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Amidst my camera breaking, my new apartment still coming together, no Internet at the new apartment, and my weekend getaway trips gallivanting around northern California, my blog posts have been/will be a bit delayed.
My new kitchen is filled with fun gadgets: my KitchenAid candy-apple-red mixer, my mortar and pestle, tons of baking pans, and my ICE CREAM MAKER. And what a better way to break-in the kitchen than to make some refreshing ice cream?! Honey vanilla ice cream!!!
Lately I have been eating tons of melon: cantaloupe, watermelon, orange honeydew melon, canary melon, muskat melon……..mmmmmm. This honey vanilla ice cream is the perfect accoutrement to any melon. For some more melon fun, check out this post by the KitchyKitchen.
The way that I pick a good melon is to give it a sniff at right at the end where that circular nub is (see above photo). It should smell like fragrant flowers. If there is no smell, you can still buy the melon but let it sit for a few days on the counter. You can also try to shake or knock the melon. If the seeds are loose, the melon is ripe.
The honey vanilla ice cream can be served with melon, served on its own, served with some peanut butter and sliced sauteed bananas (deconstructed Elvis Presley-style?), served with a summer fruit crisp, or any other way you can imagine.
A summer fruit crisp is an easy, comforting dessert that can be thrown together in a pinch. Use whatever fruit you like, sprinkle the crisp topping on, and bake. Gosh, you get your fruit and your oat-y crumbly crunch. And it is just divine with the ice cream.
To make the crisp: I sliced dapple dandy pluots, a nectarine, and sprinkled a few blueberries into an 8 in by 8 in square baking pan (feel free to make minis in little ramekins, too). I added a tablespoon and a half of all-purpose flour (you can also add a sprinkle of sugar and/or lemon depending on the sweetness of the fruit). Then I topped the fruit with some crisp topping (recipe below) and baked it all in a 375 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes. Serve warm with the ice cream on top…YUM!
Honey Vanilla Ice Creamadapted from Chez Panisse Fruit
makes 1 quart
** BEWARE: This ice cream is really heavy on the honey flavor. If you just want a slight honey flavor, add only 1/2 a cup or less of honey. But if you are a major honey lover, add the whole 3/4 cup (that’s what I did)
6 egg yolks
1 cup half and half (I just used milk because that was all I had…it still came out great)
1 pinch salt
1 vanilla bean
2 cups heavy cream, chilled
1/2-3/4 cup honey, depending on how much of a honey lover you are
Set the heavy cream into a large bowl or bucket and set a fine mesh strainer or sieve over the top. Set the bowl into another larger bowl of ice water.
In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks just enough to break them up. Gently heat the milk and salt in a medium-size saucepan or pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds with a paring knife, and put them into the milk mixture along with the bean pod. Stir slowly over low heat until the milk is steaming.
Drizzle the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly as you pour (this is called tempering the egg yolks).
Return the milk and egg yolk mixture to the saucepan or pot. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring slowly and scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon or heat-resistant rubber spatula until the mixture thickens enough to coat the spoon (this happens at a temperature of about 170 degrees F).
Immediately remove from the heat and strain through the fine-mesh strainer/sieve into the cold cream. Whisk in the 3/4 cup of honey.
Whisk together to cool the mixture over the ice bath. Once chilled, cover the ice cream base and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled (at least a half hour or over-night).
Freeze the mixture according to your ice cream machine’s instructions. Transfer the frozen ice cream to a clean dry container, cover, and store in the freezer for several hours before serving to firm up.
Variations:
To make honey lavender ice cream: Add 1 tablespoon of dried lavender when you are heating the milk.
To make vanilla ice cream, use milk instead of half and half and add 2/3 cup of sugar when you heat the milk. Omit the honey.
Fruit Crisp Topping
adapted from Deborah Madison
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats or finely chopped almonds
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon, optional
6 Tbsp. butter, cut into small chunks
Using your fingers or the paddle attachment of a mixer, combine the topping ingredients and work in the butter until the texture is coarse and crumbly.
**The topping can be made ahead and refrigerated for a week or so or frozen for several weeks.
This stuff is literally good to the last drop (I licked the plate after taking this photo!).
Figsinmybelly 