Note: Over all, I’ve found that the best way to make this ice cream is to make it over 2 days.
Day 1
Make the Cream Base
2 cups half & half
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
Heat the half & half, heavy cream, and sugar in a pot on medium low heat until the sugar is dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the egg yolk mixture into the hot cream mixture while continually stirring.
(Note – the stream in my picture is WAY too fast! I was having trouble holding the camera and pouring at the same time. If you do it, pour it much more slowly and thus you will have a thinner stream. Also, you would ideally be whisking while you are pouring, but alas, I only have 2 hands.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon (~8-10 minutes). Important! Don’t let the mixture boil, otherwise it will curdle!
This step is optional. You can filter your mixture through a sieve to ensure super smooth ice cream. This is the first time I did that (partly because I had some egg solids due to my poor pouring & lack of mixing earlier!) If you did everything right, you shouldn’t have too many egg solids.
Finally, let the mixture cool a bit and then put in the refrigerator, ideally overnight, but at least until cold (several hours?).
Day 2
Pour the cream mixture into the ice cream maker and make ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instructions. I personally have a Lello Gelato Pro which I LOVE because it has its own condenser and thus I can make ice cream whenever I want on a whim.
While the ice cream maker is whirring away, toast 1/3 cup of black sesame seeds in the toaster oven. I spread them out in a thin layer and just pop them in the toaster oven. Don’t worry if you hear some popping noises. It’s just some of the seeds “exploding” open. Not to worry. The toasted sesame seeds should smell fragrant.
Grind up the sesame seeds in a spice grinder. I’ve found that it’s important to freshly grind the seeds because the powder quickly loses flavor as it is exposed to the atmosphere. You should end up with a glorious, luxurious black powder.
Once the ice cream maker is done (around 40 minutes), stir in the sesame powder. The ice cream should still be soft enough that you can do this very easy.
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i LOVE black sesame ice cream! just moved back to the states from japan and miss the food so much. can’t wait to try this! thank you!
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I made a few adjustments to make this better after making it according to the recipe twice.
1.) never pour the egg directly into the cream. Temper the eggs first by adding small amounts of hot cream to the eggs, in order to bring the temperature up without worry. trying to drizzle egg yolks into a hot cream base is just a nightmare, and is easily avoided by tempering.
2.) this recipe freezes as hard as a rock. Reserve 1/2 cup of the heavy cream, and just before you put the ice cream into the machine, whip up the other 1/2 cup of cream into medium or stiff peaks, and fold it into the ice cream base. once combined (stir as little as possible! fold!) add to maker.
3.) The sesame is very oily. I pressed it through a sifter in order to get some aeration, and it let the sesame distribute properly through the ice cream. If you don’t break it up, it will clump.
4.) after several minutes of churning, add the ground sesame into the ice cream as it churns. You’ll get much better results with fewer lumps of sesame and better flavor distribution. add the sesame to the churning ice cream in small doses (I did it in four.) and the results are vastly improved.
5.) don’t go by the suggested churning time here: use your own maker’s suggested times (my cuisinart is 25-30)
Overall, the recipe base is perfect, but folding in the whipped cream makes this much softer and creamier, as well as the rest of the stuff mentioned above, are what will turn this into something entirely more awesome.
How much does this recipe make???????????