Pumpkin Cheesecake Gelato

Notes:
– Recipe makes 1 3/4 quarts of gelato.
– You can substitute a slice of store bought pumpkin cheesecake if you don’t want to make an entire cheesecake for this recipe.

The cheesecake recipe I use was borrowed from AFarmGirlDabbles and her recipe for “Perfect Pumpkin Cheesecake”. One serving slice is needed for one recipe of gelato.

The night before preparation:
Place the bowl of your ice cream maker into the freezer the night before.

The day of preparation:

For the custard:
In a small bowl, whisk together brown and white sugar. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, whisk together the half and half and cream, half of the whisked sugars, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice and pumpkin puree. Bring the mixture just to a boil.

While the cream mixture is heating, combine the egg yolks and other half of the sugar mixture together in a small bowl, whisking until the eggs become pale and thickened.

Temper the egg mixture with one cup of the hot cream mixture, by slowly whisking in 1 cup of the hot cream into the egg. Slowly whisk in one more cup. Then return the egg and cream tempered mixture into the sauce pan and heat again until the whole mixture thickens and can coat the back of a spatula. Do NOT let the mixture come back to a boil. This will over cook the eggs.

Pour the entire mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl and place into the fridge for about 2 hours, or overnight.

*Final Preparation:
Remove your frozen ice cream bowl from the freezer, set up and turn your ice cream maker on. While on, pour the pumpkin custard mixture into the top of the ice cream maker and let it freeze and mix for about 20 minutes. During the last five minutes of the freezing process, chop up a slice of pumpkin cheesecake into small pieces and place into the ice cream maker to get folded in.

Serve immediately, or store in an air tight container in your freezer until later date.