Caramelised buttermilk ice cream
We are so close now, and I am beginning to feel a giddy excitement about a new year. I’ll be the first to admit this is a very strange sentiment. It isn’t as if I expect to wake up January 1. feeling any different or looking any different. But a new year feels a little like a new journal, full of blank pages ready to be filled with words in my illegible handwriting.
What are you hoping for - more of, less of - in the new year? These last 3 - okay 7, because kids - years I have missed travelling. I have missed seeing people and places I love all over the world, so for 2023 I hope to start travelling a little more again.
To finish 2022 I have decided to share one of my most favourite ice creams. It is a little tangy, a lot caramelly and deeply satisfying. Perfect on its oven, magical with a tarte tatin which is my New Years Eve dessert. Ill share my tarte tatin recipe on the other side.
Caramelised buttermilk ice cream
250g heavy cream
50g toasted skimmed milk powder*
120g toasted sugar*
50g glucose syrup
60g egg yolks (about 3 yolks) OR 5g ice cream stabiliser
500g buttermilk
Generous pinch of salt
Prepare an ice bath.
Heat heavy cream, skimmed milk powder, 100g sugar, glucose syrup to 40C.
If using stabiliser: Mix 20g of sugar with ice cream stabiliser and add to the warm mixture.
If using egg yolks: Whisk the egg yolks in a heat proof bowl. Heat the cream to 82C and pour about 200ml hot cream over the egg yolks while whisking thorughly.
Place the bowl in the ice bath while stirring occasionally until the mixture cools to 5C. Blend in buttermilk and season to taste with a pinch of salt. Cover the ice cream base with clingfilm and age overnight in the fridge to improve the texture. Blend to emulsify with an immersion blender before churning in ice cream maker or freezing in Paco container.
*Toasted skimmed milk powder
Add the skimmed milk powder to an oven tray and bake at 150C for 10-20 minutes, stirring often to make sure it browns evenly. You want it a deep golden brown colour.
*Toasted sugar
This is the most genius trick from pastry legend Stella Parks
Bake granulated sugar in an ovenproof dish at 150C for a total of 5 hours, stirring every 30 minutes. The sugar will go from white to deep golden brown with an intense caramel aroma and flavour.
Do you have a recommended stabilizer? I have been using cremodan 30 until the discontinued it. I found one that looked similar at Aui fine foods that looks if simmilar composition. Do you have one that you prefer ?
After 5h in the oven at 150C I was left with a sticky sugar mess that turned into a solid block once cooled down. I think I should've stopped sooner but at this point my plan is to heat it up until I can pour it into a mortar and grind it :)