Yesterday Maui and I made ice cream together! I was so excited to make ice cream again. I found out she hadn’t seen Labyrinth (imagine) so we watched that while we waited for the ice cream to finish.

Before you get started: These instructions are written for using a Kitchen Aid ice cream maker. You need to freeze the bowl at least 24 hours in advance, and make the base of the ice cream the day before.

Yields: 16 servings of approx 120 mL (½ cup) per serving

Ingredients:

• 590 mL Half and Half (2½ cups)
• 8 egg yolks
• 200 g granulated white sugar (1 cup)
• 590 mL Heavy Cream 35% (2½ cups)
• 1 vanilla bean, split and scrapped
• 0.5 g salt (⅛ tsp)
• 200 g chopped rhubarb (2 cups) + 25 g white sugar (2 tbsp)

Instructions:

1. In a sauce pan on Medium, heat the Half and Half until it’s steaming but not boiling. Stir often. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. In mixing bowl, whip the yolks and sugar until just combined.

3. Gradually add the heated mix to the sugar, (I used a strainer since a skim developed). Once all the hot mixture has been added and the mixture is combined, return it to the sauce pot.

4. Add the vanilla bean to the pot.

5. Cook on Medium until small bubbles form at the edge and mixture steams, don’t boil it.

6. Transfer to mixing bowl with a spout  (I strained it again), stir in whipping cream and salt. Using a bowl with a spout is the best thing you can do since you’ll be pouring this into a moving mixer later which you cannot stop as you pour.

7. Cover and chill overnight.

8. Half an hour before you’re ready to start the ice cream, turn the rhubarb into jam-like consistency. Put the chopped fruit and the sugar in a sauce pan, heat on Medium for a bit until it starts to break down, then keep on Low until it’s pulpy, stirring often. Once the fruit is broken down, set it aside.

9. Time to churn ice cream! Put the drive assembly in place and set the dasher into the frozen bowl. Turn mixer on to Speed 1 BEFORE you add the cooled mixture. Churn at least 20 minutes until the machine makes a clicking noise.

Churn it up!

10. Spoon the rhubarb into the ice cream and stir a bit more.

11. Store in air-tight container and freeze.

 

Enjoy!

Verdict:

Delicious!  I will add an extra cup of rhubarb next time, since I can’t see much pink in the ice cream. I can taste it but I was envisioning striations of fruit through the ice cream which didn’t really happen.

I will also churn the ice cream for longer, I found that the bottom of the bowl was still soupy and hadn’t firmed up.  That fixes itself once you freeze it, but to enjoy it right away I think you do need to churn it longer, or maybe risk stopping the bowl and using a spatula to scrape it up from the bottom?  I don’t know. Last time I stopped the bowl while ice cream making everything immediately froze to the side of the bowl.