A Better Vanilla Frozen Custard!

Okay, we tried this a few weeks ago, and we came out with a wonderful but slightly "eggy" frozen custard... Not bad at all, but not what I was looking for.

So yesterday I went back to the drawing board. I reduced the eggs, evened the ratio of heavy cream to whole milk, and reduced the sugar...

And used real vanilla, because it makes a difference in frozen and baked custard.

THIS CAME OUT AMAZINGLY WELL.

I made the vanilla as a base and then added homemade M&M/Chocolate Chip cookie chunks, and a handful of M&M's to the second half of the mixture.

This recipe made two batches... so I froze the first batch using my Cuisinart Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt maker (a wonderful machine!)...

And the second batch was where I folded the cookie parts and M&M's in at the end of the process so they wouldn't get soggy.

Here is the revised recipe:

2 1/2 cups Heavy Cream
2 1/2 cups Whole Milk
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
4 tablespoons Corn Syrup (this helps the ice cream/custard to have a silkier, smoother texture)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Using a 3 quart kettle, pour cream, milk, egg yolks, sugar and corn syrup into the pan. Whisk well. Cook over medium/medium-high heat, stirring or whisking constantly, until mixture begins to thicken and "bubble" around edges. You don't need to boil it, you just want those eggs and cream and milk to make a real happy marriage together!

Chill. (I cheat and fill my sink with ice water and set the pan in there to get a head start on the chilling process, but you can simply put it in the fridge and let it chill there. If you're patient. I am not patient when it comes to ice cream. SIGH....)

Once cool/chilled, I poured one half of the mixture into the ice cream tub and turned it on... 

I LOVE THAT PART. I DON'T HAVE TO CRANK ANYTHING!!!! :)

The old scale is checking out the shiny newfangled intruder... and finds the bold red color a little too "notice me" for her tastes, but didn't throw down the gauntlet... so ice cream maker is free to stay!

Once frozen to custard-like consistency, spoon into a freezer container and repeat the freezing process with the balance of custard.

And here's what the chocolate chip cookie variety looked like:

The cookies stayed crisp and delicious and the whole thing was a crowd pleaser... both varieties, plain vanilla and cookie-studded M&M variety!

I miss my little camera... it gave me the best pics, and the USB cord disappeared. I must order a new one, I kept thinking I'd find it.. and I will, no doubt. Right after I order a new one!

UPDATE!!! NEWSFLASH!!! Daughter Beth Jamison found my little cord, bringing my little camera back into the game. Well done, Beth!!!

Multi-published, award-winning author Ruth Logan Herne loves writing sweet books, meeting readers, cooking, baking, running a crazy busy small farm, and reading stories to cute little kids... and making bigger kids do homework! You can find her at ruthloganherne.com, facebook and twitter, Seekerville and now at Petticoats & Pistols.com with some of her Western writing buds. If nothing else, she loves to talk... (sigh...) but she mostly loves to meet readers!

Homemade Frozen Custard... Rich and Delicious!

You guys all know that I have a love affair with Abbott's Frozen Custard, a local franchise that had one flagship store when I was growing up, a custard stand that still stands where Lake Ave. meets Beach Ave. at Charlotte Beach in Rochester. I learned to love Abbott's on the shores of a Great Lake, and it's a love affair that's continued to this day.

But I can't always go to Abbott's and I love playing in the kitchen, so Logan, Morgan and I made custard the other day.

It was delicious.

It was marvelous.  I pulled out the cool ice cream maker that Seth and Lacey gave me for Christmas a few years ago... and my asparagus scale was a little suspicious and had to come forward and check things out. She hadn't seen the flashy red appliance in quite some time and at her age, Betsy the Scale has grown somewhat protective... but in the end, all was okay.

It is GONE which is a testament to the custardy goodness because the freezer is filled with all kinds of ice cream novelties. But the Gladware tub of homemade custard disappeared real quick!

I got the recipe from Serious Eats.com   I tweaked it a little, but I'll tweak it more the next time.

Basically you cook the custard mixture until it "sheets" a spoon. That means it doesn't quite run off the spoon, it's like making clotted cream for the queen. :)

So here's the recipe we used:

• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons light (clear) corn syrup
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

I did the original recipe as posted, except we doubled it (big family), and used 1/3 cup sugar and the corn syrup.

I should have left it at 1/4 cup sugar per batch because that would have been plenty... and when we make it this week, I'm cutting the egg yolks in half, so 2 egg yolks/batch. I used a pure vanilla extract, and that gave the flavor a perfect depth. In cookies I'll use imitation vanilla, but in creams and ices, I want the real thing.

Here's what it looks like first:

And then it darkens and thickens a little.... over medium heat, whisking all the while (it only takes a few minutes) 

And this is when it's ready to take off the stove and plunge the pan into an ice water bath to cool quickly:

We used the Cuisinart ice cream and yogurt maker, and I love this machine. It takes "simple" to the max. You freeze the cylinder, and when the mixture is done, you fill the cylinder and flip the switch. The machine does all the work.

And of course I had to test it as it churned!

The creamy texture was perfect. It was a touch sweet, my bad for increasing the sugar because I know that real cream needs little sweetening!

I can't wait to try it with fewer eggs and doing a chocolate version... silky chocolate custard is so amazingly delicious!

Thank you, Serious Eats for a chance to try this one... and for the inspiration to keep playing because when you love frozen custard... it's a match made in heaven!

Multi-published author Ruth Logan Herne writes beautiful inspirational fiction... and has fun in the kitchen and on the farm, all of which eventually shows up in a book! You can find Ruthy here on Thursdays... or visit her website ruthloganherne.com or friend her on facebook at Ruth Logan Herne. She loves to chat and thoroughly enjoys meeting new people!