What are the best ingredients for making ice cream? Lately I've

>>8607257

Fuck off Nick Dibona.

>>8607257
I like caramel and pecans, cherry and chocolate chunks is good too.
But my favorite flavor of ice cream is bubble gum.
I dare you to try this, using bazooka or double bubble or whatever is cheap > flavorful:
http://fxcuisine.com/Default.asp?language=2&Display=12&resolution=high

>>8607257
If you're going for vanilla ice cream as your post suggests, basically there's two ways you can go. If you want super rich custardy French style ice cream, get:
>good quality but not crazy vanilla beans- they'll be masked somewhat by the richness of the cream and eggs, so just get some nice Madagascar ones.
>really good fresh cream and whole milk. Locally produced is likely to be fresher and often aims for somewhat higher end.
>good eggs.
>salt
>sugar

Make standard custard, infuse with scraped vanilla bean, churn. Easy.

If you want lighter ice cream where the vanilla really dominates, go for less cream and more milk, and omit the eggs, instead thickening with a little bit of cornstarch. This base actually makes really good 'sweet cream' ice cream, ie unflavored ice cream- if you're looking for a clean, refreshing ice cream, especially as a contrasting component for a rich dessert, this is a pretty great pick. But as for vanilla, infuse this base with your beans, but make sure you get REALLY good ones, as the vanilla flavor will absolutely be the dominant thing you taste here. Tahitian vanilla is fruity, floral, and aromatic, and is a great pick for something a little different- it's actually a different species of plant than Madagascar or Mexican vanilla. Another good choice, if you can find it, is Tongan vanilla. Same species as Madagascar, but different growing conditions make it a lot more complex and interesting imo.

If you're looking more for flavor ideas:
>caramelized honey
>orange and szechuan peppercorn
>mascarpone and roasted fig
>watermelon sorbet
>coconut sorbet (incredibly easy to make using ingredients literally every grocery store will have, but tastes like a million bucks if you put the effort in)
>roasted cherry ice cream
>spiced apple sorbet
>fucking cinnamon ice cream- GOAT with chocolate desserts
>caramelized white chocolate
>real mint chocolate made with actual mint
>sarsaparilla
>blackcurrant and licorice

>>8607838
I've never heard of most of those things. I just recently started learning to make ice cream, it's really fun.

>>8607838
Could you go into more detail about how to make caramelized honey and orange and Szechuan peppercorn? Those sound amazing

>>8607257
cheese ice cream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpOmmSiUNyw

>>8608812
Caramelized honey is insane if you've never made it. It's about as easy a thing to produce as there possibly is, but it changes the flavor of the honey pretty drastically, making it a lot deeper, a lot more complex, and noticeably less sweet. It becomes a really incredible ingredient for savory dishes too because of this.

Basically all you have to do is pour some honey into a saucepot- you want it to be significantly higher than the level of honey, because as it heats it will bubble up A LOT- and put it on medium heat. Cook it, stirring often, until it's turned deep amber and smells super fragrant. At this point, it's similar to hard caramel in texture- it's liquid now, but if it cools it will set up. Basically proceed from this point using a recipe for, say, caramel ice cream, mixing the caramelized honey into your ice cream base while both are hot. You might have to experiment a bit with the amount- honey can sometimes make ice cream set poorly and come out really soft, depending on what kind of base you use and what kind of machine you freeze it with etc. so you may have to do a trial batch and if you have issues, scale back the amount of caramelized honey and replace it with some sugar, or add something to help stabilize it. I generally make ice creams in the machine at work which is pretty powerful so this isn't as much of an issue. Well worth it though- the flavor is really complex and unique.

As for the orange and Szechuan peppercorn one, I made that last at a new years party as a palate cleanser, just serving a tiny scoop per person, but it would be pretty great as a full dessert or a component thereof as well. Would probably go pretty well with chocolate. Production wise, you basically steep some crushed szechuan peppercorns and the zest from about 4 or 5 oranges into your milk and sugar. Bring it up to just before a simmer, then let it sit for about an hour or two. Cont

>>8609427
Strain the orange and peppercorn mixture to remove any pieces of peppercorns, then use the infused milk to make a standard custard. I think I did 1.5 cups whole milk and half a cup of cream for the infusion mix, and then used 6 yolks.

Once the custard is done, mix in a further 1 cup cream and chill, then churn like usual. If you can get them, use some good oranges- really nice tangerines make this a pretty stellar ice cream.

I also forgot to suggest smoked vanilla ice cream. GOAT in chocolate/caramel desserts, and with sticky toffee pudding if you ever make that.

Anyone ever tried making fried ice cream?

Money. Put it in the cashier's hand at the store and you get ice cream, all that you want, and any type.

>>8609442
thanks anon