Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

A couple months ago I purchased a basic ice cream maker from BJ’s at the bargain price of $24.  My original intentions were to occasionally make some vanilla or chocolate ice cream.  You know, not get too crazy with it being that it is a cheap contraction and my kitchen is the size of an opulent coffin.  As I started making ice cream, I stuck to vanilla and it’s boring cousins – mint, mint chocolate chip, etc – and didn’t really dabble in chocolate too much.  However, armed with free time, boredom, and idle hands, I’ve decided to try my hand at making some exotic flavors.  Today we’ll look at a recipe I found at Epicurious for Burnt Sugar Ice Cream.

Now contrary to it’s fancy name, Burnt Sugar Ice Cream is essentially just caramel ice cream.  However, saying “burnt sugar” is decidedly more badass and confusing so we’ll stick with the nomenclature.  This recipe called for the following ingredients:

• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup of sugar split into ¾ cup and ¼ cup portions
• 5 egg yolks
• Vanilla Bean

I made a trip to my local supermarket in search of these simple ingredients.  While the first 5 ingredients posed me no issues, I had a hell of a time finding vanilla bean.  I ended up asking one of the workers who was busy putting fresh putting up for sale.

“Excuse me sir…I wonder if you could help me find something”

“Sure”

“I’m looking for vanilla beans”

“What the fuck is that? Like beans?”

“Well I guess its for taste.  Like vanilla extract is made from it”

“What’s is for?”

“Uh well baking I guess”

“Then look in the baking aisle”

I trudged my ass back through the baking aisle where I’d been wandering aimlessly for about 10 minutes prior looking through the 900 variety of spices.  Cinnamon sticks? Check.  Whole all spice?  Double Check.  And then I found it – my white whale – the vanilla beans.

As you can see, these beans were $15.  And listen, I’m not cheap or anything but I’m not paying $15 for some beans for ice cream.  Cry me a river about purity of products and sticking to the recipe but I settled for the $5 (still too expensive) bottle of vanilla extract.  The only problem would be deciding what the equivalent amount of vanilla beans (2 per the recipe) would be in extract.  Either way, I headed home with my final load - at a total of $18 and change - pumped for some exotic burnt sugar treats.

The first steps in the recipe call for 3/4 cups of sugar to be added to a pot with 3 tablespoons of water and stirred over medium heat.  As you are measuring out the sugar, you might feel a slight pit in your stomach, which is totally fine.  That's just the oncoming Diabetes making its presence known.  Regardless, stir this saturated sugar water mixture until the sugar all dissolves.  At this point, you might notice that the mixture looks like a large load of semen.  That's when you know its time for the next step, when you are stirring what appears to be elephant cum.

Sweet elephant cum

At this point, please jack up the heat.  Slowly the elephant cum/sugar mixture will start bubbling.  Now science takes over for a fantastic chemical reaction.

As the sugar starts to heat up, the particles start to blast around rapidly in the pot.  Sure you can't see this because it's microscopic, but trust me, it is happening.  As these particles move around rapidly, they start to separate and break down.  Eventually they all realize they are running around like lunatics and get angry while joining forces.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that you shouldn't use your mixing spoon here to stir the mixture.  If you do, the mixture will stick to your spoon in jagged pieces and it'll just be an ugly mess.  Instead, just swirl the pot around to spread the heat evenly.  You'll start seeing the outter edges of the mixture start to brown slightly.  Then a tiny amount of smoke will start radiating from the mixture.  Please take this time to measure out the 2 cups of heavy cream.

One the mixture reaches a bubbly soothing brown, but not dark black because then it is REALLY burnt, color, add in the heavy cream mixture carefully.

This is about the right color you'll want your mixture to be.

Now again, please be careful when adding the cream.  The cream and hot sugar mixture will react with teenage angst at being paired together so pour slowly.  The mixture will start to bubble up like a small atomic bomb has been set off but don’t fret, it’ll be fine.  Finish adding the mixture completely.  Next up, introduce milk to the proceedings.

Now sugar, don't be so mean to cream.

This is where the recipe calls for an addition of 2 vanilla beans to smooth out the sugary/caramel flavor.  So if you have the cash for $15 vanilla beans then by all means go ahead and drop the beans in there you opulent bastard.  As for me, I decided that 3 small drips from the vanilla extract would approximate the 2 beans.

Once the milk and vanilla are added, keep stirring the mixture while it boils for about 10 minutes.  I should note that milk and sugar don't boil nicely.  They tend to increase exponentially in mass in the pot.  I had to keep shutting the stove off and on again because my mixture kept threatening to break the levees provided by the pot.  And by shutting the stove off and on I of course mean that I lost track of my mixture while I tended to the eggs only to turn and see it mushrooming over the pot and start to spill.  I'm a good cook.

After 10 minutes, you can lower the flame and let the mixture simmer.  In another bowl, start separating the 5 egg yolks from their 5 egg whites like some egg Nazi.  This was by far the hardest part of the process for me.  I started to think I suffer from a rare case of egg dyslexia.  The first two eggs I tried separating, I ended up throwing out the yolk while leaving the egg white in the bowl.  I had to stop for 2 minutes to clear my mind because clearly this task was above my mental acuity.  Eventually the process of separating the egg yolks resulted in egg spilling all over my kitchen floor and garbage can.  Fun times!

Once the five egg yolks are in a bowl, whisk in ¼ cup of sugar.  The eggs and sugar will combine to form a brilliant yellow sauce.

Now you'll want to take the sugar mixture you've been keeping over a low heat and slowly start to whisk it into the egg mixture you've just put together.  Please introduce these two partners together and watch them make sweet, sweet scientific, gastronomic love to one another.

Once these two are well acquainted, pour the big mixture back in to the original pot and heat over medium heat for about 7 minutes.  This is mainly a cautionary step to kill off any nasty microbials in the eggs like salmonella which will cause you to shit ice cream if you aren’t careful.

Once the heating period is over, grab your trusty strainer and hold it over a medium bowl.  You will need to start pouring the mixture into the bowl through the strainer.  You'll probably have to stop half way through in order to use a mixing spoon to move around the particles in the strainer obstructing the fluid from floating through freely.

Once the mixture has made it fully into the bowl cover it and store it in your fridge for an over night freeze.  This will help the flavors meld together better as well as solidy the mixture a bit which will make for better ice cream.