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Ice Cream, Take 1

I started with this:

2 eggs (used Eggbeaters to avoid raw egg problems)
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup 1% milk
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla

Chilling custard The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of whipping cream, but I wanted to make it a tad less rich and they sell whipping cream by the cup, so it was simplest to just put half a cup of milk in. I cooked everything but the vanilla over lowish-medium heat till it hit 160 degrees, then poured it into a bowl over ice to cool quickly. The custard texture wasn’t super-thick, but it coated a metal spoon nicely enough.

Because I am impatient, I’m trying to cool the custard in the freezer. I may regret this. I’m going to give it an hour, then if it’s cold enough, I’ll turn it into ice cream. If it’s not cold enough I’ll transfer it to the fridge to sit overnight.

Update: one hour in the freezer cooled it down nicely; it then spent 25 minutes in the ice cream maker and is now in the freezer. It looks pretty good, so I’m optimistic.

Update 2: after freezing, the texture and mouthfeel are perfect. This is a winning procedure for custard-style bases. I want to try the Cuisinart-supplied simple recipe next; I’m curious to see how it’ll change. Flavor-wise, it was a tad sweet and a little bit bright. Possibly a smidge more salt and a bit less sugar is called for? Or it might be that the Mexican vanilla we used is super-flavorful. Definitely tasty, though.

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