More Ice Cream Experiments: (Creamsicle, Dulce)

So I cook a ton, not sure why the recipes posts are increasingly ice cream focused, but hey, its summer... I've been having a ton of good luck with ice cream making lately- using Cook's Illustrated's phenomenal recipe for Khulfi with no variations, and then building on other people's recipes for dulce de leche ice cream, fresh mint ice cream, and David Liebowitz's creamsicle ice cream from "The Perfect Scoop"- I book I find inspiring in its ideas, but tedious in its actual recipe execution- the recipes are both needlessly complex and needlessly rich- my friend actually got sick once making the chocolate ice cream with its insane number of eggs. I really dont see the need for more than four eggs in an ice cream custard. No matter, I did like his creamsicle idea as a nice idea and a non-artificial version and reference to wonderful childhood memories of creamsicles from the ice cream man. And Liebowitz's idea of using sour cream in ice cream is also an incredible one and is inspiring more ideas for me (key lime, peaches and cream and others- see below.) And hey, its really the only halfway decent ice cream book since my battered childhood copy of The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Cookbook.

So with that- my enhanced no-cook version of

Creamsicle Ice Cream

2 Cups sour cream (one pint)

1 Cup Half and Half or Cream

3 Oranges - zested and juiced

1/2 Cup Sugar

2 Tsp Vanilla

Combine zest and sugar in a food processor or blender. Add remaining ingredients and blend until a consistent texture. Freeze, maybe adding mini chocolate chips or or bits of chocolate as well.

Dulce De Leche Ice Cream

First- let me just say that dulce de leche is about as brainless a custard ice cream as you can get. All I've been doing is putting in the blender three egg yolks and three cups of cream, half and half, or whatever combo until nicely blended. Then drop in can of dulce (or about 10 oz) in the blender, and blend- the good thing here is you can fully blend it, or fully blend some of it, and then partially blend in the rest to give it more of an interesting textural contrast. Then, pour into a pan and gently raise the heat until a boil comes and the custard thickens. Chill and freeze in the ice cream maker, adding toasted nuts as you see fit.

Mexican dulce de leche, Cajeta, is made with goat's milk for an added tang. Here again I was wondering whether a half cup of goats milk would add this touch, or even a bit of sour cream into the above recipe.

As I said before, I feel mixed about The Perfect Scoop book, but like some of the recipes concepts. The idea of using sour cream is very intriguing, and once I'm back from China this summer I'm planning to try a few recipes- a Peaches and Cream with sour cream, and a Key Lime Pie. Here are my rough drafts, if you feel inspired to try them, let me know how they work out:

Peaches and Cream

1.5 Cups Sour Cream (or creme fraische)

1.5 Cups Half and Half or cream (depending on your level of indulgence)

1/2 cup sugar

4 Peaches - diced

2 tsp vanilla

3 Egg Yolks

2 T minced candied ginger

Make a custard by blending and then cooking the sour cream, cream, egg yolks and sugar and egg yolks. Stir in vanilla. Reblend the mixture with one of the peaches and peach juice, and freeze according to instructions. Partway through, mix in the rest of the peaches and candied ginger.

Key Lime Pie

I'm imagining basically the same as creamsicle, just using 6 limes and their juice and zest, maybe stirring in crushed graham crackers.