Vanilla Ice Cream - Creamy & Delicious

I make this recipe in my Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker (ICE-20) and it comes out so creamy and delicious - better then Hagen Daz! The secret is the custard that you make prior to adding it to the ice cream maker. How good is this ice cream? My DS decided to do a science project called Taste vs. perception. We were going to give out samples of vanilla ice cream and vanilla ice cream with red food coloring in it so it looked like strawberry ice cream, then ask people which flavor they liked better. We set up our ice cream stand outside of a movie theatre and had over a hundred people sample both ice creams (we served them in little sample cups with tiny spoons). People were telling us that it was the best vanilla or strawberry ice cream that they ever tasted. People were begging me for the recipe. One woman ate so many samples that we had to close down until she left. Word got out and people were actually coming out of the theater to sample our ice cream (staff too). Over a hundred people can't be wrong - this is great ice cream! Oh yes, the results: Only about 14% of the people figured out it was the same flavor and most of them were teenagers. The others couldn't tell and even though they thought both tasted really good, they liked the flavor of one over the other. And yes, my son got an A on his project!

• Ready In: 1 hr
• Yields: 10-14 1/2 cup servings

Ingredients

• 4  egg yolks
• 1⁄2 cup sugar
• 1  cup  whole milk
• 1  cup heavy cream
• 2  teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks with the sugar. Stir until thick (once its mixed well it will be thick).
2. In a saucepan, scald the milk (bring slowly to a boil).
3. Slowly pour the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly.
4. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan (I use a larger saucepan for this part) and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens. Be careful not to bring it to a boil or it will curdle. When you can see a film form over the back of the spoon, remove the saucepan from the heat. Let cool.
5. Once cool, stir the heavy cream and vanilla extract into the custard mixture.
6. Take out the ice cream maker's frozen bowl and set it into the ice cream maker. Put in the arm. Put the top on. Turn the ice cream maker on. Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker. You will have yummy ice cream in 25 minutes.