When we’re looking for great techniques and ideas for homemade ice cream, we tend not to look to anyone other than David Lebovitz. His mastery and creativeness in that field are unparalleled in our book, and we just think he’s a pretty cool guy in general. He picked up and moved to Paris with two suitcases and not even a rudimentary knowledge of French (seriously, how gutsy and cool is that?), but he’s been there for a decade and a half, so I think it worked out for him. We actually used one of his recipes as the inspiration for our own Peanut Butter-scotch Ice Cream way back in our second post ever. Good times. As good as that creation was, this one kind of blows it out of the ice cream maker.
The base of the custard for this recipe is a Salted Butter Caramel Sauce—which we already wanted to swim around in as it was—and it does double duty in that it imparts a fantastic flavor, and it magically keeps the ice cream soft and easy to scoop straight from the freezer.
I might have mentioned in the past that had I been born Native American, my name would have been Bent Spoon due to my too numerous and undeterred encounters with rock hard ice cream. This frozen treat, while not exactly kind to the old waistline, is the savior of our flatware—and our livers, considering that we usually have to add a little booze to the custard to get the same soft texture.
Despite already being as close to perfect as we could imagine, that didn’t deter Kyle from his usual, spot on tinkering. When you’re gifted, Then you’re gifted…(Funny Girl lyrics. My musical theater roots are showing. Nerd alert!) It’s always nice to put your own spin on things, whether out of personal taste or having to improvise ingredient substitutions. The latter was more the case in this instance.
Mr. Lebovitz’s original recipe called for a combination of two cups of whole milk and one cup of heavy cream, but not generally having those things on hand, a quart container of half and half was used instead. This obviously called for a slight increase in the other ingredients to accommodate the extra liquid, but that yielded more ice cream, so of course we just went with it, because Duh!
We were also supposed to use salted butter (hence the “salted” butter caramel), but again, we don’t usually cook with that, so none was to be found in the fridge. That should have been a simple matter of adding a little more sea salt to the mix to make up for the unsalted butter, but restraint not being on his list of strong suits, Kyle actually doubled the amount of salt. Had it been an accident, it most definitely would have been a happy one, because the aggressively salty sauce that resulted was the perfect balance to the rich, sweet ice cream.
On first tasting, our imaginations went on safari thinking of all of the wonderful uses for this frozen delight. We actually considered calling this Salted Caramel Nirvana. Our first impulse was to go make a batch of the Molten Chocolate Chip Cookies and race each other to a diabetic coma. I guess restraint isn’t either of our strong suits.
Kyle was particularly excited to get this recipe in the blog, because he has a bit of history with it. While in culinary school at Johnson & Wales in North Miami, he made the original version as part of plated dessert presentation for one of his pastry classes. Upon tasting the dessert, his instructor told him that he would give him an A in the class if he shared the ice cream recipe with him. Let that be an illustration of how good it is. If a professional pastry chef and instructor at a prestigious culinary school will bribe a student for the recipe, that’s some good stuff. Considering that it wasn’t his recipe to begin with, Kyle could hardly withhold it, so he printed out Lebovitz’s recipe and handed it over. He still took earned that A, though. Have a taste and you’ll see why. Enjoy!
Adapted from David Lebovitz.
- 4 cups half and half, divided
- 1 ⅓ cup sugar
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 ½ teaspoons sea salt
- 8 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Make an ice bath by filling a large bowl about a third full with ice cubes and adding a cup or so of water so they’re floating. Nest a smaller metal bowl over the ice, pour 1 cup of the half and half into the smaller bowl, and rest a mesh strainer on top of it.
- Spread sugar in a large saucepan (with a capacity of at least 4 quarts) in an even layer. Cook over moderate heat, using a heatproof utensil to gently stir the liquefied sugar from the bottom and edges towards the center, until all the sugar is dissolved. Continue to cook stirring infrequently until the caramel starts smoking and begins to smell like it’s just about to burn.
- Remove pan from heat and stir in the butter and salt, until butter is melted, then gradually whisk in 2 cups of the half and half. If the caramel hardens or seizes a bit, stir it over low heat to completely. Stir in the remaining 1 cup of the half and half.
- Whisk the yolks in a small bowl and gradually pour some of the warm caramel mixture over the yolks, stirring constantly. Scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan and cook the custard using a heatproof utensil, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.
- Pour the custard through the strainer into the milk set over the ice bath, add the vanilla, then stir frequently until the mixture is cooled down. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or until thoroughly chilled.
- Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions, then chill in the freezer until firm.
Dr Martin Huang says
It looks really simple to make, but can I still make the ice cream without an ice cream maker?