Let me tell you about something wonderful and a little crazy. Last summer (i know…but i had a 6 month old baby. and a full-time job!) our friend John Mark– who is btw, literally the nicest, most wonderful, most thoughtful guy in the whole Delta– brought us a giant paper sack of sweet corn from his farm. He’s also the friend who supplied us with a raised garden bed full of the best soil for growing things ON EARTH, but I digress.
After we’d eaten enough corn on the cobb to turn us yellow on the outside, I decided I should try something a little adventurous. I mean, I love making ice creams, and I had Jeni’s ice cream at home cookbook full of savory flavors and creams mixed with alcohol and herbs, so why not attempt a sweet-corn version? Luckily, there were some recipes out there that I could draw on to get the sweet-corn flavor while I used my favorite custard base. Also, I made an AMAZING blueberry sauce for this (I mean, seriously, blueberries and sweet corn…what’s MORE summer than that?) The recipe’s not on this blog but if you want it, leave a comment. But back to the ice cream…
Sweet Corn Ice Cream
Makes 1-1.5 quarts
What you need:
4-5 ears of fresh corn on the cob (you need the cobs, too!)
2 cups heavy cream
2 cup white sugar (divided 1/2 cup +1 1/2 cups)
2 cups whole milk
6 egg yolks
What you do:
Ok, first thing’s first… you need to briefly boil your corn… just a little to make sure it’s cooked a bit. Once that’s cooled a bit, you cut the corn off the cob and cut the cobs in half.
Now you’re ready to make my very standard and most favorite plain custard base. Put the corn cobs in a saucepan (JUST the cobs, now.) You’ll fill the pan with the milk, cream, and the 1/2 cup of sugar. Then, warm the milk and cream in a saucepan until it steams but IS NOT boiling, stirring it pretty regularly. Just BARELY bring the mixture to a boil (but not quite boiling…it should be steaming, then turn off the heat. Let this sit for 10 minutes or so, steeping (consider this your corn tea!)
While you wait, you’ll need to separate your eggs into a small to medium bowl and mixing in the rest of the sugar to the yolks. Also, you’ll want to use an immersion blender (how did I LIVE without this invention before?) or a regular food processor to puree’ the corn kernels. You’re going to add them in at the end, and you DO NOT WANT to chip a tooth on hard, whole frozen corn kernels, so this is an important step. Once that’s done, set it aside for one of the last steps.
Now you can take out the corn cobs, and once that’s done, you’ll want to bring the temperature back up to almost boiling here (you don’t want to curdle the milk but you DO want to cook the egg) stirring the whole time until it has thickened enough so it will coat the back of a spoon. Add in about 2/3 of the pureed corn kernels and put the corn custard into a plastic bag and let it cool for 30 minutes or so (I make an ice in a roasting pan bath like the one below.)
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