When my mum was in primary school, in a little Polish village, there was a lady who lived across the street from her school that sold homemade ice cream.
Every afternoon, she would open her front door and set up shop in her doorway, with a large canister of homemade ice cream and a stack of ice cream cones.
The children would line up on her steps, coins in their pockets, ready to pay a dollar or two for a scoop of her delicious, homemade, vanilla ice cream.
Every summer that I went to Poland, we would take some change and walk over to buy a scoop or two of ice cream.
As the years passed, the lady got older and her son took her place in the doorway. But it was still always the same small cones, the same little scoops and the same, delicious, vanilla ice cream.
The best ice cream in town.
So when a few of my girlfriends bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday recently (the big quarter century, yay!) the first thing that went into it was this delicious, homemade, vanilla ice cream.
There is something about homemade vanilla ice cream that is just so amazing.
I’m not sure if it’s the flecks of vanilla bean, or the custardy creaminess that comes from the rich egg yolks and heavy cream, but it’s just so damn good. So, SO much better than anything you can buy in a tub. Yum! X
- 1 cup milk (250ml)
- ¾ cup caster (superfine) sugar (150g)
- 1 vanilla bean
- Pinch of salt
- 2 cups cream (500ml)
- 6 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Put the milk, sugar and salt in a small saucepan.
- Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk, along with the pod.
- Place the saucepan over a high heat and bring the milk to just under the boil.
- Remove from the heat, cover the pot and set aside to infuse for an hour.
- Pour the cream into a large heatproof bowl. Place a strainer over the cream and set aside.
- In a separate medium heatproof bowl, whisk the egg yolks lightly. Slowly pour the infused milk into the yolks, whisking the entire time, until combined.
- Return this mixture to the pot and cook, stirring constantly with a spatula, until the mixture reaches 82 C (180 F) or until it coats the back of a spoon.
- Remove from the heat and pour through the strainer into the cream.
- Stir the custard and cream together, then mix in the vanilla extract.
- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold (preferably overnight).
- Once the custard is cold, churn in your ice cream maker and enjoy.
- Happy baking!
Adapted from David Leibovitz.
PS. Thank you to Grand Cucina for the gorgeous pastel cups!