Vanilla Ice Cream

After seeing the Daring Bakers make ice cream, I simply had to try my hand at it. It took a lot of research, and lots of running around and lots went wrong. But the ice cream was amazing. And it's all due to David Lebovitz! He's a genius :)

I changed his recipe around quite a bit. I tried not to, but I had to. We don't get vanilla beans here and so I had to substitute more vanilla extract. And we don't get heavy cream either (I just couldn't believe that!), and so I went with regular cream.

I also don't have an ice cream machine, and had to use DL's method for making ice cream by regular old churning. He said in his post that it should probably take 2-3 hours, but I first put it in the freezer at 7 pm and I did the last churn at 3 am! And I couldn't go to sleep because all my effort would have gone to waste.


Everything was worth it. Some fantastic vanilla ice cream (couldn't call it "plain, ol' vanilla", because it just ain't so)

Vanilla Ice Cream
(slightly altered from David Lebovitz's recipe)

1 cup Milk (I had to use part-skim!)
A pinch of Salt
3/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Cream
5 Egg Yolks

Heat the milk, vanilla, salt and sugar together.


In a separate bowl, whisk together the yolks. Gradually pour the milk mixture into the yolks, whisking constantly.


Pour the milk mixture back into the pan. On low heat, keep stirring while it thickens.

Meanwhile set up a large bowl with a 50-50 mixture of ice cubes and iced water. Set a smaller bowl into the large bowl. Empty the cream into the smaller bowl and let it chill. Set a small holed strainer over the smaller bowl.


The milk mixture will slowly begin to thick. Continue stirring until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. A good test would be to run your finger over the coating on the spoon - it should leave a mark without running.


Immediately pour the mixture through the strainer into the smaller bowl containing the cream. Keep stirring until the entire mixture cools down and is chilled.

When cold, pour the mixture into a large (shallow is good) plastic container. Put it in the freezer.

Now starts the not so fun part. Every 45 minutes to an hour, take the container out and give it a good churn with a metal spoon or even a hand-held mixer or stick blender (those make it all easier). Make sure to break up all the frozen parts from the edges in. The better you blend everything, the less icy the end result.

Keep churning until the entire thing is frozen. This took me a good 7-8 hours! But that could also be my freezer. Hopefully yours will freeze up sooner! Good Luck!

But don't you see how fantastic that looks? It's all worth it. Really, it is!