Persistence pays off
This post has been brewing for a while. Originally it was going to be called “What’s wrong with my custard?” or “Gourmet gone bad” or something along those lines.
Early in the week, I attempted to make this luscious-sounding caramel ice cream with flaky sea salt from the July 2006 issue of Gourmet magazine. I made a deep caramel, I added it to a custard that I thickened to a precise 175 degrees and then strained through my finest seive. I cooled it in a metal bowl over an ice bath, then moved the chilled custard to the fridge overnight to temper.
The next night, I hauled out the trusty Cuisinart ice-cream maker, and poured in the custard to freeze during dinner. I can’t even remember what we ate… I was so distracted by the thought of this dessert. So you can imagine my disappointment when I peeked into the freezer bowl 30 minutes later and found nothing more than some very chilly custard. Hmm…
I let it keep on spinning for another half hour, until the chiller bowl started to be not very chilly. I spatula’d the whole thing back into the storage container, and vowed to try again tomorrow.
Two nights ago, I tried it again, with identical results. I decided that this was as frozen as it would get in the ice-cream maker, scraped the contents into the storage toot, and put it into the freezer to try and firm it up.
Last night: Ta-dah! It wasn’t really ice cream, but it definitely was frozen to a desserty consistency. And really, the serving shown in the photo was probably excessive — Cameron even said that one scoop would be plenty for a dinner party. And that’s probably good, since it didn’t make very much ice cream.
