When I was around 17 or 18 (and living in a household of very competitive women all with their own culinary streak) I decided to get a French ice cream maker, A Donvier – which was a manual ice cream maker with a cold core very similar to the KitchenAid.
Because it was manual, I could look forward to 25 minutes of cranking the handle while day dreaming about living in the 1980’s… ah, yes… good times.
Anyway – I digress. The recipe.
If there is a top 3 ice cream flavour or style, it may just be butterscotch because it is a subtle variation on vanilla with a twist of something sweet but not as refined as chocolate. Butterscotch: No idea where the name came from, but since it mentions Scotch… I thought, what the heck. Away we go.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons (80g) butter soft / salted or not
3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I used unprocessed Demerera – comments on that later…)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups (500ml) 36% heavy cream
3/4 cup (180ml) Homo milk
6 egg yolks
1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract
1 tablespoon (exactly!) Bushmills Irish Whiskey
1 cup (give or take) Roast candied pecans
Step 1
Melt the butter in a 2 quart saucepan on a medium gas burner (electric is fine)
Add the salt and then add the brown sugar – stir until molten (and caution ahead! Molten
sugar is darn hot and can burn you in ways you cannot imagine — keep children and fingers clear of the sugar!)
Important put aside a few tablespoons of the butter/salt/brown sugar for the roasted pecans – more on that later.
Let the sugar/butter/salt cool a bit if you have over-heated it – check the temperature with an instant read thermometer and make sure the sugar mix is below 200 degrees (F)
Step 2
Add 1 cup of the cream and the milk to the sugar/butter/salt combo
Step 3
In a separate bowl whisk up the 6 egg yolks (egg whites can be saved for another day — like a healthy omelette!)
Step 4
Add the warm sugar/butter/salt/milk mixture to the eggs whisking constantly to avoid a scrambled egg mess in case the sugar/milk mix is too hot.
Step 5
Put this mixture back into the 2 quart saucepan, and keeping an instant read digital thermometer bring the “custard mix” up to a temperature of between 160 and 170 – but no higher!
Step 6
In yet another container (that will sit on an ice bath) put the remaining cream.
Place a fine strainer on top of this container and then pour the “custard mix” through the strainer into the bowl (being ice chilled) that holds the remaining cream. Add the vanilla and scotch and stir to mix.
This is your ice cream “pre-mix” – after it has cool and or stabilized, take it off of the ice bath and put it into the fridge for 2 hours to chill.
Step 7
Roast some nuts – While it is chilling, prepare your roast pecans. You can use almost any nut but preferably something with flavour and texture – walnuts are a good alternate choice – or pistachios.
2 tablespoons butter (around 35g)
1-2 cups of pecans or walnuts
Twist of kosher salt.
Melt the butter in a skillet or sauce pan on medium heat.
Toss in the halved pecans or walnuts.
Add a twist of kosher salt.
Stir to coat the nuts and then spread them across a cookie sheet on top of a layer of parchment.
The parchment paper protects the nuts from burning and sticking.
Put in a 350 degree oven for 9 minutes, turning once at around 5 minutes.
In your sauce pan that you used to coat the nuts: toss in the roasted nuts and the two tablespoons or
so of the sugar mixture you kept from earlier. You can even darken the sugar mixture by heating it in advance and reducing it a bit. Coat the nuts. Let cool. Chop the nuts into small pieces. Put aside.
Step 8
Add your ice cream pre mix to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer instructions.
And when your churning cycle is around 1 minute remaining, add the chopped nuts.
Empty your ice cream into the storage container of your choice and freeze for 2 to 4 hours.
Note any ice cream that contains alcohol will not set as quickly or as firmly as ice creams without alcohol.
The more hard liquor you add, the more difficult your ice cream will be to set.
Notes I found with 1 tablespoon of Whiskey that it was hardly noticeable in terms of flavour – Rum would have been a better choice. It’s up to you.
I used a very dark raw brown sugar which created a pretty dark ice cream – a tad non traditional – that said, it has a deeper flavour. Personal taste. And up to you as well what you use.
Enjoy!