Bacon Ice Cream!

Wondering what to do with my leftover bacon we decided it was ICE CREAM TIME!

It sounds aweful at first but think about it:

-Bacon and maple syrup
-Bacon, maple syrup and waffles (choc. chip?)
-Bacon and chocolate. Those bacon chocolate bars are pretty good.
-Waffles and whipped cream
-Waffles and ice cream

Add all that and you get bacon ice cream with a maple syrup swirl. Scoop it on top of a chocolate chip belgian waffle for a sexplosion of flavor. Just in case the bacon ice cream tasted like shit (and to appease Sarah), I decided to split the base and make half bacon/maple and the other half Nutella, raspberry/ameretto and hazelnut.

Last night Sarah and I prepped the base and all of the ingredients for both ice creams. The base recipe is pretty rich and called for 3 cups of half and half, 1 cup cream, 8 egg yolks, 9 ounces of sugar (apprx. 1 1/8 cup) and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. We simmered the cream and half and half while the sugar and eggs were whisked together. Once the eggs and sugar went pale, we tempured the eggs/sugar with the dairy and moved the mix back to the heat until it hit 175 degrees F. After a 20 minute rest we added the vanilla and placed the base in the refrigerator overnight.

Because I was going for a hint of bacon we minced 2 strips and removed all the visible fat. After the bacon was prepped we focused on the maple syrup which was too thin to create a swirl. Approx. 1/4 cup of Vermont’s finest was simmered until it hit thread stage and then cooled to room temp before moving everything to the refrigerator for overnight storage.

After the bacon prep was out of the way we started on the other ice cream.  Roughly a handfull of frozen raspberries were simmered with 1/8 cup of sugar and some ameretto. Once cooked down, I strained the mixture to remove seeds and let it cool while I chopped up the hazelnuts.

This morning I poured the base into our ice cream maker (I highly recommend this Krups model) and let it go for 25 minutes. Here’s a shot of it before we mixed it in this morning.

After the base was out of the ice cream maker we split it in half.

Bacon:
When I took the syrup reduction out of the refrigerator this morning it was way too stiff so a few seconds in the microwave got it to proper mixing consistancy.   We mixed in the bacon thoroughly and then followed with a few folds of the warmed maple syrup before moving it to the freezer.

Raspberry/Nutella:
This one was pretty easy too. I mixed in the hazelnuts, folded in the raspberry/ameretto syrup with 3 large spoonfuls of Nutella and then moved it to the freezer.

I got a chance to taste both of them and while the bacon version was odd, it didn’t taste bad. In all fairness, the raspberry/Nutella version is amazing.  Looking back I’m so glad I took out that extra insurance policy.   Ice cream and waffles for dinner tonight!