Bourbon and Cigar Ice Cream
By: David Rollins
Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010 - 6:05pm

Ingredients




2 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
salt

5 egg yolks
2 pods black cardamom
a few gratings of cinnamon

1 small Cuban cigar
1 vanilla bean
10 dried Mission figs, chopped
1/4 cup Bourbon

Preparation

1 In a medium saucepan, combine 1 C of the cream with the milk, sugar and a good pinch of salt. Warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until frothy bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan. 2 Turn off the heat and add the whole black cardamom pods, cigar, and cinnamon. Use a small paring knife to slit the vanilla from end to end, then scrape the seeds out. Add the seeds and empty pod to the cream mixture. Cover and infuse for an hour. Meanwhile, lightly beat the egg yolks in a medium bowl. Chop the figs and soak them in the Bourbon. 3 Nearly fill a large bowl with ice and water. Rest a smaller bowl in this ice bath. (The smaller bowl should be big enough to hold all of the ingredients comfortably.) Pour the remaining 1 C cream into the smaller bowl, to chill it. Set a fine-meshed sieve over the cream. 4 After an hour’s infusion, re-warm the cream mixture until frothy bubbles again appear around the edge. Dribble about half of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Then pour this yolk-cream mixture back into the saucepan and stir to combine. Cook over low heat until the custard coats the back of a spoon (175-180º F). Stir constantly and do not overcook, or the custard will curdle. 5 Strain the hot custard into the cold cream. Push firmly on the cigar to extract the liquid it holds. Cool the custard to below 70º F by stirring it slowly over the ice bath. Refrigerate the custard in a sealed container for 4 hours. 6 If you have an ice cream maker, freeze the custard in it, mixing in the figs and Bourbon into the just-churned ice cream. 7 If you don’t have an ice cream maker, freeze the custard for an hour, then mix it with a stick blender. Return to the freezer for an hour, then mix again. After a third hour, mix a final time, then fold in the figs and Bourbon.

About


The great thing about ice cream – aside from how happy it universally seems to make people – is how marvelous a canvas it is for culinary creativity. Over the holidays at a friend’s house we found an issue of Fine Cooking we’d somehow missed (June/July 2009) that featured an inspiring spread on flavour combinations for home-made ice cream.
We’d never made ice cream, but are always discussing novel taste combinations and looking for a new kitchen thrill. This first ice cream adventure turned out to be the most fun we’ve had cooking so far this year. We can’t believe how good these flavours are.
This technique is from the David Lebovitz article in the Fine Cooking issue mentioned above. The cigar and Bourbon  combo below was inspired by a recent trip to Cuba, and by the Bourbon itself.

Comments:
Sue Busch

This sounds really, really interesting.  Not sure if I'm brave enough to try a cigar in my ice-cream, but it's definitely made it to my list of "maybe give this a go".  Very intriguing.