Home made Vanilla ice cream

A few months ago my sister sent me a vanilla bean and I have been saving it to make something really special. After making my lemongrass granita, I decided to try and make ice cream using my precious vanilla bean. So did a bit of Googling to find a recipe and found this recipe on how to make home made vanilla ice cream. Since I didn't have an ice cream maker I blended it using a hand blender every 2 hours, and it turned out so nice and creamy just like shop-bought, or even better (according to hubby). I especially loved the little seeds making tiny black dots on the pale cream.



4 egg yolks
250 ml milk
250 ml thick cream (I used whipping cream, as I couldn't find heavy cream)
100g sugar
1 vanilla bean

1. Place milk in a pan with the vanilla bean and bring to a boil, switch off and set aside for 20 minutes to infuse the flavour.

2. While that's happening, beat yolks and sugar till thick and creamy.

3. Take the vanilla bean out, slit in half and scrape the seeds out and add to the creamed egg and sugar mixture. The pod I have put back in caster sugar to use some other time.

4. Now pour the milk into the egg mixture and mix well put everything back into the pot you cooked the milk in place over very low heat and bring just until the first bubbles appear. Don't let it curdle, was what the recipe said. it should coat the back of the spoon like the film then it is done.  let it cool then add the cream. Pour into your ice cream machine if you have one. Or if you don't have one like me, pour it into a cold metal baking tray and put it in the freezer. Take it out every 2 hours and mix with a spoon or spatula or whizz with a hand blender. You just have to do this about 3 times and then finally pour it into a plastic container with a lid and back into the freezer till you want to eat it.

Note: My cream mixture curdled while I was cooking, I over-cooked, I remembered seeing Anna Olson , a pastry chef give this tip on TV, that if custard curdles, just push it through a strainer. And it really worked, the scrambled egg effect was gone I was left with a nice cream mixture.