Basic vanilla ice cream

I've spent a lot of time and ingredients coming up with heavenly ice cream recipes these past months, but they all begin with this basic vanilla ice cream recipe. 

You could do this without an ice cream maker, but after making it several times using coffee cans in graduating sizes with rock salt and ice between, rolling them back and forth across the floor (or making the kids do it!) for hours, it's become a necessity in our kitchen. I don't recommend having a ton of kitchen gadgets, but this is one, I assure you, makes life easier (...And that's the only thing I need is *this*. I don't need this or this. Just this ice cream maker... and this whisk. The ice cream maker and the whisk and that's all I need...)

Basic vanilla ice cream

Equipment: ice cream maker with bowl frozen to time according to manufacturer, whisk, mixing spoon or silicone spatula, double boiler or a creative alternative, small bowl for separating eggs, two bowls in graduating sizes for water bath, pastry brush (recommended)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream/whipping cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tsp. real vanilla extract, vanilla bean, scraped, or 2 tsp. vanilla paste (better than extract, I find)
• 1 tsp. salt
• ice
• water

Directions: 

• Heat milk and cream on medium in double boiler until bubbling slightly. Add in sugar and the vanilla bean, if using. Stir regularly.
• separate your eggs in small bowl. whisk yolks slightly.
• temper your egg yolks by first adding a spoonful of the hot custard to them, stirring, then again, then add eggs gradually, a drizzle at a time into custard, whisking all the while. Custard is ready when it leaves a thick coat on the back of a spoon.
• add your vanilla extract and salt.
• Remove custard from heat, prepare an ice water bath from two graduating bowls (fill the larger with water and ice, place the smaller inside that).
• Pour your custard carefully into the smaller bowl of the ice water bath and allow to rest until cooled.
• Pour your cooled custard into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer directions. My cuisinart takes 20-30 minutes to come out with a fairly soft but well-mixed ice cream, which I then put into the freezer for a couple of hours if a firmer ice cream is desired.

variations: candied ginger ice cream, lemon ice cream, basil ice cream, peaches and cream ice cream, peach cobbler ice cream, candied cherry-chocolate chunk ice cream, caramel-smoked salt ice cream.... the list grows on! I'll post the recipes for these soon!

XO, Debbie