Frozen Dessert

Crème fraîche is the cultured French cousin to American sour cream, although it’s far richer and more unctuous, with a distinct nutty-tangy-sweet flavor. This ice cream is made in a slightly different manner than other recipes, since mixing the crème fraîche with the other ingredients too far in advance can cause the whole batch to turn into a whole lot of crème fraîche, perhaps more than you bargained for.

If you need to liven things up around your holiday table, this tipsy ice cream will do the trick. Warm apple crisp, cranberry upside-down cake, or the ever-popular pumpkin pie—all are improved with a sidecar of this frozen version of eggnog. This will definitely make those obligatory family get-togethers a bit less traumatic…which I offer on very good authority. The simplest way to measure freshly grated nutmeg, which is the only kind you should use, is to fold a sheet of paper in half, reopen it, and grate the nutmeg over the paper. Then fold the paper again to direct the nutmeg into the measuring spoon.

Maybe I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. When I visited the Chartreuse distillery in the French Alps, our guide told us that the exact recipe for the famed herbal liqueur was a closely guarded secret, known only by three brothers who worked at the monastery. Astounded, I spoke up. “Wow, that’s incredible. What is the likelihood of three brothers going into the same business together, as well as becoming monks at the same monastery?” The other guests on the tour simply stopped and looked at me with their mouths slightly agape. Then our guide enlightened me and we moved on, but not before I overheard a few hushed conversations evaluating my intellect. This is a very light ice cream, and it’s so simple that anyone, regardless of their intelligence level, can easily put it together.

True zabaglione—a foamy custard of egg yolks, wine, and sugar—is often made to order in Italian restaurants. Moments after the waiter takes your order, you’ll hear the frenetic “clang-clack-clang” of the whisk hitting the copper bowl in the kitchen. Once it’s reached a billowy peak, it’s heaped into a glass quickly but not necessarily neatly (speed trumps presentation with zabaglione) and served straight up and warm. In season, you’ll often find sliced strawberries buried underneath all that delicious froth. Zabaglione Gelato captures the taste of a true zabaglione in a cool scoop of ice cream without the last-minute flurry of activity, and it’s just as good served with lots of juicy strawberries.

Crack open a cherry or apricot pit and you’ll discover a soft kernel inside with the pronounced scent of bitter almonds. I took a cue from whatever higher power designed these two flavors together and paired cherries with almonds in one heavenly ice cream. Adding anything chocolate makes this ice cream amazingly good. Be sure to drain the cherries in a strainer very well before folding them into the ice cream. They should be dry and sticky before you chop them up and mix them in.

Do you know how tin roof ice cream got its name? Neither do I. Nor does anyone, it seems. I’ve tried to find out but have always come up empty-handed. I do know that it’s one of my favorite ice cream combinations, and I guess I need to be content with that. Tin roof sundaes are traditionally made of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce and a scattering of red-skinned Spanish peanuts. I couldn’t resist using chocolate-covered peanuts instead and folding them into the ice cream, where they become embedded between layers of fudge ripple.

The first time I discovered “gourmet” ice cream, the flavor was rum raisin, made by one of those premium brands with lots of vowels in its name. Aside from all those vowels, it also had lots and lots of raisins plumped in real, honest-to-goodness rum, and I had never had store-bought ice cream that was so smooth and so creamy. Coincidentally, at about the same time I discovered those little round pints of premium ice cream, I learned a new way to eat ice cream: right from the little round pint container. Which, by strange coincidence (or shrewd marketing, more likely), fit just perfectly in my hand.

This ice cream is for those who are nostalgic for those orange-and-cream-flavored popsicles. If you miss that taste, you’ll discover it again here.

This ice cream tastes just like a big, moist, chewy oatmeal cookie, thanks to the winning combination of plump raisins and crunchy oatmeal praline folded into a custard made with just the right touch of brown sugar.

I froze lots and lots and lots of ice cream when writing this book. It was a treat having freshly made ice cream every day, but space in my freezer soon became an issue, and more than once a frozen brick of ice cream slipped out, nearly crashing down on my foot. I eventually realized that it was impossible (and a little dangerous) to coexist with too many flavors all at once. Consequently, I passed off lots of ice cream to friends, neighbors, local shopkeepers, and occasionally a startled delivery man. All were more than happy to take a quart off my hands. But I guarded this Malted Milk Ice Cream, saving it all for myself. The recipe calls for malt powder, which is usually found in the ice cream aisle of your supermarket. Sometimes, however, it’s stocked alongside chocolate drink mixes like Ovaltine, which isn’t the same thing and shouldn’t be used here. The most common brands of malt powder are Carnation and Horlicks. (See Resources, page 237, for online sources.)

