Beer and Nuts Ice Cream
If there ever was a “man” ice cream I think this is pretty close!
I am quite a big fan of David Lebovitz and a friend told me about his book The Perfect Scoop which is packed with ice cream recipes. In there he has a Guinness-Milk Chocolate ice cream recipe which formed the base idea of this Beer and Nuts Ice Cream. I am quite surprised that with the huge interest in craft beer we do not see more beer ice cream. It seems like such a logical step to me but there doesn’t seem to be that many recipes out there.
I am very happy with how this ice cream turned out. It certainly has a good beer taste and I think the secret was to cut back on the fat content of the custard by using milk in stead of cream for half of the custard base. I was a bit worried that with the water content of the beer the ice cream would have large crystals but it was not an issue. In retrospect the 100g nuts is quite a lot of nuts for this quantity of ice cream so amend the quantity to your taste.
Next experiments will be with some lagers and IPAs. Boston Breweries makes a delicious Pumpkin Ale which I think will make a special ice cream.
Beer and Nuts Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 250ml full cream milk
- 100g sugar (half a cup)
- pinch of salt
- 4 large egg yolks
- 250ml cream
- 250ml Stout Beer (I used Mitchell's Raven Stout)
- seeds from 1 vanilla pod
- 50g - 100g roasted mixed nuts, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Gently warm the milk, sugar and salt over a medium heat while stirring to dissolve the sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk over the eggs while whisking briskly and return to the saucepan. Stir the mixture constantly over a medium heat until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat and whisk in the cream until well combined. Then add the stout beer and vanilla seeds and mix until well combined. Chill the mixture in the fridge for at least 6 hours – overnight is best – and prepare in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions. As soon as the mixture has churned, mix in the nuts and freeze.
Wine suggestion from Conrad Louw:
Stout will tone down the sweetness of the ice cream, thus the focus of this dish is rather on nutty & nice and not rich & creamy. So I would prefer to compliment the beer and nuts and accordingly stay away from overly sweet sticky dessert wines. Therefore, I will move towards nutty fortified wines to compliment the ice cream – something like Monis Medium Cream Sherry, slightly sweet but boasts with richness and nutty complexity. De Krans Tawny Port is another alternative.
Daniel Etherington
Aug 22, 2013
Intriguing. Is it good? How’s the nut-beer balance? Funny you mention pumpkin beer too, as I just bought one today – Zucca, which is 17% pumpkin/squash. http://www.baladin.it/en/productdisplay/zucca
Hein
Aug 22, 2013
Hey Daniel.The malty flavour was prominent and delicious and it tasted like beer! Bitter beers will be a challenge. I added the nuts for texture – 100 gram was a bit too much and next time I will reduce it. Still thinking what to do with the pumpkin ale – it has cinnamon and nutmeg etc – I want to add another flavour to the mix – not sure what yet. Let me know if you make ice cream with any beer.
Daniel Etherington
Aug 23, 2013
Could you use pumpkin ale and some pumpkin puree? Plus some extra nutmeg etc? I’m not really much of ice-cream maker at this point, but really intrigued by these flavours.
Hein
Aug 23, 2013
Will do a basic recipe with just the ale and see what it is like but been thinking of a browned butter & sage or burnt sugar addition
Daniel Etherington
Aug 23, 2013
Sounds great.