Cinnamon Roasted Walnut Ice Cream

Edit: as of this post, this blog is on indefinite hiatus. I may do a post hear and there (?), and may revive it on a weekly basis at some future time, but for now, there's just too much to do, with too little time. This blog doesn't presently fit my time budget.

We ate this homemade ice cream about an hour and a half ago, and I'm still thinking about it. My thoughts don't get so easily hung up on foods, and when they do, it's a sign of it being something really special. Last week I made grilled pizza, and that hung in my thoughts for some time too, but more on that in a post soon to come.
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The base of this homemade ice cream is creme anglaise, which, ironically, is French for English cream. It removes the need for using heavy cream, which has a higher saturate fat content and is more expensive. Yet, creme anglaise as an ice cream base makes a rich and full flavored ice cream. Richer than cream based recipes. Which one is better is up to individual taste.

Searching the web for a recipe will usually yield one calling for cream, but it's not necessary, as using milk is a-okay. The recipe I used is from Michel Roux's Eggs. A remarkable book, one I highly recommend, and I'll be reviewing it at a later time. This master french chef uses regular ole milk. He doesn't specify, but I used whole.

2 cups milk
1/2 cup plus 2 T sugar
1 vanilla bean (or one to one and a half tsp. extract)
6 egg yolks

To see how to put it all together, a how to make creme anglais video can be found here.

Chilling the Creme Anglais
Two methods: After cooking, transfer the creme into a bowl, and chill over a bowl of ice. Immediately begin churning it in your ice cream freezer (as Michel Roux does). Or, if multiple sources are correct, a better flavor and ice cream creaminess may be achieved by chilling the creme in the refrigerator for 3 or 4 hours. This is what I did.

Cinnamon Roasted Walnuts
I found a recipe at Up My Kilt (recipes from a kilted kitchen), which I adapted for the ice cream. My adaptation is as follows, and is roughly 1/4 of the recipe provided at UMK:

4 or 5 ounces walnuts, chopped into quarters and halves
egg white, enough to wet the walnuts
1 tsp water
1 1/2 T sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon (approx.)

I spooned in egg white from the whites I didn't use in the creme anglais (it calls for only the yolks), using enough to wet the walnuts.

Note that while my adapted recipe is approximately 1/4 of the original recipe, my sugar content is less than 1/4 of the original recipe, which would have called for 3 T (12 T = 3/4 cup). Considering the sweetness of the ice cream, I cut the walnut sugar down to 1 1/2 T.

I mixed all the walnut ingredients in a heavy pan, and instead of roasting in the oven, I cooked them over the stovetop with the burner on medium high for about 10 minutes, moving the walnuts into a clean pan a few minutes into it to prevent excessive burning of the eggs and sugar that was sticking to the pan. Stir frequently. A slight burning will occur, but this is part of the flavor, and isn't strong.

Mix Walnuts Into Ice Cream, and Harden
After the ice cream has been churned in your ice cream freezer, scoop into a freezer proof container, and mix in the cinnamon roasted walnuts. Place in your freezer for 3 or 4 hours and eat.

Tip: if the sources I found on the web are right, for those using an ice and rock salt machine, crushed ice produces creamier ice cream than cubes.

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