Midnight Delight; Earl Grey Elaagen Dazs; The Seven-Hour Ice Cream Post

This week, I got to hang out with my good friend, Elan (you might recognize him from The Patty Pan Post, and help him make some Earl Grey ice cream. He told me it’d be super easy and wouldn’t take that long. Seven hours later, we got to try it.

Granted, we did step out for a bite to eat and had to make a stop at Berkeley Bowl. So during most of those seven hours, I stirred 1 pint of heavy cream and 1 pint of whole milk with 3 organic Earl Grey tea bags while Elan freaked out about the amount of sugar required by the recipe. Apparently, it was a lot. He calmed down after decided to add about half the amount. I stirred and stirred and then stirred some more while the mixture was slowly being heated over low heat. Then we strained the cream and then slowly poured it in with six beaten egg yolks. Then we realized the custard had to be thickened, so we dumped it back in the saucepan along with 2 more teabags. Once the custard was thick enough to pass the back-of-the-spoon test (where it holds its shape when you run your finger down the back of the spoon), we covered the custard with saran wrap, so that the plastic was touching the custard and stuck it in the fridge I’m not even sure how long. While waiting for it to cool down, Elan and I had some girl talk (he’s one of my best guy friends to girl talk with), I got to play some piano and anger the neighbors, and then his friend/temporary housemate, Ken, came home and slipped on some bright yellow pants with the word WAFFLES written down the side in hot pink. Those pants made my night.

           

Like a sleepy Cinderella, I was going to skedaddle when I saw it was midnight, but Elan convinced me to stay another hour or so to witness the churning of the ice cream using his vintage 1970’s ice cream maker that requires not only ice, but 2 whole cartons of salt! FINALLY after an hour or so of noisy churning, we got to taste the finished product. I must say it was well worth the seven hours- not too sweet, silky smooth in texture, and with just the right amount of Early Grey flavor. Elan transferred the ice cream to an empty Haagen Dazs carton, for which he asked me to make a hand-drawn label. I jokingly called it Elaagen Dazs, which I thought was quite clever but he begged to differ. This whole event ended at 1:30 AM. What a night!