Homemade Frozen Vanilla Custard with Salted Caramel Swirls

It’s summer! That means it’s time for ice cream – ok, who are we kidding? It’s always time for ice cream. But you know as well as I do, unless you can score a good deal at the store it can get to be a pretty expensive habit!

Last week I found an awesome deal at Best Buy for a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker – and they still have it on sale on Amazon. It makes a quart and a half in about a half hour, which is perfect for our little family. I throw the ingredients in and we can have fresh ice cream, sherbet or sorbet by the time we finish dinner. I’ve fallen in love with it – and I’ve been trying new recipes daily. It’s summer time right? So I started mixing some of my favorite flavors – who doesn’t love homemade caramel?

Vanilla Frozen Custard:

• 1-1/2 cups whole milk
• 1-1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 whole vanilla bean (about 6 inches in length)
• 2 large eggs
• 3 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar

Directions: 

1. In a medium sauce pan add your milk and cream.
2. With a sharp knife cut your vanilla bean in half and use the tip to scrape out the seeds inside. If you have problem splitting the bean cut into smaller sections and then half them. Stir the seeds into the milk and cream mixture and bring to a boil over medium heat.
3. Once your mixture is boiling reduce your heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir  occassionally making sure it doesn’t scald.
4. In a medium bowl combine your eggs, yolks and sugar. With a hand mixer beat together for 2 minutes until the mixture is smooth and doesn’t have any “lumps”
5. Pour 1 cup of your milk mixture into your egg mixture and mix on low until combined.
6. Pour your egg/milk mixture into the sauce pan with the rest of your milk mixture. Cook over medium heat until your mixture thickens.
7. Put into a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Be sure the plastic wrap touches your custard so a skin doesn’t form. Cool completely in the fridge at least 1-2 hours.
8. Assemble your ice cream machine and pour in your chilled custard mixture. Let it mix for 30 minutes. Add in any goodies and keep mixing for 5 minutes.
9. Put your ice cream in a large container and place it in the freezer for 2-3 hours for it to completely set up. You can eat it right away if you want too!

Caramel: 

• 6 Tbsp Light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp sea salt

Directions: 

1. In a medium sauce pan heat up your corn syrup until warm.
2. Add in your sugar and stir until completely melted. You will notice your caramel start to change color. Quickly add in your butter.
3. Pour in your cream. You will notice the caramel will foam up a bit at this point – it’s ok! Keep stirring.
4. Stir in your salt and stir until completely combined.
5. Allow to cool for about 30 minutes.
6. Add to your ice cream once it is done mixing with a large spoon.
7. Freeze everything together for about 2 hours until set.

Your caramel will get a bit hard in the freezer, I only used half of the mixture and reserved the rest to have on berries or … well whatever I want!

This recipe is part of the Food Challenge with nine other bloggers. You can check out the recipes below for this challenge! Each month we’ll be doing another challenge – let us know if you try any of the recipes!