Course: Dessert
Cuisine: North American
Keyword: frozen custard, ice cream, vanilla
Prep Time: 33 minutes minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes minutes
aging and freezing times: 16 hours hours
Total Time: 16 hours hours 45 minutes minutes
Servings: 8 servings
Calories: 266kcal
Vanilla Frozen Custard is a rich dessert of cream, milk, and egg custard flavored with double the vanilla and slow-churned until frozen. The total prep time includes inactive prep for aging and freezing the custard for best results. Begin a day ahead of when you plan to serve it.
Print Recipe
- 1 6" vanilla bean ends trimmed off
- 2 cups (500 milliliters) whole milk
- 1 cup (250 milliliters heavy cream
- 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) kosher salt
- 6 large egg yolks
- 3/4 cup (175 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons (10 milliliters) pure vanilla extract
Prepare the Vanilla Bean
Make a slit down the pod's length with the paring knife's tip. Next, use the back of your knife blade to scrape the pod seeds from the vanilla pod. Add these scrapings to a 4-quart saucier with the empty pod, whole milk, heavy cream, and kosher salt.
Heat the Milks and Temper the Eggs
Cool, Then Age the Custard Base
Churn, Then Freeze the Vanilla Frozen Custard
Remove the vanilla bean pod and stir the custard base well before churning. Pour the vanilla custard base into the frozen bowl of an ice cream machine. Churn the custard until it is the consistency of soft serve ice cream or about 20 minutes. Scrape the churned vanilla frozen custard into 1-quart ice cream containers once it reaches the proper consistency. Place the lids on the containers and freeze the custard upside-down for at least 4 hours. Serve this vanilla frozen custard on its own, as the base for sundaes, or a la mode-style with your favorite cake, pie, or cobbler recipe.
Swaps and Substitutions:
- Replace the heavy cream with whole milk for a lighter frozen custard.
- Omit the kosher salt for a low-sodium frozen custard.
- You can replace the scraped vanilla bean with 1 1/2 teaspoons (8 grams) jarred vanilla bean paste.
Tips and Techniques:
- If you notice a small amount of curdling in your custard, you can strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve to remove them. However, you'll have to remake the custard if there's a considerable amount of curdling.
- Aging frozen custard base gives the protein in the mixture time to plump up, as well as bind with the water, resulting in a fuller, creamier mouthfeel after its churned.
- You can churn the custard base after chilling it in an ice-bath for 4 hours, but the results will be far inferior.
- If your ice cream machine has an "Ice Cream" setting, use that to churn it to the proper consistency.
- It's important to freeze the custard after churning it to give it time to set up.
- Use an ice cream scoop dipped in water and shaken dry to scoop the vanilla frozen custard out of the containers and into a serving bowl.
- Frozen custard has gone bad when it smells off, has a grainy consistency, or has large chunks of ice crystals on its surface.
Storage Instructions:
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Store frozen custard in the freezer for six weeks if you store it properly.
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Scoop the frozen custard and return it to the freezer soon after to prevent it from melting and forming ice crystals.
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Store your ice cream containers upside down in the freezer.
Calories: 266kcal | Carbohydrates: 26g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 178mg | Sodium: 97mg | Potassium: 133mg | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 714IU | Vitamin C: 0.2mg | Calcium: 109mg | Iron: 0.4mg