Jul

Champagne-Vanilla Ice Cream

Sean Sellers in Sparkling Wines, Champagne, Blow the Bank, Desserts Bricout, Champagne, food, Ice Cream, Recipe, Tesco

InterWined Food
Each week, InterWined.com pairs one great wine with one great meal and publishes the results along with the recipe in a little feature it likes to call ‘Blow the Bank’.

Yesterday, it was Gingerbread; and today it’s Champagne-Vanilla Ice Cream, as ‘Blow the Bank’ returns a touch of class to the 4^th of July.

Sometime toward the end of last year, the great and always entertaining Rowena of Rubber Slippers in Italy and I were discussing the pleasures of foods and wines, when Rowena suggested wine ice cream. It had never occurred to me to add wine to ice cream, even though I had tried all sorts of other concoctions, from the very good addition of balsamic vinegar to the very bad addition of Tabasco sauce.

Why Tabasco sauce? Well, I love it — almost as much as I love ice cream. I’ve even been to the McIlhenny family’s Avery Island in Louisiana where it’s manufactured (with InterWined’s Jacob Gaffney, in fact). Seen the Buddha; seen the alligators; bought a t-shirt that was ruined when the city of New Orleans and my ground-floor apartment were flooded in the summer of 1994. So, why shouldn’t I add between 20 and 30 drops of Tabasco to my ice cream? Because the fiery flavour of each drop intensifies as it cuts straight through the ice cream like a blade through butter, that’s why.

Frankly, I blame all of it on those Tabasco adverts that ran on American television in the early 1990s with the likes of Dan Ackroyd daring you try Tabasco sauce with all of your favourite foods. “So what do you put it on?” Not ICE CREAM! Not ice cream…

So what about wine and ice cream? After all, alcohol and ice cream really isn’t anything new. There are many ice cream cocktails and several alcohol ice creams. But wine ice creams? Admittedly even though I was wary of a Tabasco-like fiasco, I was intrigued and found myself agreeing to make wine ice cream as soon as I purchased an ice cream maker.

Well, I bought an ice cream maker last week. And true to my word, one of the very first ice creams I made was Champagne-Vanilla with a bottle of Bricout Premier Cru Cuvee Prestige Brut, £13.30 per bottle from Tesco (available online by the case).

Unlike with the ice cream Tabasco sauce, this was a perfect match. The champagne works to enhance and sharpen the flavour of the ice cream, while the vanilla keeps the balance and helps prevent the champagne from becoming too strong or overbearing.
InterWined’s Own Recipe in Full

Champagne-Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients:
You will need an ice cream maker to complete the recipe.
600ml Organic Whole Milk
600ml Cream, whipping or double (whipping cream will make a thicker ice cream)
6 Medium free-range egg yokes
250ml Sugar
1 vanilla pod
1½ Glasses Champagne

Preparation (20 minutes, plus 8 hours):

1. On the hob, heat the milk in a saucepan until hot, but not boiling
2. With a knife open the vanilla pod and scrap the vanilla into the milk, adding the pod to saucepan upon completion
3. Slowly stir in the vanilla and quickly add a glass of the Champagne before removing from the heat (don’t cook the Champagne)
4. In a bowl, add the sugar, cream, and egg yokes and mix thoroughly for approximately 2 minutes
5. Pour the cream mixture into the saucepan with the Champagne, vanilla, and milk and heat until the bubbles begin to shrink and dissipate
6. Pour the mixture into a large container and refrigerate for 8 hours
7. When ready, follow your ice cream machine’s instructions to churn the ice cream
8. In the final couple of minutes of churning, add the remaining half glass of Champagne
9. Once churned, remove from the machine and serve

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Tasting Notes