One of my prized finds from the Good Food & Wine show, a few months ago, was a vanilla bean paste and vanilla syrup pack by Heilala. Heilala sources their vanilla pods from their own plantation in Tonga, but the company is based in one of my favourite places - Tauranga in New Zealand. Knowing how expensive it is to buy vanilla beans in Sydney, I was happy to score a good deal with this pack and very keen to try it out in an ice cream!
I know I say this about every gelato, ice cream and sorbet, but this ice cream was really really really creamy! I had to say it 3 times, because it's even creamier than Bulla's really really creamy ice cream. The ice cream was so smooth and silky and the vanilla gave it a nice simple but tasty flavour.
Vanilla Ice Cream based on Breville's recipe from the Smart Scoop Instruction Booklet
Makes about 1 litre
Ice Cream Ingredients:
- 2 cups thickened cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 vanilla bean, sliced and seeds scraped or 1 tsp vanilla extract (I used Heilala's Vanilla Bean Paste)
- 5 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup sugar
- Place cream, milk, vanilla bean and seeds into a medium-sized saucepan. Heat on low-medium setting to simmer.
- While mixture is heating, beat egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until pale and thick.
- Remove the vanilla bean from cream mixture and slowly whisk half of the milk mixture into the egg mixture.
- Place back into the saucepan and heat on low setting, whilst stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until mixture has thickened and coats the back of the spoon.
- Pour into a heatproof bowl and refrigerate mixture until well chilled.
- Pour into ice cream bowl, then into your ice cream maker and set to 'Ice Cream' setting to churn.
