A Learning Curve

This week I am borrowing my parent's KitchenAid ice cream attachment.  My dad has had great success with this - but, he doesn't make a custard mixture.  I decided to make coffee ice cream and adapted a Cooking Light recipe that I've had past success with (we have a cheapo ice cream maker from Lowe's that uses salt and ice).  The KitchenAid ice cream attachment is simply a bowl that you use in place of the standard stainless steel bowl.

We happen to love coffee ice cream here, so our inaugural recipe includes this

Rob was not impressed - he thought I should have used brewed coffee.  I tried to explain that what we needed was concentrated flavor (plus, I was nervous to add liquid into the recipe).  I happen to love this instant espresso - it's so convenient.  I keep mine in the freezer and have added it to chocolate cake batter and my beef brisket.  I buy this for $2.99 at Price-Rite.

But, back to the ice cream.  My first mistake started with my impatience.  Not surprising.  I decided to pour the custard mixture into the bowl before it had cooled.  We decided to start over and repeated the procedure this morning.  I think we left it mixing for too long - it started un-freezing after a while.  Ugh.  I stopped the mixer and scraped the whole mixture into a sealed container.

Here are the results - don't worry, I'll keep forging ahead until we get this perfected.  The flavor was perfect, but the texture was a little grainy, due to the haphazard procedure. Rob agreed that the instant espresso, for flavor purposes, was definitely the way to go.  A little side-note: I was wide-awake this morning at 4am....maybe you should indulge in coffee ice cream for a lunch-time treat!

Coffee Ice Cream

2 1/3 cups 2 % milk
1 cup light cream
1 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
2 T instant espresso granules
1 T kosher salt

1.  Heat milk and cream in a large pan until mixture reaches 180 degrees.
2.  In a blender, mix egg yolks and sugar until mixture turns a light yellow color.
3.  Add one cup of the hot mixture to egg yolks and blend.
4.  Add egg yolk mixture into the hot milk mixture and heat until 180 degrees.
5.  COOL mixture.  Add to ice cream maker and mix until partially frozen.
6.  Place ice cream into a sealed container and freeze until desired consistency is reached.