Saturday, June 9, 2012

Alfredo Ice Cream - Weird but Wonderful

How many times have you craved the wonderful taste of Alfredo sauce but couldn't have it because it was too darned hot?

If I'm honest, probably never and that totally wasn't the inspiration for this dish at all. But it sounded good to say as an opening, right? *puppyeyes* Just go along with it, for my ego's sake if nothing else, okay? Please? T^T

Seriously, what really happened was that I was going to recreate my favorite garlic ice cream that I had with a dear friend at The Stinking Rose. Everything there comes with garlic. It was a stinky but wonderful lunch. And the decor is just a trip. Anyways, we had the garlic ice cream and it was sooo yummy. So when I had some cream and the like left over from my Chocolate Heat Ice cream, I decided to whip it up. However, my recipe called for some more solid flavor material than I really felt comfortable throwing in. I mean...8 oz...yikes. Can you imagine 8oz of garlic?

So I was debating what to do when I realized that garlic goes into Alfredo which is also dairy based...so why not make an Alfredo ice cream. And don't worry too much about my sanity, I figured it'd probably be horrible, but why the heck not!With that in mind, I began getting the ingredients together and it was a blast. And turned out super duper yummy.




Alfredo Ice Cream

Difficulty:  A bit hard like cheddar, but not like Parmesan.
Time: About a hour  + Two hours for temperature adjustments. An hour+ for set up.

Mise en Place
  • Pot with Water
  • Stainless Steel bowl (needs to fit over the pot for a water bath)
  • Hand Blender(or Blender or Food Processor)
  • Garlic Press (If you don't have already minced garlic)
  • Mixing Bowl (2)
  • Plastic Wrap
  • Ice Cream Maker(With bowl prefrozen and ready to go)

Ingredients
  • 1 Cup of Whole Milk
  • garlic powder
  • Cajun seasoning
  • 5 oz Cream cheese-softened
  • 2 Tbsp Pesto (I get premade because Pine nuts are super expensive)
  • Garlic to Taste (I put about 2 oz in)
    1 oz Parmesean Cheese
  • 1 oz Mozzarella Cheese
  • 2 Cups of Cream 1/2 cup of Sugar


First things first, put the water onto boil. While doing that, put the softened cream cheese, the pesto, the garlic, Parmesean and Mozzarella into the mixing bowl. Using the hand blender, or if you don't have one, you can use a blender or food processor (Just make sure to clean them really really well so you get all the 'solids' you need) Make it as smooth as possible.

In another small mixing bowl (microwaveable if you please), put the cream and sugar together, heating for about 20 seconds at a time then stirring until you don't hear the scrap of the sugar which means it's dissolved into the cream. But don't let it boil. Now let the mixture cool.

In the stainless steel bowl, put the milk, cajun seasoning and garlic powder. (I use cajun seasoning because I like a alfredo with a kick). Turn the pot with the boiling water down so it just simmers. Then put the stainless steel bowl over the top so that it acts like a water bath. Let it simmer till it's warm, stirring frequently enough that you don't get a milk skin. (you know, that nasty little film that milk leaves after a while). Once it's nice and warm (About ten minutes) remove it from the water bath and cover with the plastic wrap nice and secure. Let it sit for about an hour to cool down to room temperature.

While that's cooling at room temp, take the 'should be cool by this point' cream and sugar and whisk it into the cream cheese mixture until everything is nice and homogenous (not lumpy and it all looks like the same consistency.) 

Side note: If you're using the food processor or blender bit, you can just add the sugar cream to this mixture while it's still there and blend it that way without putting it in another container. Fewer dirty dishes, the better. 

Now that that's done, put it into the fridge and after the milk is done, do the same to it. All the heat does is kinda...infuse the garlic taste into the milk. You can do this with the minced garlic or even fresh garlic, but this way is a bit more potent and viable. 
Once everything is nice and cool, remove from the fridge and prepare your ice cream maker. Get it started, pour both bowls of ingredients into the ice cream maker and let it do its thing until it's looks like...well...ice cream. Should take about 30 minutes. Put it into a container and freeze. Should be set up in an hour or so after that. Yum Yum.



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