A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Bushmills Butterscotch Pecan · Monday August 10, 2015 by colin newell
When I was around 17 or 18 (and living in a household of very competitive women all with their own culinary streak) I decided to get a French ice cream maker, A Donvier – which was a manual ice cream maker with a cold core very similar to the KitchenAid.
Because it was manual, I could look forward to 25 minutes of cranking the handle while day dreaming about living in the 1980’s… ah, yes… good times.
Anyway – I digress. The recipe.
If there is a top 3 ice cream flavour or style, it may just be butterscotch because it is a subtle variation on vanilla with a twist of something sweet but not as refined as chocolate. Butterscotch: No idea where the name came from, but since it mentions Scotch… I thought, what the heck. Away we go.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons (80g) butter soft / salted or not
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used unprocessed Demerera – comments on that later…)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups (500ml) 36% heavy cream
3/4 cup (180ml) Homo milk
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
1 tablespoon (exactly!) Bushmills Irish Whiskey
1 cup (give or take) Roast candied pecans
Step 1
Melt the butter in a 2 quart saucepan on a medium gas burner (electric is fine)
Add the salt and then add the brown sugar – stir until molten (and caution ahead! Molten
sugar is darn hot and can burn you in ways you cannot imagine — keep children and fingers clear of the sugar!)
Important put aside a few tablespoons of the butter/salt/brown sugar for the roasted pecans – more on that later.
Let the sugar/butter/salt cool a bit if you have over-heated it – check the temperature with an instant read thermometer and make sure the sugar mix is below 200 degrees (F)
Step 2
Add 1 cup of the cream and the milk to the sugar/butter/salt combo
Step 3
In a separate bowl whisk up the 6 egg yolks (egg whites can be saved for another day — like a healthy omelette!)
Step 4
Add the warm sugar/butter/salt/milk mixture to the eggs whisking constantly to avoid a scrambled egg mess in case the sugar/milk mix is too hot.
Step 5
Put this mixture back into the 2 quart saucepan, and keeping an instant read digital thermometer bring the “custard mix” up to a temperature of between 160 and 170 – but no higher!
Step 6
In yet another container (that will sit on an ice bath) put the remaining cream.
Place a fine strainer on top of this container and then pour the “custard mix” through the strainer into the bowl (being ice chilled) that holds the remaining cream. Add the vanilla and scotch and stir to mix.
This is your ice cream “pre-mix” – after it has cool and or stabilized, take it off of the ice bath and put it into the fridge for 2 hours to chill.
Step 7
Roast some nuts – While it is chilling, prepare your roast pecans. You can use almost any nut but preferably something with flavour and texture – walnuts are a good alternate choice – or pistachios.
2 tablespoons butter (around 35g)
1-2 cups of pecans or walnuts
Twist of kosher salt.
Melt the butter in a skillet or sauce pan on medium heat.
Toss in the halved pecans or walnuts.
Add a twist of kosher salt.
Stir to coat the nuts and then spread them across a cookie sheet on top of a layer of parchment.
The parchment paper protects the nuts from burning and sticking.
Put in a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, turning once at around 5 minutes.
In your sauce pan that you used to coat the nuts: toss in the roasted nuts and the two tablespoons or
so of the sugar mixture you kept from earlier. You can even darken the sugar mixture by heating it in advance and reducing it a bit. Coat the nuts. Let cool. Chop the nuts into small pieces. Put aside.
Step 8
Add your ice cream pre mix to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer instructions.
And when your churning cycle is around 1 minute remaining, add the chopped nuts.
Empty your ice cream into the storage container of your choice and freeze for 2 to 4 hours.
Note any ice cream that contains alcohol will not set as quickly or as firmly as ice creams without alcohol.
The more hard liquor you add, the more difficult your ice cream will be to set.
Notes I found with 1 tablespoon of Whiskey that it was hardly noticeable in terms of flavour – Rum would have been a better choice. It’s up to you.
I used a very dark raw brown sugar which created a pretty dark ice cream – a tad non traditional – that said, it has a deeper flavour. Personal taste. And up to you as well what you use.
Enjoy!
Comment [2]
A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Simply rich chocolate · Saturday August 8, 2015 by colin newell
To date, this is my best ice cream creation ever.
Read the instructions carefully because there are ingredients moving hither and thither!
You will need one sauce pan for heating things up. You will need a digital instant read thermometer (if you really want to play it safe and not cook the eggs!)
