Kingdom Hearts Sea Salt Ice Cream

My stepson, Riley, has been asking if we could try this recipe for a long time. I'm glad that we finally made it. It's really more of a custard with an amazingly rich flavor. The custard base is basic, so you could probably make it with any flavoring you'd like (in case you're a little leery of making salt-rich ice cream).

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 C milk
1 C + 1 tsp sugar
1 C heavy cream
1-1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
sea-salt to taste
blue and green food coloring (optional)

Crack 2 eggs into the bowl and whisk well for a few minutes.

Add one cup of sugar into the eggs and continue to whisk well until creamy.

Heat the milk in the saucepan over medium heat until warmish hot while constantly stirring with the wooden spoon (do not use a metal spoon it will scratch your pot and make the milk burn easier). The milk should be right before boiling, but do not let it boil. Do not heat too fast or the milk will curdle. Whole milk works best and makes the creamiest and most delicious ice cream, however any milk will do in a pinch (we used 2%).

Add the egg and sugar mixture into the warm milk and heat over medium to low heat until thickened. This will take a while and the mixture may boil a bit. If it does reduce your heat to low (to prevent further boiling) and keep stirring until it has the consistency of very thin pudding. If you want a slightly richer ice cream, add the extra teaspoon of sugar to this step.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and stick it in the fridge to cool.

Once your mixture has cooled to room temperature or below, take it out of the fridge and add the heavy cream and vanilla.

Add sea-salt slowly and taste until you have a slightly salty but sweet flavor to your liking. I like my sea-salt ice cream very salty and put a little under a teaspoon of salt in. Some people like less, some people like more.

Add the food coloring. To get the traditional kingdom hearts color, 10 drops of blue and 2 drops of green.

Pour mixture into your ice cream freezer and follow the instructs for your freezer.

You may need to let it run for 1-2 hours. You will have to wait longer than normal for sea salt ice-cream to freeze because the salt lowers the freezing temperature.

If you want harder ice cream, put in a freezer-safe container and freeze hard for several hours.

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Pineapple Ice Cream Bowls

This recipe is so easy that I'm only including the final picture. It's a bit messy, but soooo delicious. We had these at the Polynesian Culture Center in Hawaii many, many years ago. I don't even know if they still serve them. Hey, I'm all for another trip to the Islands, but this is the next best thing (sort of).

Ingredients:
1/2 pineapple per person
vanilla ice cream of choice (we chose homemade)
blueberries

Cut the top (leafy stuff) off the pineapple. Cut the pineapple in half to make two bowls. Scoop or cut out core. Cut around the edge of the pineapple. Make several radial cuts from center to edge. This makes the pineapple easier to scoop out with your ice cream.

Fill with ice cream. Top with blueberries.

Eat!

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Fresh Raspberry & Blueberry Ice Cream

If you ask my favorite ice cream flavor, I would say "Mom's homemade vanilla." Yup, I know, it sounds really boring, but I love my mom's homemade vanilla ice cream. So why am I blogging about berry-filled ice cream? Because it combines my mom's basic vanilla with my two favorite berries.

And it turned out better than I imagined.

Ingredients:

5 eggs, separated

2 C whipping cream, whipped

2-1/4+ C sugar

dash of salt

1 can evaporated milk (12-13 oz)

2 tsp vanilla

2 C raspberries

1 C blueberries

Whip cream until stiff.

Separate eggs.

Beat egg white until stiff.

Add sugar gradually and continue beating until stiff.

Beat yolks.

Add salt, vanilla, and milk. Combine whipped cream and egg whites.

Fold into yolk mixture.

Puree berries.

Pour mixture and berries into ice cream freezer.

Add milk to mark on can (usually 2-1/2" from top). Freeze as directed.

When done freezing, put in freezer safe container to cure for at least one hour.

We tried some after it had been setting for 15 minutes. Tasted great, but didn't have the right consistency. See.

It was much better an hour later.

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