Vanilla Ice Cream
January 12th, 2007
Vanilla ice cream is one of the most popular but at the same time most under-appreciated flavours. In our shops, people often order it apologetically, half expecting criticism at being unadventurous. However, if I visit an ice cream shop, I will almost always sample their vanilla. When you are making a strong flavour, perhaps you can cover up any inadequacies. With vanilla, however, it is either good or it is not, and you get the full flavour of the base ice cream. There’s no hiding.
Good vanilla ice cream is not only hard to make, it can also be very expensive if you use the real thing. We use four different natural vanillas in our ice cream to get the right balance - two types of bean, and two types of essence. Both of the essences are over €100 a litre - one is €160 a litre. It’s the most expensive ingredient we use.
When making vanilla at home, it’s not necessary to use four vanillas. The following recipe calls for a single vanilla bean. Sometimes it’s better not to over-complicate!
Murphys Single Bean Vanilla Ice Cream
Ingredients:
1 cup Sugar
5 Egg Yolks
1 3/8 Cups Cream
1 1/8 Cups Milk
1 Vanilla bean
What to do:
- Beat the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.
- Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and put in a saucepan with the milk.
- Bring the milk to a simmer. Remove from the heat.
- Remove the vanilla bean.
- Beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.
- Pour the mixture back into pan, add the vanilla bean, and place over low heat.
- Stir until the custard thickens (around 60C).
- Remove the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds from it with a spoon or blunt knife. Stir the seeds into the custard, using a whisk to disperse them evenly.
- Allow the custard to cool.
- Mix in the cream, beating for one minute.
- Freeze using a domestic ice cream machine, or cover and place in the freezer.
6 Servings
Notes: 1. If you don’t have a vanilla bean, you can substitute with vanilla essence. It’s hard to say how much, since the essences vary so much. Mix it into the cool custard in small amounts until you have the right amount of flavour.
2. To pasteurise the eggs, heat the custard to 73C and keep at that temperature for three minutes. Use a cooking thermometer, though, and keep stirring! If the custard goes any higher than 76C, the eggs will scramble. Immediately cover and place in the freezer until cool.
Technorati tags: vanilla, bean, essence, ice cream, recipe, Irish
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January 14th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Vanilla icecream is the one I’m most likely to order, but I did always feel like you suggested. I was surprised the other day when reading the label on my vanilla extract to see how little vanilla was in it and also to see how much thickener there was.
January 15th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
It’s hard to find good vanilla essence. That’s why I figured it’s easier to stick with a bean!
January 19th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
He,
I bought a home ice cream maker a few weaks ago and it’s great. Using good ingredients and good recipes from this site makes excellent ice!
I got a question about vanilla ice and other ‘light coloured’ ice creams. I wisk the yolks until they are pale and when freezing the mixture gets even lighter, but I always get light yellow vanilla ice cream. How can you counter the colour of the egg yolks?
One little note, when you scrape the seeds of the bean I always scrape some stuff from the actual bean besides the seed, so I favour using a sieve to remove those bits (the seeds will go right through).
All this stuff on the site looks great and can’t wait to taste some of them, but Ireland is a bit far for ice cream.
January 19th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Good point about the sieve! Once there are egg yolks in the ice cream, the ice cream will be a bit yellow. It is a custard after all, and that is it’s natural look. If the mix is homogenised, it will be lighter, but I don’t know of anyone who has a homogeniser in their kitchen! There are “Philadelphia style” ice creams that don’t use eggs, and they would be white…
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:43 am
Hey, I followed your ice cream recipe and although the custard base was divine after it was cool it turned gritty and didn’t have a nice feel in the mouth.
I had no idea what was going on, I put it in the ice cream maker but it just got worse so didn’t end up letting it finish.
I was making a honey and pistachio ice cream using your vanilla ice cream I added the honey while it was still warm but off the heat and the custard was smooth as silk when I put it in the fridge to cool.
Did I over cook the custard?
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hi Ben! I’m so sorry to hear it! Yes, the most likely thing by far was that the custard was too hot. If at all possible, use a cooking thermometer and keep stirring all the time because the temperature otherwise will vary in the pot…
March 7th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Hi Kieran,
I just wanted to let you know that I tried your recipe the other day and it turned out pretty good. It was a tad sweet for me, but I will definitely be using this as the base for all my other ice-cream experiments.
Thanks for posting the recipe.
ps. I love vanilla ice cream and your site! Will definitely be trying some of your other recipes and I’ll make sure I get myself to a Murphys if I ever visit Ireland.
March 8th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
You can always reduce the sugar a bit. Small changes can yield big results, and the amount of sugar is important for consistency, but try reducing it by 5% if you find it too sweet…
January 13th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Hi Kieran,
Its the same one who asked about the gritty custard.
Just had to let you know, I had given up trying to make ice cream after that, I’d made about two dozen attempts and none of them had worked (either not frozen correctly or something had gone wrong)
Anyway, on a whim and a sale I brought another ice cream maker.
But this one is one of them electric ones by sunbeam.
I made my first ice cream today, just a basic vanilla out of the book that came with it.
It turned out perfect, actually, better then perfect.
Its the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted.
So, I’m going to set about making lots of the great recipes you have on the site and I might start with the hokey pokey one first
This time, I used a thermometer, its not a great one, but, I didn’t have many concerns about pasteurizing the eggs (they come from my own chickens) I used just plain milk and king island cream. Absolutely fantastic!