Sweet Yet Sour

You know how people sometimes imagine that in the future we will all be controlled by machines?

Well, in our house, we are controlled by one evil little machine in the kitchen.  It doesn’t look evil, does it?

This is the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker.  It’s evil; it speaks to me, it makes me do things that I should not do.

Makes damn good ice cream too.

Mike got this for me for my birthday last year.  When the machine first arrived we discussed that we would leave it on the counter for a little while, perhaps until we each gained 10 pounds, and then it would go down to the basement.

Instead, it has taken up residence on the counter and has never left.  See how evil it is? It’s wormed its way into a permanent place in the kitchen…

Mostly we use it for vanilla ice cream, since that goes nicely with anything, but I’ve also branched out into other flavors as well.  I’ve made chocolate, mint chocolate chip, peach sorbet and blackberry ice cream.

But recently I’ve perfected the technique for butter pecan ice cream and I can’t seem to stop making it; every time we run out something tells me to make more.

The machine comes with a recipe book that I have diligently followed, although I made up my own blackberry ice cream recipe, but I had to tweak the butter pecan recipe.

Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Mix together until the sugar is dissolved:

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk

Add to this:

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Once the mixture is well blended, place in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour or more

While the mixture is chilling:

Chop 1/2 cup pecans

Melt 1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter in a saute pan

(do not use salted butter – I made that mistake once)

Add the pecans and 1 tsp kosher salt to the butter and, stirring frequently, toast the pecans until the are just starting to turn a light brown.  Strain the pecans into a bowl, retain the butter (which is now pecan butter) and allow the pecans to cool.

Throw the cream/milk mixture into the ice cream machine.  Our evil little friend only takes 50 minutes to make ice cream, and all you have to do is add the cream mixture and go – hopefully your ice cream machine takes a little more work!

After about 40 minutes of stirring in the machine I add the cooled pecans and a few teaspoonfuls of the butter.  Try to get the some of the butter sludge at the bottom – it’s butter, salt and tiny pieces of pecans and it really makes the difference.  Allow the machine to blend the pecans and butter into the ice cream and then once completed freeze for at least 3 hours.  Then, consume.

Last week my mother was visiting and before I went upstairs to take a nap I told her she should have some of the butter pecan in the freezer.  I awoke from my nap to find a happy mom, and no more butter pecan.  Apparently she felt that the ice cream was “almost gone anyway” and so she ate two bowls.  I think I saw tongue streaks on the ice cream container too…  Now the machine is controlling my mother!