Boozy Bourbon Ice Cream

One of my fabulous Christmas presents that my husband got me this year was the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.  This is probably the most awesome thing ever…but was probably the most dangerous thing we could have brought into our household. In the first 5 days of 2012, we made 4 batches of frosty treats. Yea... 

Yay ice cream maker!

We have now kicked this habit back to 1 batch of deliciousness a week.  The recipe for this week was a special request from my husband.  The past few months we have seen several boutique ice creams that use either bourbon or whisky as a flavor element.  His special request was for “bourbon ice cream.”  I modified a recipe that I found online…

A note on adding alcohol to ice cream.  Ice cream “batter” tastes super sweet, but the sweetness calms down when it is frozen. I thought maybe the same thing was true about alcohol…but it’s not.  If you add more booze, it’s going to taste boozier.  So stick to the ratio of alcohol listed below, don’t let your husband talk you into adding 2-3 more tablespoons of Makers Mark. [true story] I want to try this recipe again using Amaretto…yum. We served this when it was "half-set" with warm, soft snickerdoodle cookies.

Enjoy!

Bourbon Ice Cream (modified from David Lebovitz on Finecooking.com)

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream 
• 1 cup whole milk 
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 5 large egg yolks* [see note below]
• 3-4 tablespoons bourbon 
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract

Ingredient Lineup

Directions

1.  Prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with several inches of ice water. Set a smaller metal bowl (1.5 quarts or larger) in the ice water. Pour in 1 cup of cream in the inner bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top.

Cream in the ice bath

2. Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl.

3. In a medium saucepan, warm 1 cup of cream, the milk, & sugar over medium-high heat until tiny bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan (1-2 min).  In a steady stream, pour half of the warm cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly to prevent the eggs from curdling. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heatproof rubber spatula until the custard thickens. Don’t let the sauce overheat or boil, or it will curdle.

Slowly streaming the hot cream mixture into the beaten eggs.
Stir constantly, or you will end up with runny scrambled eggs.

Custard that is not ready yet...

Custard that is ready to cool down. Do you
see the difference?

4. Immediately strain the custard into the cold cream in the ice bath.

Strain the custard to remove any curds or lumps.

5. Cool the custard to below 70 degrees Fahrenheit by stirring it over the ice bath. Stir in the bourbon and the vanilla into the cooled custard.

Swirling in vanilla and [too much] bourbon

6. Refrigerate the custard until completely chilled, at least 4 hours. Then freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the just-churned ice cream to an air-tight container and freeze for at least 4 hours or up to 2 weeks.

Ice cream whirling away

Semi-set ice cream...pop it in the freezer for a few hours

Warm snickerdoodles with semi-set ice cream

My husband's bowl of bourbon ice cream...

He decided to round it off with some caramel sauce.  I've been
challenged to make bourbon caramel next...

*A note on what to do with the egg whites generated from this recipe: make meringue cookies, make a meringue pie, add one whole egg & make an omelet for two (to make it super fluffy, use a mixer to infuse air into the eggs), egg whites will also freeze for future use-just mark the bag with the date you are freezing them and how many egg whites are in the bag.


My recommendation for seperating egg yolks is this method.


Line up 3 bowls-- 1 to store egg whites, 1 to crack eggs into, & 1 to put the egg yolks in. The bowl for the middle is to catch each individual egg white. That way, if you accidentally break a yolk, you are not ruining you bowl of egg whites or egg yolks.  Crack an egg on the counter & strain it through your fingers, keeping the yolk from slipping into the bowl. Gently roll the egg yolk around your fingers until it gets slightly sticky, indicating that the majority of the egg whites are removed.

Whites on the left, newly cracked white in the middle, clean yolks on
the right. Then I put the shells in a grocery sack for disposal
or adding to compost bin.

Gross, but is the way to get the "cleanest"
egg yolks in my opinion.