Frustrated at the lack of really good ice cream in our area, I decided to see about making it myself. Unfortunately, pretty much all ice cream references and recipes pointed out that it’s difficult or impossible to make smooth dense ice cream at home, due to the lack of specialized equipment.
I’m not so easily deterred.
After digesting a few scientific papers on the crystallization and phase diagrams of ice cream, I figured it was just a matter of balancing the sugar, fat, and alcohol to maximize the number of small crystals without messing around with the flavor. I went through 12 iterations, fine-tuning the recipe in my lab notebook.
My ice cream base uses a fair amount of sugar and a lot of alcohol; the lecithin in the eggs probably doesn’t hurt, either. The result is really good ice cream.
~Rich
Ice Cream Base
Ingredients
- 2 whole eggs
- 4 additional egg yolks
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups Heavy cream
- 2 cups Whole milk
- 8 ounces, Dark, Milk, or White Chocolate for Baking
- 2 teaspoons vodka
- 2 teaspoons alcohol-based vanilla extract
Directions
Make the Base
- In a large bowl, beat eggs, yolks, and sugar 2 minutes on high speed until thick and pale.
- Scald the milk and cream in a pot. Pour very slowly over the egg mixture while stirring. Stir in the chocolate.
- Pour into large pot and cook gently while stirring until the mixture looks like suede (75C or 165F).
- Strain into a large clean bowl set into an ice bath. Stir until cooled. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Churn & Freeze
- Stir in the vodka and vanilla, and churn per your ice cream maker’s directions.
- Scrape into a storage container and place in the freezer overnight.