I once visited a sugar shack in Canada, a magical place where sticky maple sap gets boiled down into glistening maple syrup. I watched the process until I could stand it no more, and then my wildest dreams came true: We sat down to a lunch where everything came to the table drenched with pure, precious maple syrup. And in case there wasn’t enough, a big pitcher of warm maple syrup also sat within reach so we could help ourselves to as much as we wanted. If my shoulder bag had been syrup-proof, I would have been very tempted to take some of the obvious overflow off their hands. Maple syrup is usually graded dark amber or light amber. The darker the syrup, the deeper the flavor, so I always use the darker type, since there’s no such thing as too much maple syrup flavor. Adding Wet Walnuts (page 198) drenched in maple syrup ensures a delivery of delicious maple flavor with each bite.

I really like frozen yogurt, but only if it’s homemade. So don’t expect this to taste like the frozen yogurt that squirts out of the machine at the mall. That kind is loaded with so much other stuff that any similarity to real yogurt is purely coincidental. Homemade frozen yogurt has a delightful tanginess and is a bit lighter than traditional ice cream. I choose to keep mine pure, relying on good whole-milk yogurt to provide much of the flavor. If you do want to make a dense, richer frozen yogurt, see the variation below.

This is the perfect date ice cream. Ha ha…er, sorry about that. Ahem. Anyway, sweet dates and rum make a good duo, but having lived in San Francisco for many years, where it’s often whispered that there’s no better way to liven up a pairing than by adding a third element, I offer you this ménage à trois of flavors in one sybaritic ice cream. Be careful when heating the rum and dates: The rum can flame up, so keep an eye on the action before it gets too hot to handle.

On my first visit to Torino, I arrived in rabid pursuit of gianduja, a confection made from local hazelnuts ground with milk chocolate that is a specialty of the Piedmont region. I’d also never had gianduja gelato at the source. I did not leave disappointed. I watched with anticipation as the gelato maker at Caffè San Carlo smeared dense gelato from his gleaming freezer into a cone. It was hazelnut heaven. Use top-quality milk chocolate with at least 30 percent cocoa solids.

The cleansing zing of fresh ginger is always welcome after dinner. Its not-so-subtle spiciness is a pleasing juxtaposition to the cool creaminess of ice cream. Ginger is also reputed to aid digestion, and adding nuggets of soft Dark Chocolate Truffles (page 211) or layering the ice cream with Stracciatella (page 210) would certainly make this “medicine” go down quite easily.

A few years back, I visited Tokyo for the first time, and while there I detected a curious flavor in one of the desserts I tasted. None of the pastry-chef students I was there to teach was able to tell me exactly what it was. But later, when a couple of the students and I were poking around at the 100-yen shop (the fabulously fun Japanese equivalent of a 99¢ store), I randomly picked up a packet of beige powder with a colorful riot of Japanese lettering. My easily enthused guides got even more enthused, letting me know that I’d found exactly what I was looking for. When I got home, I discovered kinako in my local Japanese food shop and learned that it was roasted soybean powder. It has a taste similar to roasted nuts but more elusive and certainly more exotic.

There seems to be no agreement as to the origin of the word “butterscotch.” Some culinary scholars argue that its name is taken from “butter-scorched,” a theory worthy of consideration, since the process does indeed require cooking butter. Yet others academically assert that the term is derived from the word “butter scoring,” as in “cutting.” Not as in, “Dude, I scored some awesome Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream from David!” S0 I’d like to offer my own theory, one that’s a bit simpler: It’s because buttery butterscotch always tastes better with a shot of scotch in it.

There’s something about the slightly smoky, potent, and fruity flavor of black currant tea that makes it the perfect complement to chocolate (see Perfect Pairings, below). But if black currants aren’t your cup of tea, substitute another aromatic infusion, such as Earl Grey, scented with bergamot, or smoky oolong instead.

Spicy cinnamon sticks give this ice cream a stronger, far more complex flavor than ground cinnamon does. Around the winter holidays, skip the bowl of whipped cream to accompany pumpkin pie or apple crisp and treat your lucky guests to cinnamon ice cream instead. It is also very good alongside any favorite chocolate dessert, such as devil’s food cake or perched atop a homemade Brownie (pages 220 and 221).

Green tea powder, called matcha, is found in tea shops and stores that sell Japanese products, which I’m always looking for an excuse to visit since they’re great places for poking around. Matcha has a slightly pungent yet powerful taste, but its color is the real showstopper. Frothing the tea turns the custard a vivid green color.