The Best Thing I've Ever Made

Pumpkin Ice Cream.  From our very own Jack-O-Lantern.

"Ice cream are two of my favorite words and one of my favorite treats.  But this is ice cream to the next level.  This is Creamy Kinice.  It deserves its own category, name, and probably orbit--but I don't have authority to give it one.  It's creamy, it's pumpKin, you eat it with your Kinfolk, it's nIce, and it's Ice: Creamy Kinice. I'm tasting it again right now in my brain and loving it." -Andrew

Here's the recipe.  My comments are in italics.  I know it's a tad more complicated than your usual ice cream recipe, but it is so worth it.  You can see where I skipped steps, and it still turned out amazing. 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh pumpkin puree or canned
    unsweetened pumpkin puree **(Recipe at bottom)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Directions:

In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours (I didn’t refrigerate it for that long).

In a heavy 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, combine 1 1/2 cups of the cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Cook until bubbles form around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the egg yolks, cinnamon, ginger, salt, nutmeg, the remaining 1/2 cup cream and the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Whisk until smooth and the sugar begins to dissolve.

Remove the cream mixture from the heat. Gradually whisk about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour the egg mixture back into the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon and keeping the custard at a low simmer, until it is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and leaves a clear trail when a finger is drawn through it, 4 to 6 minutes. Do not allow the custard to boil. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl (I didn’t strain it).

Place the bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice water, stirring occasionally until cool (I skipped that step too).  Whisk the pumpkin mixture into the custard. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly on the surface of the custard to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 3 hours or up to 24 hours (I didn’t cover or refrigerate it.  I put it in the freezer for a little while, apparently not long enough.  This was the one step that I skipped that I shouldn’t have.  If it’s too hot, it will melt the frozen stuff inside your ice cream maker and then you have to put it in a bowl in the freezer and stir it every once in a while.  That actually worked just fine because it was a custard.  That’s what you can do if you don’t have an ice cream maker).

Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer the ice cream to a freezer-safe container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days, before serving (I didn’t wait three hours). Makes about 1 quart (not enough.  Double, triple or quadruple this recipe.  I was wishing I had saved some for breakfast).

**To make your own pumpkin puree, use 1 large or 2 medium Sugar Pie or other eating (not field) pumpkins. Cut out the stem and quarter the pumpkin lengthwise. In a preheated 400°F oven, bake the quarters, cut side down, in a shallow roasting pan with a little water in the bottom until tender, about 1 hour. Let cool, scrape out the seeds, cut the flesh from the peels, and force it ababethrough a medium-mesh sieve or the medium disk of a food mill. Freeze any leftover puree for up to 2 months.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection Series, Ice Cream, by Mary Goodbody (Simon & Schuster, 2003).