HOME MADE LEMON BASIL ICE CREAM

Now that the heat seems to be back, here’s a really nice lemon basil ice cream recipes that you can easily make without an ice cream machine. This easy desserts flavor is quite different, and the texture is smooth without being too creamy.  

This gourmet recipes is from one of my favorite. Most of the recipes require some skill without being overly complicated, and all are certain to earn you a few compliments in return for your efforts. 

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups milk

30 large basil leaves roughly torn (or a little less if you don’t want your ice cream to taste too strongly of basil)

Rind of 1 lemon

About 1 cup of sugar (fine granulated)

4 egg yolks

Juice of 1 lemon

5/8 cup heavy cream

Preparations:

1. Heat the milk just to boiling point. Take off heat and add the basil leaves – let rest for 45 minutes – 1 hour.

2. Beat the sugar and the yolks together until they are pale and fluffy. Strain the milk (you can press on the basil leaves in your strainer to extract as much flavor as possible) and stir it into the sugar and egg mixture. Make a bain-marie by putting your bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (I like to use a metal salad bowl that I own for this part – I find that the metal diffuses the heat quickly and evenly). Stir the liquid in the bowl constantly until it thickens lightly (you don’t want to cook your egg yolks by putting it over blaring heat). If you pass a spoon through the mixture and it makes a path when you run your finger town the back then the custard is ready. Immediately pour the mixture into another bowl (the bowl that you will use for the freezer – I like to use a large pyrex measuring cup that makes checking and mixing the ice cream during the freezing process easy).

3. Add the lemon juice to the custard and beat the cream in lightly. Put your bowl in the freezer and beat it with a metal whisk every hour or so until the texture is to your liking (this will take a few good hours, though.) You can use an electric beater too, but I find that using the whisk gives a nice loose texture.

Enjoy!

Source: http://lavoiealabouche.com/?p=46