Organic Sweet Corn Ice Cream

Makes about 5 cups, or ten 1/2 cup servings.

1. In a medium sized sauce pot, over medium high heat, bring your defrosted corn, half-and-half, salt, and vanilla extract to a simmer. Once simmering, turn heat to medium low or low and allow to gently simmer and cook 5 minutes while stirring occasionally. Be sure to watch your pot—if it begins to boil your cream may boil over.

2. While this is cooking, set up an ice bath: a large bowl filled with ice and water, with another bowl (preferably glass or metal) inside. My ice bath consisted of a large plastic bowl filled with ice water and ice, and then a large glass bowl set inside.

3. Remove the pot with the corn mixture from heat, set it on a rack and allow corn mixture to cool in the pot for 5 minutes.

4. Carefully add corn mixture into a blender or food processor and add in your sweetened condensed milk. Process and blend together until mixture is relatively smooth, about 1-2 minutes. You will still have very small pieces of corn.

5. Now you can do 1 of 2 things:
a. You can add your corn mixture straight into your ice bath (put it in the top bowl, that is sitting in the bigger bowl of ice) and allow it to chill, stirring occasionally, for roughly 20 minutes. Or …
b. You can pour the corn mixture through a sieve or fine mesh strainer (catching any corn kernels) into your ice bath (into the top bowl, that is sitting in the bigger bowl of ice) and allow it to chill, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes.

This step is completely up to you. Like I stated earlier, we opted to not strain out the kernels because we like a little texture in our ice cream. If you’re not a fan, and would prefer a completely smooth ice cream, strain the kernels out while pouring your ice cream base into your ice bath. Whatever you choose, make sure you completely cool your ice cream base, while stirring occasionally. This should take 20-25 minutes.

6. When your mixture is completely chilled, set up your ice cream maker according to your manufacturer’s instructions. Always turn the ice cream maker on before you pour the ice cream base in! Pour chilled corn ice cream base into your ice cream maker and allow to churn until you reach a soft-serve/ice cream consistency! For my Cuisinart ice cream maker, this took about 25 minutes.

7. Once the ice cream is finished churning, scoop into a freezer proof airtight container and allow to set up in freezer until firm.

Once ice cream has set up, scoop out and enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Food Network Magazine.