The great thing about coffee ice cream is how amazing it tastes. The not so great thing is that if you eat some at night, you may not be able to sleep because of all the caffeine. I was an insomniac until 4am.
I made coffee ice cream to accompany our Thanksgiving meal a few weeks ago. Mmm…it was so delicious. Creamy, rich with real coffee, and a perfect sidekick to the pumpkin pie.
The photo above was literally taken before I ate up the very last spoonful of ice cream. That’s how good it was, and how quickly we ate it up.
Coffee Ice Cream
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Yield: 1 quart
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups whole milk
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans (decaf or regular)
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 5 large egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon finely ground coffee
Directions
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the heavy cream until it is quite warm and steamy, but not boiling. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set on ice over a larger bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top of the bowls. Set aside.
Reheat the milk and coffee mixture, on medium heat, until again hot and steamy (not boiling!). In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk and coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. This can take about 10 minutes.
Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible. Then discard the beans. Mix in the vanilla and finely ground coffee, and stir until cool.
Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
The Larissa Monologues 