Cookie No-Dough Ice Cream

joythebaker — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:38:35 +0000

I have this nasty little habit that shouldn’t bother you in the least… unless of course you’re one of the unlucky people in the world that might have to share a pint of ice cream with me.

See… I’m a picker. I will shamelessly pick out every good morsel of ice cream chunky goodness from a pint, leaving only half melted ice cream for you. Cookie Dough Ice Cream is only Cookie Dough Ice Cream until I get my paws on it for five minutes. After a cool five minutes, that pint is just a sad excuse for vanilla ice cream. Don’t even get me started of Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. I’ve got enough skills to dig out every ounce of peanut butter in seconds flat.

It’s a shameless habit. It’s terrible and selfish… and it’ll never change. I can’t help myself.

Cookie No-Dough Ice Cream may have just solved my ice cream picking issue. Instead of having vanilla ice cream with chunks of cookie dough embedded within it, this ice cream… the entire ice cream is the flavor of cookie dough! Holy heck balls! That’s amazing. Yea.. it is.

This ice cream is thickened with egg yolks. Some ice creams are thickened with cornstarch. I think egg yolks are the way to go, creating a super luscious and velvety ice cream. The thing with thickening custards with egg yolks is that they’re very easily over cooked. I do it all the time. I did it with this batch of ice cream.

There’s a point after you’ve tempered the egg yolks, when you’re reheating the whole custard, stirring constantly, and you’ll test the concoction to see if it coats the back of a spoon. Coat the back of the spoon with custard. Run a finger down the center of the custard, and if a line remains separating the two custard halves, then your custard is thick enough. 170 degrees F is you have a nifty thermometer.

Now… if you overcook the custard, it’ll look a little grainy. Why? Because the egg yolks cooked. Yikes! Not to worry. All is not lost. Simply run the custard through a fine mesh strainer before cooling and freezing. Run it through a strainer twice if you have to. No shame in that. Keep on trucking!

Ooooh… and this is the ice cream maker I use. I kinda love it.

Cookie No Dough Ice Cream

recipe from Claire at The Kitchy Kitchen (how cute is she!?) ((seriously!!!?)

Print this Recipe!

1 cup chopped dark chocolate (I used a 70% Valrhona chocolate)

2/3 cup dark brown sugar

4 large egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 cups half and half

1 1/2 cups whole milk (or reduced fat, if you prefer)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

pinch of salt

Directions:

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter until it is a deep golden brown color. There will be charming little brown bits at the bottom of the pan. You don’t want it too burnt, otherwise it’ll taste, for lack of a better word, weird. Add the half and half and heat until scalding (not quite boiling).

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until pale and fluffy. Take the half and half mixture off the heat, and add a little to the egg mixture while mixing. This is called tempering the eggs: introducing hot liquid a little at a time to eggs while stirring, as to not cook the eggs with the hot liquid. Add a little more (just over half of the hot mixture total) and the healthy pinch of salt, then pour everything back into the sauce pan.

Heat, stirring very often or constantly, until about 170 degrees, or until it coats a metal spoon. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and chill. Once the mixture is chilled, whisk in the additional 1 1/2 cups of milk and add it to your ice cream machine. When it’s almost fully churned, add your chopped chocolate. Eat directly from the ice cream maker or freeze overnight. Enjoy!

Joy the Baker » cookie dough

Cookie No-Dough Ice Cream