Homeowners have really gotten to know their basements this past week, preparing for Hurricane Irene and her aftermath. Perhaps the silver lining is that we got rid of things that had little value but just found a comfy home between the water heater and the electrical panel.
We found batteries and flashlights, the manually powered radio from LLBean, the "pack n' play" that I am pretty sure our youngest (nine years old) won't be playing in anymore, loads of old cleats and ballet shoes, and lo and behold, the ice cream maker we recieved as an engagement present, many *short* years ago.
Well folks, ice cream and I have had a very close relationship for pretty much my entire life and I do believe all things are new again after making and sampling the homemade variety. If you, too, have come across an ice cream maker in your basement, I implore you, give it a try this weekend.
There are many recipes online for ice cream, and I googled "cuisinart manual" to start with, since I didn't have it, but knew there were several good, basic recipes right in the manual. Here's what I ended up making, slightly revised from a great site: www.serving-ice-cream.com:
BUTTER PECAN ICE CREAM RECIPE
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Mix in chopped pecan until they begin to brown. Cool completely. Strain mixture, seperating pecans from butter.
In a seperate bowl, mix sugar and milk together until sugar dissoles (about 1-2 minutes).
Stir in cream and vanilla and cooled melted butter.
Pour mixture into ice cream maker.
Mix about 15-20 minutes. Add cooled buttered pecans to ice cream and let churn another 5 minutes.
**Next time I would consider adding a pinch of salt. I didn't want to mess with the recipe too much, but now I am confident it would be a good addition to try.
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