Apparently, homemade ice cream is something that a lot of people grew up with. Even my husband has memories of turning the hand crank in his grandmother's back yard to churn some fresh peach ice cream for the evening meal. This would have been as foreign to my family as milking a cow - ice cream was something that you bought from the grocery store in a cardboard-covered rectangle (Neopolitan was a favorite), or if you were very lucky, from the local ice cream parlor. Baskin-Robbins was the cool kid on the block in those days, with its trendy flavors and coveted ice cream cakes.
Today, it's all about foodie flavors. Local, handmade, organic, and creative iced treats have become the sought-after cones of choice, blurring the lines between sweet and savory with flavors like Peppercorn, Olive Oil, and Strawberry Balsamic. In San Francisco, one of my favorite places is Humphry Slowcombe which features flavors as exotic as Foie Gras as as local as Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee. It's not only the coasts that are embracing this trend - places like Jeni's Ice Cream in Columbus, OH are churning out flavors like Cayenne and Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Cherries. With these kinds of flavors, you could skip the meal and go right to dessert!
I was lucky enough to find an unused gift card a couple of weeks ago, and used it to purchase the ice cream attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer. To go with it, I bought "The Perfect Scoop" from frozen-treat master David Lebovitz, and it has been my Bible so far in learning to make my own ice cream.
I always like to start things from the ground up, so my first experiment was with vanilla ice cream. To start, it calls for some simple ingredients: whole milk, sugar, heavy cream, salt, a vanilla bean, eggs yolks, and vanilla extract. With that, I was off and running...
