Salted Caramel Ice Cream

June 5th, 2012

Recently I’ve been craving ice cream, and fortunately, the Bay Area is surrounded with several popular creameries. I absolutely love the Coffee Cookie Dream at Fentons Creamery in Piedmont; Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee at Humphry Slocombe in the Mission in San Francisco; and Bi-Rite Creamery’s salted caramel, also in the Mission. My most recent discovery is  in the Hayes Valley district of San Francisco, where each scoop is made-to-order using a liquid nitrogen machine in just 60 seconds! I have yet to try Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous but have heard very good things about it.

My recent trip to Bi-Rite over Memorial Day weekend inspired my at-home creation of salted caramel ice cream. It was also a good excuse to finally put my ice cream maker to use, which was a Christmas gift that my brother gave me a year ago. The ice cream maker is actually an attachment to my Kitchen Aid mixer- something that I didn’t have high hopes for since it isn’t a true ice cream machine. But with a few instructions and a couple of hours later after freezing the bowl, my homemade salted caramel ice cream was a success! And it was truly easier than I thought it would be.

I’m now hooked on making ice cream! It also helps that I recently received the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book, full of great recipes that I am eager to try out.

What are you favorite ice cream flavors and your go-to spot(s)?

Coffee Cookie Dream at Fenton’s

Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee at Humphry Slocombe

Salted Caramel and Coffee Toffee at Bi-Rite

Very cool liquid nitrogen ice cream machines at Smitten

Salted Caramel at Smitten

Salted Caramel Recipe:

473g milk

473g heavy cream

8 yolks

200g sugar

Directions:

1. Prepare an ice bath- fill a bowl with ice and water. Place another clean, dry bowl in the ice bath.
2. In a saucepan, heat the milk, cream, and half the sugar over high heat. Stir occasionally.
3. In another bowl, whisk the yolks and other half of the sugar together.
4. Once the milk and cream mixture comes to a slight simmer, remove from heat and slowly pour half the mixture into the yolks while whisking.
5. Pour the yolk mixture back to the saucepan and return to medium heat. Stir to prevent scorching at the bottom. Cook for about 2 minutes. The mixture will thicken.
6. Remove from heat and strain into the clean bowl in the ice bath.
7. Cool completely. This may take a few hours, or you can cool it overnight in the refrigerator.
8. Once ready, pour the custard into the ice cream maker and spin.
9. Swirl in caramel and Fleur de Sel once the ice cream thickens.

Tags: Bay Area Creameries, Caramel, Fleur de Sel, Homemade Ice Cream, Ice Cream, Ice Cream Machine, Salted Caramel