It always feels slightly too luxurious to buy whole vanilla beans from the store. They are often sold in an expensive package as a single bean. However, the use of real vanilla beans in this recipe brings the flavor of this homemade French vanilla ice cream to the next level. After scraping out the insides of the bean and adding it to the ice cream base, you are left with specks of tiny black vanilla bean fragments scattered throughout the ice cream itself.
I believe that the chocolate stout you use here is important. You want something sweet, that doesn’t taste too much like your traditional stout…for this, try to find Samuel Smith’s Chocolate Stout, from an amazing brewery out of England that has been around for a long time. Out of the dozens of chocolate stouts I’ve had an opportunity to try in my lifetime, there is something unique about Samuel Smith’s product that stands alone in terms of a sweetness profile that tastes like real chocolate.
While bartending, we served this particular chocolate stout fairly often over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. People loved it.
The recipe below makes two large Vanilla Bean Ice Cream & Chocolate Stout Floats.
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream & Chocolate Stout Floats
Ingredients
For the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream:
- 3 cups heavy cream
- 1.5 cups whole milk
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar
- 7 large egg yolks
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1 whole vanilla bean, split down the middle, ( insides scraped out and finely minced)
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
For the Chocolate Stout Floats:
- 1 bottle Samuel Smith’s Chocolate Stout
- 2 large scoops of Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
- 2 large mugs, (chilled)
- 1 Tbsp chocolate shavings, (from 1 small piece of dark chocolate)
Instructions
For the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream:
- Cut through the center of the vanilla bean and open up the pod.
- Scrape out the insides of the vanilla bean and minced the scraped mixture on your cutting board.
- Carefully set the minced vanilla bean paste aside.
- In a medium sauce pot, combine ½ cup white granulated sugar with ½ cup heavy cream and the 1.5 cups whole milk.
- Bring contents to a gentle simmer on the stovetop, stirring to incorporate and dissolve the sugar.
- Reduce the heat to low.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ¼ cup sugar with your 7 large egg yolks and the remaining heavy cream, and whisk together.
- Whisk in ½ cup of the warm simmering liquid to the cold egg yolk, sugar, and cream mixture, adding the warm liquid slowly while stirring constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs.
- Carefully add another ½ cup of the hot liquid to the egg yolk mixture and whisk to combine.
- *The idea here is to bring the cold egg yolks, cream, and sugar mixture up to higher temperature without scrambling the egg yolks.
- Now, slowly whisk the warmed egg liquid mixture into your remaining cream and milk liquid on the stove, keeping the heat on low.
- Add the minced fresh vanilla bean, plus the vanilla extract. Whisk gently to combine.
- Cook and stir the mixture on low heat, cooking until the liquid has thickened and coats the back of a spoon.
- *This should take about 10-12 minutes, cooking on very low heat.
- Cool the ice cream base mixture in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
- Strain the cooled mixture into your ice cream maker and process for 30-40 minutes, or until you have reached your desired consistency.
- Set ice cream aside in airtight containers to cool in the freezer.
- Chill two large mugs in the freezer.
For the Chocolate Stout Floats:
- Once the ice cream has cooled down and solidified, add a large scoop of the ice cream to each of the large chilled mugs.
- Open a bottle of Samuel Smith’s Chocolate Stout, and split the contents of the bottle between the two mugs.
- Garnish each mug with the dark chocolate shavings.
- *You can use a Microplane to shave a piece of dark chocolate over the chocolate stout floats.
- Serve cold.