One Ingredient Challenge: Premium Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Part of an ongoing series of cooking from scratch. That is, we cook something from basic items that don't have multiple ingredients (e.g. store-bought spaghetti sauce includes all sorts of spices and maybe other stuff too; we'd start with tomatoes and individual spices and add them together to make our own sauce). See other challenges here.

It's summertime, so we wanted to make some delicious homemade ice cream. A good friend gave us some fresh-from-the-chicken eggs (free range backyard chickens=extra yum!), so we looked for a good recipe to include them.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean
• 2 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar

Combine 1 1/2 cups whole milk and 1 1/2 cups heavy cream in a medium saucepan.

Combining the first ingredients

Split 1 vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the milk/cream.

Prepping the vanilla

Add the leftover bean pod to the milk/cream as well. Bring the mixture to a slow boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Combine 2 large eggs, 3 large egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl. Mix on medium speed until the mixture is thick, smooth and pale yellow, approximately 2 minutes.

Separating eggs

Stirring constantly

After the 30 minute cooking time is up, remove the vanilla bean pod from the milk/cream. Pour out one cup of the hot liquid. With the mixer on low speed, add the cup of hot milk/cream to the egg mixture in a slow, steady stream. When thoroughly combined, pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and stir to combine. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium low heat until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Back of spoon test

Transfer to a bowl, cover with a sheet of plastic wrap placed directly on the custard, and chill completely.

Place in your ice cream maker and mix until thickened, about 25-30 minutes.

In our ice cream maker

Enjoy!

Checking for flavor...

...highly approved!

Don't forget to lick the beaters!