Sunday, August 21, 2011

Brown bread ice cream with blackberry ripple

I love Tillamook's marionberry pie ice cream, so I decided to try something similar with my blackberry jam. I even set aside a few pieces of baked sweet pie crust for this purpose when I made a lemon blackberry tart last weekend (which I guess I didn't get around to posting, sorry!). But looking around for recommendations on how to do the berry swirl step, I found this recipe and I remembered how much John likes the brown bread ice cream at Scoops. I'm not sure that brown bread was a better approach than pie crust, but it's certainly good (denser bread and maybe more brown sugar would have made it even better). And the blackberry ripple is just lovely.


2 c half-and-half
1/2 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c 1% milk
1/2 c cream

2 large slices dense wheat bread, crusts removed
3 T melted butter
3 T brown sugar

4 T blackberry jam
2 T brandy

Pour the half-and-half into a saucepan. Scrape the insides of the vanilla bean into the half-and-half, then drop the bean pod in too. Heat over low until it smells and tastes as vanilla-y as you want, at least 10 minutes; remove the bean pod but leave in the seedy bits. Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together. When you're ready, stir a bit of the vanilla dairy into the eggs to temper, then stir the eggs into the pot. Heat, stirring constantly, until thickened slightly. Pour into a bowl (straining if needed), stir in the milk and cream, and let cool in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 375F and line a baking sheet with parchment. With the food processor, grind the bread into coarse crumbs. Stir the bread crumbs and the brown sugar into the melted butter. Spread the mixture on the baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until well browned but not burned. Let cool completely. Taste any bits that seem like they might be burnt and discard if they're not delicious.

While the custard and brown bread are cooling, go to a dance class at Hipline (Ziva was good today!). When you're back and done with lunch, stir together the jam and brandy until you have a smooth, pourable, but still very thick syrup. Churn the ice cream for 15 min, add the brown bread, and churn for another 5 minutes. Scoop 1/3 of the ice cream into a container, dollop half the blackberry over the ice cream, add another layer of ice cream, then the rest of the blackberry, then the rest of the ice cream. Stick a spoon through the layers in a few places to marble, then put in the freezer.

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