vanilla – The Answer is Always Pork

This ice cream was a challenge. Not because making ice cream from scratch is a difficult thing—I’ve made it many times before with success. But because sometimes I loose my head at the grocery store, throw reason out the window and buy something as a ‘substitute’ that should never, never be used as a substitute.

It was a Tuesday night and I was making ice cream for our supper club later in the week. We were responsible for dessert and I’d brainstormed a glorious candy-filled concoction. I figured I’d make the custard quickly before Jordan got home from work and we sat down to dinner. I was already feeling a bit on edge before I began this culinary project, but like I’ve mentioned before, there is nothing like cooking to help me find my center. Except when a crucial error in judgment sends the whole thing into a sticky, custardy, teary tailspin. You can probably guess which ensued that fateful Tuesday.

Dear readers, Ovaltine, though technically a malted milk beverage, is NOT malted milk powder. Don’t let any discussion forum or milk wiki on the internet convince you otherwise. And don’t try and talk yourself into it after you’ve already been to four grocery stores and not one of them sold true malted milk powder. Let me just say it again: Ovaltine is not a viable substitute for malted milk, in any cooking context.

Thankfully, Jordan got home just as I was warming the milk and cream to add to my eggy-Ovaltine blend of poor decision making and pulled the emergency break on this disaster. This is how it went down.

J: Why are those eggs so brown? I thought malted milk was white? How much did you use?

E: I … I … I went to four grocery stores. I couldn’t find malted milk powder ANYWHERE. I even went up to the market all way up the hill. I was there forever trying to find it. So looked it up online to see if I could substitute something. Some internet people say you can substitute Ovaltine. It’s probably fine ……………(panic)……………… It’s probably horrible. I’m such an idiot. I just ruined five eggs. Five beautiful eggs. They were from our CSA, you know. And now we’re out of eggs. And the city of San Francisco still won’t offer up any malted milk powder. (Collapse in heap on kitchen floor).

J: Well, before you add the milk, did you even taste it?

E: No. (Shame face).

J: Sutter Fine Foods has malted milk powder. Let me show you.

E: (Grumble, sniff, grab purse).

And so we walked down to the corner store on our block, Jordan led me to the baking section, grabbed a container of Carnation Malted Milk Powder from the top shelf and beamed. I may have muttered something about how this was the most damn annoying ice cream that I’ll ever make, paid the cashier, and scampered up the stairs to correct my mistakes of earlier in the evening.

With actual Carnation malted milk powder instead of Ovaltine, my custard was a beautiful pale yellow, and the final ice cream was delicious. There is nothing like the combination of malted milk, vanilla and kit kat to make a person forget the trials that led them to that delicious end. And, if you heed my advice and don’t get lured to the Ovaline dark side, you too can enjoy a perfect ice cream without the drama.

Malted Vanilla Ice Cream with Kit Kat, adapted from Bi-Rite Market’s Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones
5 egg yolks
1/2 cup malted milk powder (we used Carnation)
1 3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup 1% or 2% milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Kit Kat bars, chopped

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Add the malted milk powder and whisk together.

In a saucepan over medium heat, warm the cream, milk, sugar and salt together. Bring just to a simmer. Whisk about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture into the egg yolks, pouring the hot milk slowly into the eggs to temper them. Add another 1/2 cup of milk into the eggs. Then pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the rest of the milk.

Put a mesh strainer over a medium sized bowl or tupperware. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

Over medium heat, stir the milk and egg mixture until it begins to thicken. When the ice cream base could coat a spoon, pour it through a mesh strainer into a bowl or tupperware. Cool the base in the ice water bath, stirring occasionally. Refrigerate the base overnight.

The next day, add the vanilla to the ice cream base. Pour it into your ice cream maker and freeze according to your maker’s instructions. Meanwhile, chop up the kit kats.

When the custard is just about frozen, add the kit kat pieces. Serve right away or put into a tupperware and freeze for another few hours to harden completely.

-Emily

Two factors were at play that resulted in the creation of this dessert. First, cinnamon toast is a favorite breakfast treat around these parts. Second, last Sunday I made an angel food cake to bring to our friend Jeff and Peter’s *new* place.

I wish I could claim that the inspiration for this amazing ice cream was my own. But alas, it was inspired by dessert at The Boxing Room. A few months ago, I had the best day ever. It started by sleeping in with my boy and my puppy. Then the boy went to work and some lovely old friends picked me up. We drove over to the house (complete with back porch!) of some really wonderful new friends. We sat on the back porch and devoured a cooler of fabulously fresh oysters and some wine and cheese. Something like 100 oysters split between six people! Did I mention it was 70 degrees and we were sitting outside in the sunshine? Yep, this is all true.

We wrapped up the oyster feast and then I came home to change. I put on a pretty dress and met Jordan at the San Francisco ballet. He looked really handsome in his fancy clothes. We enjoyed the ballet and then went out to dinner at The Boxing Room, a fabulous southern restaurant with emphasis on the creole just around the corner.

After some soul-satisfying creole cuisine, we had dessert … cinnamon toast ice cream. It was amazing—a hint of vanilla, a hint of cinnamon and a hint of buttered toast. But how did they get the buttered toast flavor? I had to know and so I asked the waiter. He said the chef soaked brioche in the custard overnight to infuse the buttered bread flavor into the ice cream. Genius.

Fast forward two months and we’re here. I merged two of David Lebovitz’s recipes for the custard and followed the bread soaking advice of our waiter. The results are phenomenal. Ice cream that tastes like buttered toast? Yes, sign me up.

Cinnamon Toast Ice Cream, adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz and The Boxing Room in San Francisco
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
5 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
1 t vanilla extract
3 slices brioche bread

Heat the whole milk, sugar, salt, vanilla bean and cinnamon sticks over low heat until it is just about to simmer. Turn off the heat, cover and set aside for the vanilla and cinnamon to infuse for about an hour. After an hour, reheat the milk to just simmering. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Temper the eggs by pouring the hot milk into the bowl slowly while whisking. Put the egg and milk mixture back into the saucepan. Heat over low heat until the custard begins to thicken and is just about to boil. Strain through a mesh strainer back into the bowl and whisk in the cream. Once it has cooled slightly, add the vanilla. Cool the custard over an ice bath. Cut the brioche slices in half and then submerge them in the custard. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, strain out the brioche and squeeze the out custard that is has absorbed. Freeze in an ice cream maker. Ta-da! A miraculous ice cream that tastes just like cinnamon toast, but much richer.

-Emily

Ps. Apologies on the lack of a final product photo. It was too quickly eaten, but you can use your imagination.