Homemade Vanilla Bean, Honey and Almond Ice Cream

Pre-freeze your ice cream container thingy for about 18 hours.

Slice the vanilla bean down the center lengthwise with a paring knife and scrape out the seeds inside.

In a saucepan, add the cream, milk, 2 tablespoons sugar, vanilla beans, pod, salt and honey. Whisk the mixture and bring it a very light simmer, 5-10 minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Slowly whisk about 1 cup of the milk mixture into the bowl, tempering the eggs so they don’t scramble on you. Whisk until smooth, 30 seconds. Pour egg mixture back into the saucepan and continue to lightly simmer on medium-low until it has thickened, another 10 minutes. Remove vanilla bean pods and discard.

Pour the egg/milk mixture into a large bowl and let cool about 20 minutes, until it’s no longer steaming.

Pour 1 cup of the mixture into a smaller bowl and cover both bowls with plastic wrap. Stick the small bowl in the freezer and the larger bowl in the fridge and let completely cool, about 3 hours. Don’t even ask me why we do this. Science or whatever.

Bring both bowls back out and scrape the smaller (more frozen) custard into the larger bowl. Stir until fully dissolved and combined.

At this point, you’ll put the ice cream frozen container thingy back on the machine and turn it on. Pour the mixture into the container and watch the machine works its magic. It will probably churn about 30 minutes, so at the 25-minute mark, add the chopped almonds. The machine will do the churning and mixing, so you can go ahead and pour yourself a drink.

Then you eat! We bought a little quart-sized white container to store our ice cream in, so that we’d feel cool.

Garnish with lavender blossoms, more honey, more chopped almonds, chocolate, whatever makes ya dance!

Makes about 1 quart.

Recipe adapted from the Cooks Illustrated cookbook.