Even more now than in the throes of that exploratory infatuation, as kaleidoscopic as it was, I’m so deeply satisfied I can hardly form the words to express my gratitude. We have put down roots right into each other’s ventricles. I’m a touch of the crazy and no easy creature to navigate. To find someone capable of traversing the lay of my land…well, that’s a rare, intrepid man. One I had almost come to believe didn’t exist. He’s a regular unicorn. This is a spectral time of year, romantic and eerie and crisp. I love it. It’s ours. This ice cream tastes like it.
The smoky confection was inspired by a dessert course at The Catbird Seat in Nashville, TN. Our meal there was one of those where each course is a revelation, an education. Truth be told I have little interest in eating out unless the meal will tell me something I don’t already know. As such, I’d rather save for months and spend it all on an experience such as The Catbird Seat rather than frittering it on underwhelming meals. Give me street food, soul food, or one of the best restaurants in the country. Otherwise, I’ll cook for myself, thank you. I’m not much for the food that falls in between. They’re deserving of their reputation, and if you find yourself with the opportunity to eat there, do. It didn’t hurt to know that a personal hero, Grant Achatz, had eaten a seat over from me not but a few nights prior. I like to think his aura was still reverberating around, getting genius ectoplasm on my foie.
Toasted Oak Ice Cream with Fumee de Sel & Lapsang Souchong Caramel Swirl
yields about 1 quart
I enjoy the wit of this combination, how it mimics this liminal season with the intermingling of fall fires and the cool cream of summer. I’d already taken to infusing my salted butter caramel with smoky lapsang souchong tea, so it seemed natural to introduce ribbons of it to the oak ice cream. I wanted to amplify the smoke so I used fumee de sel, a chardonnay oak smoked sea salt, in both the caramel and ice cream base. In addition to the smoked salt I added Tahitian vanilla beans to the base to compliment the vanilla notes in the toasted oak chips. The first time I only steeped the chips about 10-15 minutes. It was definitively oaky, but I wanted it more pronounced. So, the next attempt I let it sit for 30 minutes, which I found preferable. Feel free to experiment and find your oaky sweet spot. And I make a custard based ice cream, because it’s my preference, though just a bit more work (negligible in my opinion but these things are relative). If you want, for whatever reason, to skip the eggs and just heat the milk/cream/sugar, infuse it with the oak, then chill and churn, you can do that. It will just be a less rich, creamy end result. But still good. Either way, put it on a slice of pie. A slice of the pie that I will be sharing with you soon.
Ingredients
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup medium toast oak chips (I ordered mine here.)
seeds from one vanilla bean pod
1/4 tsp (about two pinches) smoked sea salt
5 egg yolks
1/4 of this lapsang souchong caramel recipe (I make a half recipe & just use what I want of it)
Cooking Directions
Heat milk, cream, sugar, and vanilla in a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat until almost boiling. Remove from heat and immediately add oak chips. