Calvados Ice Cream

With this post I'll admit that I probably have no idea what I'm talking about. The ice cream however did taste very good and I was hoping to share the idea.

Whenever the weather is nice I try as hard as I can to go grocery shopping at the Union Square Green Market. Several weeks ago as I was shopping I took the time to taste some of Eve’s Cidery wine. The wine I tasted was their apple ice wine and I thought it tasted fantastic. Granted I don’t know that much about wine made out of fruits or even ice wine in general but I thought this wine was delicate and not too pressing. Sweet, but not too sweet and palatable at the same time. My next thought was ‘what dessert can I pair this with?’. I really wanted to serve apple ice wine as a dessert pairing at a dinner party buy my dessert repertoire was fairly limited and I had no idea what to make.

I started thinking that I had to make some kind of apple crumble to go with the apple wine and an ice cream to go with it. I couldn’t merely make a plain vanilla ice cream so I tired to think of an ice cream that might capture the essence of apples but not be too appley. I then thought that Calvados (an apple liqueur that they used to put on my crepes in France and light on fire) ice cream seemed like a good idea.

Then I got to work. First I bought some Calvados (not particularly cheap) and then I tried to figure how to use it. I looked online for calvados ice cream recipes and possibly some inspiration but found absolutely none. I was on my own. Luckily I had a faint knowledge of making ice cream and a really crappy ice cream maker (I am now certain that its not necessary to own an ice cream make in order to make ice cream.) I made the base by mixing 6 egg yolks with sugar in a bowl and then in a sauce pan mixing 1 ½ cups of cream and 1 ½ cups of half and half with 4 tablespoons calvados, one tablespoon star anise, one half teaspoon almond extract and a splash of cinnamon. One the mixture started bubbling I took it off the heat and mixed it with the egg yolks and sugar. Once fully incorporated I returned the mixture to the saucepan until it thickened so that I could run a clear line with my finger over the back of a spoon covered in the mixture—it didn’t take very long. I then cooled the mixture in my refrigerator. The next day I ran the mixture through my crappy ice cream maker for about 15 minutes. When not much happened I placed the mixture in some Tupperware and left it in the freezer. Later on I was rewarded with calvados (possibly also star anise) ice cream. It’s a little heavy but very flavorful and does go well with Eve’s Cidery apple ice wine.