Have you ever noticed that sometimes things happen in bunches? That's the way it was with Jeni's Ice Cream. First, Gina from SPCookieQueen blogged about making sweet corn and blackberry ice cream. (Click on the the link if you'd like to see that recipe as well as a chocolate ice cream one.) It sounded heavenly to me. But, Connie's not a huge corn fan so my guess was he'd not want to try that! Yes, I saved the recipe anyway. Then, on the way to Columbus to see the kids, I read a couple of cooking magazines. I was supposed to be working on the outline for a Social Security Bootcamp but I couldn't balance the laptop and my notes on my lap. I know, I thought that sounded like a GREAT excuse too. At any rate, I ran across an article about Jeni's Ice Cream. It went through how her technique is so different from others. I read it to Connie. Fascinating how the science of all of this works. But, he's not a huge ice cream fan so I figured the chance of our finding Jeni's was slim to none.
Well, we got to David and Kara's and had the grand tour of their new home and ate our sloppy joes and decided we'd all go to the grocery to finish the shopping for the evening meal. I asked David if he'd like dessert and got a resounding YES! Well, what do you want? Kara piped up and suggested we could go out for ice cream. I'm thinking that an ice cream run after a big dinner probably wasn't going to happend so suggested we get ice cream on the way to the grocery. Perfect. That's what we'd do. And, guess where we went for ice cream? Yup, they had Jeni's in mind the whole time.
As you can see from the photos, Jeni's has a very unusual selection of ice cream:
I'm not sure I can go through what everyone had but I'll try. I had three half scoops: cherry lambic, poached pear and riesling and the corn and blackberry. Connie had peanut with cayenne and rhubarb with lime. Kara had passion fruit and pistachio honey. David had three half scoops also - one was the poached pear. Another was wildberry lavender and I can't recall the other. The kids had chocolate. And, we all tasted everyone elses's ice creams. There wasn't one in there that I didn't like. So, in spite of the fact that I really like to get my cookbooks on closeout, super low price deals, I bought the cookbook.
Now because Bradley got in the first photo, we'll end with Rosie :-)
Yes, I know what you're thinking. Kate has lost her freaking mind. It's finally happened. She's gone over the edge. Au contraire, my friends, this is one experiment that turned out wonderfully. Thanks to New Belgium Brewing and their gracious gift of brewskis we had plenty to experiment with. And, strangely enough, this was the first idea I had when presented with the challenge of creating a new recipe or a dozen that use beer. My expectations weren't high. I thought the beer ice cream would be interesting at best. Horrible at worst. But, what's the worst that could happen? I'd waste some ingredients and the ice cream would go down the drain.
The day after I found out I was one of the bloggers from Food Buzz who'd receive a stipend to purchase New Belgium Brewing products, we went to the monthly wine tasting dinner at Agio. Our tablemates pretty much thought I was nuts when I said beer ice cream was one of my ideas. We brainstormed other ideas, but most of those were in the normal range. Chef Joseph and I had an opportunity to chat and he said he'd never made beer ice cream but that it sounded interesting.
Connie doesn't really like ice cream. He liked this. In fact, he finished almost all of his two little scoops. AND, he's suggested that we fix this again for the next family party. Wow - that's huge praise from my hubby. George got to lick the bowl.
He had some huge purrs going on while he was licking the bowl.
1554 Beer Ice Cream
Ingredients:
12 oz bottle New Belgium Brewing 1554 Enlightened Black Ale
4 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
milk (about 1/2 c - see directions)
1 c heavy cream
Directions:
Pour the beer into a saucepan.
Over medium low heat, reduce it to 1/2 cup.
Be VERY careful because if it starts to boil it'll overflow the pan and create a total mell of a hess. Once you've reduced it, pour it into a measuring cup and put the cup into an ice bath.
While the reduced beer is sitting in its ice bath, put the egg yolks and sugar in the top of a double boiler set over medium heat.
Make sure the bottom of the double boiler bowl is not touching the water. Whisk them until they're well combined. Add milk to the cup the beer is in to make a cup of liquid total.
Slowly pour the milk/beer mixturre into the egg yolk/sugar mixture, whisking the entire time. Continue whisking it until it coats the back of a spoon.
Slowly add the cream. Once everything is well combined, chill the mixture. Now, it's on to the ice cream maker.
Don't you love my note from Connie? He's the best!
Follow the directions for your ice cream maker.
I originally intended to coat pretzel chips with dark chocolate and add them in but this was wonderful on it's own and didn't need anything else.
