Ginger Ice Cream
I never saw this blog as a labor of love. A labor of curiosity perhaps. Sometimes, just a labor. Today a labor of precision. I measured everything and will now proceed to over-explain. That’s not mansplaining, maybe ansplaining? I’m happy to let you figure that one out.
Ginger is one of my favorite flavors. Ive been known to buy a box of GinGins or two and eat half the box before I get home from the store. Somedays, it’s amazing there are any teeth left in my mouth. Note to home fans – don’t chew GinGins, no matter how tempted you are.
My ginger ice cream is often too strong for most of my friends. Sometimes, like other at-first-awful things like coffee, vodka, horehound candy, my ginger ice cream becomes addictive. We have people over, so I’m toning it down a bit. And, I have a fun ingredient, Domaine De Canton, to play with.
Here’s the overview: this ice cream entails steeping A LOT of raw ginger in boiling milk; straining out the ginger and pulping some of it so that it looks like shredded coconut, and putting it back in the base; the base is not very sweet and goes light on the custardiness; and, I’m adding a ginger flavored liqueur to both amp up the ginger and sweetness and to improve the ice cream consistency once frozen. That’s my tip for you, a dash of alcohol seems to help keep the ice cream scoop-able after it has cured. That, and since I hate tossing the egg whites, which I invariably do due to reasonable fear of food poisoning from careless use of the stored egg white, use a whole egg. It keeps the color lighter and is OK in this version.
2 cups plus a little for make up whole milk
1 cup cream
4 hefty inches of raw ginger – cleaned up – meaning cut off dry ends, peel if you wish or just peel off the nubs. I don’t peel and you can see the (delicious) flecks in photo to left – they seem to disappear as the ice cream churns, photo right.
pinch of salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons ginger liqueur such as Domaine De Canton
- Steep the ginger milk: dice the ginger into 1/2 inch cubes and put in large sauce pan with the milk. Heat over medium. As it begins to simmer WATCH it – milk will boil over faster than you can blink and its a POTA to clean your stove after it does. Once it begins to boil, reduce heat to keep it boiling but not boiling over for a full minute. Stir while this is happening. Remove the pan from the heat (and turn off the burner). Give it a bit of a stir and let it rest for 20-30 minutes. (I’ve been known to let it rest for an hour or two, but you may want to put a lid on it if so.)
- Strain the milk into a large measuring cup. Press the solids to get all the milk. If you don’t have 2 cups, refill with the remaining whole milk until you have 2 cups. Take about 2 tablespoons of the steeped ginger (or as much more as you want to try). This needs to be pulverized. In my kitchen I have a mini-food processor that I usually use for this job. You could use the immersion blender, like a I did today, a large food processor, or a blender. You want to shred the softened ginger so that it is like shredded coconut. You will probably need to add a little of the milk back to the processor to make it work.
- Put the shredded ginger and any processing milk, the ginger milk, the cream, the sugar and salt into a saucepan. Give it a stir and taste. If you are using ginger liqueur, which is very sweet, you want it to be slightly sweet at this stage. Although, my friend J says I have too light a hand with the sugar… Once you are satisfied, whisk in the whole egg. Gently heat on medium until it begins to simmer then reduce heat to keep it gently simmering. Stir. This will not turn into a thick custard but the mix will start to thicken, you’ll feel some resistance against the spoon while you stir, and if you look, you can create lovely swirls in the mix while you daydream of becoming a champion barrista or water ballerina.
- Pour the mix into a container, stir in the vanilla, cover with saran and chill. Since I need to make this today, I gave the chilling process a boost by putting my container in an ice bath for an hour before a visit to the fridge.
- Churn the ice cream in your ice cream maker until it is nearly done. You’ll know this because it will be thick like soft-serve. At this point add the ginger liqueur evenly to the canisters you have churning the ice cream (I’ll have 2). If you think ahead, which I managed today, the booze will be stored in the freezer.
- Scoop the ice cream into a container and freeze until firm enough to eat, at least an hour.
Bonus today: Bittersweet Chocolate Fudge Sauce
In keeping with my preference for subtly sweet treats, I make a fudge sauce to die for.
8 oz bittersweet dark chocolate (I use the highest content cocoa I can find)
3 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 tablespoons salted butter
a heavy dash of salt
Optional: 1-2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder or espresso powder
Put all the ingredients in a microwavable bowl and zap for 45 seconds. Stir, zap, stir, zap until the chocolate has melted. You don’t want to overheat this so once the container feels warm to the touch, you can also let it sit for a minute before stirring. Note, you will have to stir vigorously for all of the ingredients to come together in a smooth sauce. Alternatively, you can also make this in a saucepan. Add all the ingredients and very gently heat on the stove or over a double boiler. Stir vigorously to meld into a sauce.
I’m not making the sauce today, so no pics – but man is it good. It’s based on my memories of a bittersweet fudge sauce from Ashley’s Ice Cream in New Haven, CT 30 years ago. WOW.
Anyway, drizzle a little of this sauce over the ginger ice cream, or a random finger or anything else really, and serve!