Vanilla Ice Cream

I just started making ice cream a few months ago, so when I opened this book, I couldn’t wait to try Thomas Keller’s ice cream recipes. This is a very easy, very detailed, excellent Vanilla Ice Cream recipe. Many people have told me this is the best Vanilla Ice Cream they have ever tasted and it far exceeds store bought fake tasting vanilla. The egg yolks and cream make it extra creamy. I made sure to use a vanilla bean to get the best vanilla flavor.

Be sure to read the side note about how many eggs to use. Chef Keller says to stick to the ratio of 150 grams for each quart of ice cream.

I'm giving this five stars as it is an exemplary vanilla ice cream recipe and the resulting ice cream was rich and creamy and truly excellent. However, the recipe for vanilla ice cream is pretty much the same all over, and Keller doesn't do anything here that's different: cream, milk, sugar, vanilla bean and egg yolks. The only differences are minor variations in the amount and ratios of each.

For example, he adds a pinch of salt, which some recipes leave out. He also does something very useful, which is to give a weight for the amount of yolk required. When I made this, I only needed 8 yolks instead of the 10 in the recipe to get the same weight.

When you make ice cream yourself, you're pretty much guaranteed to get something superior to most ice cream you've ever had.

Oh, and if you need something to do with all those leftover egg whites, make some of his white cupcakes - they need 6 egg whites, and the icing needs another 6.