This receipe was my second foray into "no minors without their parent or guardian" ice cream. My first was Alton Brown's egg nog ice cream, actually a frozen custard (incidentally, his avocado ice cream is good too, reminding me for some reason of the green tea ice cream at some Japanese restaurants).
After my foray into Irish toast, I knew there was untapped potential in liquor as a cooking ingredient, and when I got in the mood for ice cream one day with not quite enough milk to go around (not a situation I like to be in, except that this kind of thing keeps happening when I am), this recipe all but manifested itself whole and complete in a single glance.
But first, the ingredients:
4 egg yolks
1/3 c sugar
1 pint Irish cream liqueur
1 c heavy cream
optional: 1-2 T small chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
Mix the yolks and sugar until smooth and the yolks become a slightly brighter yellow.
Over high heat in a small saucepan, mix the cream and half the liqueur. When it just starts to boil, remove from heat and temper it into the eggs. I had done my egg yolks in a food processor so I just left them in there during this step and turned it back on while I added the hot cream, slowly enough not to cook the yolks or the plastic components of my processor.
Return everything to the saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, just until it reaches 160˚F. Remove from heat and add the rest of the liqueur. My saucepan tends to retain heat, so to facilitate cooling and prevent overheating, I sometimes have a second, prechilled pot or metal bowl on hand, or a shallow ice water bath to partway submerge the pot in.
When you're satisfied you're not going to cook everything in your fridge from the residual heat, move the mixture to the fridge and let it cool to 40˚F. Lower would actually be better; maybe you should put it in the freezer a little while, instead. Because of the relatively high amount of alcohol, the freezing point is going to be pretty low.
I use one of those ice cream makers that has the freezable liquid core instead of one that uses ice, so I just leave my cores in the freezer all the time and keep the temperature turned all the way down. It's enough to almost completely freeze the flavored vodka I keep on hand for another recipe I'll post later, so for most ice creams it sets pretty quickly (especially the avocado one).
When the mixture is cold, add it to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions. If you decided to add the chocolate, wait until the mixture has started to firm up; if it's too runny, it'll all get pushed to the sides and the bottom, and if it's too close to solid, it will just stay near the top and not mix.
Serve in modest quantities. Keep in mind that it's over half liqueur (way over half if you replace the heavy cream with more Irish cream--why not?) so you'll basically be consuming a bowl full of 20-30 proof liquor one heaping spoonful at a time. It adds up.
After my foray into Irish toast, I knew there was untapped potential in liquor as a cooking ingredient, and when I got in the mood for ice cream one day with not quite enough milk to go around (not a situation I like to be in, except that this kind of thing keeps happening when I am), this recipe all but manifested itself whole and complete in a single glance.
But first, the ingredients:
4 egg yolks
1/3 c sugar
1 pint Irish cream liqueur
1 c heavy cream
optional: 1-2 T small chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
Mix the yolks and sugar until smooth and the yolks become a slightly brighter yellow.
Over high heat in a small saucepan, mix the cream and half the liqueur. When it just starts to boil, remove from heat and temper it into the eggs. I had done my egg yolks in a food processor so I just left them in there during this step and turned it back on while I added the hot cream, slowly enough not to cook the yolks or the plastic components of my processor.
Return everything to the saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, just until it reaches 160˚F. Remove from heat and add the rest of the liqueur. My saucepan tends to retain heat, so to facilitate cooling and prevent overheating, I sometimes have a second, prechilled pot or metal bowl on hand, or a shallow ice water bath to partway submerge the pot in.
When you're satisfied you're not going to cook everything in your fridge from the residual heat, move the mixture to the fridge and let it cool to 40˚F. Lower would actually be better; maybe you should put it in the freezer a little while, instead. Because of the relatively high amount of alcohol, the freezing point is going to be pretty low.
I use one of those ice cream makers that has the freezable liquid core instead of one that uses ice, so I just leave my cores in the freezer all the time and keep the temperature turned all the way down. It's enough to almost completely freeze the flavored vodka I keep on hand for another recipe I'll post later, so for most ice creams it sets pretty quickly (especially the avocado one).
When the mixture is cold, add it to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions. If you decided to add the chocolate, wait until the mixture has started to firm up; if it's too runny, it'll all get pushed to the sides and the bottom, and if it's too close to solid, it will just stay near the top and not mix.
Serve in modest quantities. Keep in mind that it's over half liqueur (way over half if you replace the heavy cream with more Irish cream--why not?) so you'll basically be consuming a bowl full of 20-30 proof liquor one heaping spoonful at a time. It adds up.
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