You will need a variety of bowls and one large bowl with water and ice in it for chilling a medium sized bowl which will contain the ice cream mix (for chilling)
Do yourself a favour and visualize the steps and the process – I needed to and it helped make this the best chocolate ice cream ever.
Chocolate Sauce
2 cups (500 ml) heavy 36% cream
7 oz semi-sweet Bernaud Callebaut cooking chocolate
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
Custard
3/4 cup (150g) white sugar
pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (optional)
Warm 1 cup of the cream – bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 30s
whisking constantly – remove from the heat and add the coarsely chopped
chocolate stirring until smooth.
Turn in the remaining cup of cream.
Pour the mixture into a large bowl – scraping as much of the goodness out and
set a mesh strainer on top of the large bowl (that also contains the dairy and chocolate mixture…)
Combine (and warm) the whole milk, sugar and salt into the now emptied saucepan. And in a separate medium bowl whisk together the egg yokes.
Slowly pour the warm milk, sugar, salt mixture into the egg yokes whisking constantly – then return this mixture of eggs, milk, sugar and salt into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heat proof spatula – monitoring the heat with an instant read digital thermometer – note as you heat this mixture do not under any circumstances exceed 170 degrees or you will cook the eggs.
Scrape the bottom as you stir until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula – again making sure you do not exceed 170 degrees. This is your custard.
Pour this “custard” through the strainer into the chocolate/cream mixture and stir until smooth.
Stir in the vanilla. Add 1/2 instant espresso powder if so inclined.
Stir and cool over an ice bath – that is, your bowl of chocolate custard mixture should be floating on a bigger bowl that is half filled with ice and water.
Chill the mixture thoroughly for 2 – 4 hours in the fridge.
Put the mixture into your ice cream maker following the manufacturers instructions.
I use a KitchenAid commercial mixer with the Ice Cream Cold Core attachment and it works the charm. Ice cream needs to be churned for around 25 minutes or so and there are some manual ice cream makers (like the Donvier but you need strong wrists to churn for 25+ minutes!)
Enjoy!
A life in Ice-Cream Chapter one - Orange and Anise · Thursday August 6, 2015 by colin newell
I bought a Ice cream “Core” for my Kitchen Aid professional mixer – the core is a special bowl with a coolant that can freeze and the kit includes the “dasher” which is the rotating arm that churns the ice cream.
It is a simple process: Put the core in the deep freeze (temperature in my freezer is around 5 degrees (F) and that is plenty cold for setting up the core. You can push the core to a cooler temperature but the “mixture” (the dairy mixture that will soon become ice cream after churning) can freeze on contact with the core bowl causing the dasher to seize up – you do not want that to happen.
Anyway – here is the recipe for my first attempt at a Philadelphia style ice cream (contains no eggs) – In my next blog I will demonstrate my first French style of Ice cream (the good stuff!) with eggs.
Ready your gear This series will be written around the KitchenAid Ice Cream maker core – but the recipes work with any method of churning. I grew up making Ice Cream with the Donvier manual Ice Cream maker – which explains why I have such strong wrists!
Ingredients:
2 cups (500ml) 18% 1/2 and 1/2 cream and 1/2 cup whole milk (125ml)
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup of orange juice.
1 tablespoon orange zest
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon anise extract
Instructions – pour 1 cup of the cream into a medium saucepan and add the sugar and salt.
Add extracts and the zest of one orange (around 1 tablespoon)
Warm over medium heat stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
Add 1/2 cup whole milk.
Remove from the heat and add the remaining cream.
Chill mixture thoroughly for around 2 hours – in the fridge.
When ready to “churn” add to your device and follow the device instructions.
Yield is around 1 quart or a litre or so.
This ice cream maintains a pretty white colour and tastes different to different people – some of you will pick up the orange flavour, some the licorice — it is pretty subtle.
Coming up: Some of the richest chocolate ice cream you have ever tasted!
Grilled spicy Lamb burgers on the old Weber · Thursday July 2, 2015 by colin newell
Andrea and I made these from fresh ground Island lamb and fresh herbs from the garden – much like regular beef burgers but with a kick – and they are lamb.
They are around 3/4” thick – I grilled them at around 375 to 425 for 5 minutes on the first side
and 2 minutes on the second side.
PATTIES
1½ pounds ground lamb
2 tablespoons tightly packed finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon moroccan spice mix
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
4 kaiser rolls, split
Thinly sliced red onion
MAYO
2 tablespoons mayonaise
2 heaping teaspoons fresh mint sauce
Served with lettuce and red onion – and any salad on the side you might desire.
Grill with crumbled feta on top.
Pairs well with a robust Red wine.
