note, below) to drain.
- Heat milk, cream, granulated sugar, and salt in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and mixture is hot.
- Meanwhile, beat yolks in a medium bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until thick and pale. Reduce speed to low and add hot milk mixture in a stream, mixing until combined. Transfer custard to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat back of a spoon and thermometer registers 170 to 175°F (do not let boil). Stir in vanilla.
- Quick-chill custard by transferring it to a bowl set into a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stirring frequently until cold, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut bacon into tiny 1/4-inch pieces.
- Fold bacon into ice cream once you have the ice cream in the machine and it is turned on, using the hole in the top of the lid. Once the ice cream has started to set up and get thick, transfer it to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 2 hours.
- Ice cream keeps 1 week. Don't be tempted to transfer bacon to paper towels to drain—the sugar will make the bacon stick to them.
FOODIE NOTES: Everyone has certain Foodie traditions around national holidays that they carry forward from their childhood into their adulthood. I am no different. For me, it is just not the Fourth of July without ice cold watermelon slices and homemade ice cream. We always went out to my Aunt Dot's farm in Claremore, OK to shoot off our fireworks outside the city limits. We always stopped at the same fireworks stand every year for our selection of sparklers, tanks, cones, bottle rockets, roman candles and black cats. As we would pull down the long gravel road toward the farm house, you could see my Cousin Bob sitting on the front porch rocking in a old-fashioned 1950's metal outdoor chair painted pink to match the trim on the old house and at his feet a large metal washtub with the electric ice cream maker full of creamy goodness and packed with ice and rock salt cranking away. Then as soon as we parked the car and opened the car door, you could hear the unmistakable sound of the ice cream maker - Rrrl, Rrrl, Rrrl, Rrrl the rhythmic sound of the machine meant I was one hamburger away from dessert.
My electric ice cream maker I use now has come a long way since those days. Gone is the need for ice and rock salt and in it's place is a cylinder that I constantly keep in the fridge in case the mood for ice cream should strike, I am ready.
The ice cream flavor that was always made at my Aunt's on the 4th was a flavor they called Vanilla, but truthfully having made the recipe as an adult from scratch is it really more of a Lemon Cream with lots of fresh lemon juice in it to cut the sweetness. This recipe also takes like two hours of constant stirring to make the old family recipe. I am happy to do it once a year, but can't manage much more than that.
Then there was the year that the mixture looked right, but when I froze it and served it proudly I realized that somewhere in that two hour window I had scalded the milk and the whole batch had an remarkably strong scorched earth flavor to it. All the men in the family, said it was still delicious and ate two bowls a piece just to make me feel better, I suspect, but I was crushed at the failure and decided to look for an easier recipe to make in the future.
The funny thing is, I now find myself gravitating towards more unique ice cream flavors now that my palate has expanded. So when I saw this recipe on Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie (my favorite TV show on the air) for Bacon and Egg Ice Cream, I knew that would be my Fourth of July project this year.
I have no words to describe how simple this Bacon and Egg Ice Cream is to make. It tastes like the richest butter pecan ice cream only with this sweet and smokey bacon note in the back. Fantastic, it is a keeper.
I also cheated a bit, but with a huge batch of fresh basil on my hands from my CSA, I took half the batch of basil and chopped it finely it in my food processor then added into the processor the best organic chocolate with chocolate chip ice cream I could find and blended all the ingredients together. I poured it back into the original container to re-freeze it. Ta-da! A simple Chocolate, Chocolate Chip Basil ice cream that is fresh and sophisticated tasting. My friend Suba, who grew up in Malaysia threatened to take the whole carton home with her she loved it so much. No way Sister, this batch is mine.
























