Salted Almond Ice Cream

I've been putting off going through my boxes that have been in “storage” for the past 5 years (aka, my parent’s basement) but the past couple days I’ve been digging through the past, tossing out all the useless junk and reminiscing in the awesome stuff that I forgot that I owned. Case and point, my ice cream maker! As soon as I saw the Cuininart box I got all hyped up, tossed the base into the freezer and dove into my vast inventory of un-made-but-really-wanna-make recipes.

Salted Almond Ice Cream. Yep, no doubt that this is the one that I had to make. If there is one thing in the world that should have a shrine made for it so that we can all bow to it and celebrate its perfection, it is the combination of sweet and salty. The marriage of sweet and salty is possibly my favourite combination so when I saw this recipe, I had to Pin it and save it for another day.

This morning I made this recipe and was wowed by the result. Basically, you start by making a simple sweet almond custard. While that cools, you caramelize the almonds with sugar and salt until it makes a thick syrupy mass which is poured onto a plate to cool. The custard is poured into the ice cream maker and the salty/sweet almonds are tossed in with a few minutes left to go in the mixing process. So what you are left with is this amazingly sweet ice cream with crunchy salty almonds. YUM!!! Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a go!

Salted Almond Ice Cream

- 2 cups 2%milk

- 1 cup 10% cream

- 5 egg yolks

- ½ cup sugar

- ½ tsp salt

- ¾ tsp almond extract

- ½ tsp vanilla extract

- 2/3 cup chopped almonds

1) Over medium heat, heat the milk and cream, whisking occasionally, until bubbles form around the edge.

2) Whisk together the yolks, 1/3 cup sugar and ¼ tsp salt until thick and pale. Slowly pour 1 cup of the heated milk mixture into the eggs, whisking constantly. Then pour the egg mixture into the pot and while stirring constantly, cook until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Allow to cool fully.

3) Toast the almonds on medium heat. Add remaining 2 tbsp sugar and ¼ tsp salt to the pan.

4) Cook, stirring constantly until nuts caramelize (10-15 minutes). Cool on a plate and break apart when cooled.

5) Pour custard in your ice cream maker. Add the nuts when ice cream is nearly hardened and continue to mix until thickened.