No. 1

 

I haven’t made ice cream since I was seven or eight years old. Even then, it was much easier simply because I probably did none of the work and I had an ice cream machine. Fifteen years later I’m not so lucky to have a grandma stirring a pot for me or giving me a machine that will churn automatically, but I do have a lot more freetime and I’m a lot taller.

 

I was inspired by two things when I came up with this recipe idea:  the oddly delicious chocolate bourbon old fashioned I was drinking and my aforementioned grandmother’s love for dark chocolate covered orange peels.

I took the recipe for the ice cream components from one of my favorite food bloggers Butter and Brioche. She’s an incredible baker with an award-winning food blog for baking and photography. Here’s the recipe I based my ice cream off of: https://www.butterandbrioche.com/?offset=1556910388747

So here we are in experiment one of many to come in the ice cream chronicles:

Orange Bourbon Ice Cream with Dark Chocolate Orange Peel Chunks.

---

two cups of heavy cream

one cup of whole milk

four egg yolks

one hundred and fifty grams of dark brown sugar

two oranges

two ounces of bourbon

half cup of dark chocolate

two teaspoons of salt

 

Put the zest of an entire orange and squeeze one and a half tablespoons of juice into a bowl. Add the bourbon. With the rest of the oranges, slice into rounds and remove the flesh, keeping the peels as whole as possible. Bring a double boiler to boil and melt the chocolate. You can also use a microwave to melt the chocolate, or whatever other way you like to do that. Dip the orange peels in the chocolate and place them onto a parchment lined baking sheet or plate, put that in the freezer.

In a saucepan on medium heat bring heavy cream and whole milk to a light simmer.

While the liquids are heating, with a hand mixer, whisk yolks and sugar together in a bowl until they double in volume, about four minutes.

Once the saucepan is simmering add a tablespoon or two of the milk-cream mixtures to the sugar-yolk bowl and whisk for another thirty seconds. Then pour the sugar bowl into the saucepan and stir constantly. Once the mixture comes to a low simmer (DO NOT LET IT BOIL) add the bourbon-orange mixture and salt then stir. After thirty seconds pour the pan into a bread tin. I found a bread tin to be the best shape mimicking an ice cream container, but you use whatever high walled container you like. Cover and allow the mixture to cool completely in the fridge.

Once the liquid has cooled completely remove the chocolate covered orange peels and chop them roughly into about half inch chunks.  Add them to the cooled liquid.

If using an ice cream machine: Add the mixture, follow the machine instructions.

If hand churning: Put the mixture in the freezer. Every hour or so, with a fork, churn the ice cream but vigorously stirring from the outside in. Do this until the ice cream is at the right consistency, usually about 5 hours later.

 

Scarf it down.