January 11, 2012

Bit-O-Honey Ice Cream

On New Year's Day, my friend Kyle showed up to my pizza party with bottles of wine and bags of Bit-O-Honey. "I got a whole case of these for Christmas," he explained. "You should make something with them."

While we briefly considered putting a few on a dessert pizza, I knew I could rise to the BOH challenge. My initial idea was ice cream, but I had to figure out how to incorporate the candy. Chopped & mixed in to almost-frozen, churning ice cream would create little hard chunks...not good.  I didn't think they would melt very well, either. But then, after browsing around online, I had a BRILLIANT idea...freeze several candies for about 10 minutes, just until they are hard enough to blitz to a powder in the Vitamix, then slowly melt the powder into the hot custard as it thickened.

AND IT WORKED.

Damn, I love that VEETAmix.


Bit-O-Honey Ice Cream

makes about 1 quart

6 Bit-O-Honey candies
(unwrapped, frozen, blitzed to a powder & kept cold)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey
pinch of Kosher salt
5 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, cold
  • Stir together the milk, sugar, honey, and salt in a medium saucepan and heat just until the honey & sugar dissolve and you see little bubbles forming around the edge.
  • Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the pan.
  • Stirring constantly, heat the custard over medium heat until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. As you do this, slowing add in the Bit-O-Honey powder so that it melts into the custard.
  • Strain the mixture into a small bowl. Stir in the heavy cream. Chill until cold, then churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

    1 comment:

    Anonymous said...

    Awesome! I'll have to try this recipe soon. The Vitamix is on the short list of "Get" items for the kitchen. My two Warings are starting to show their age.

    John B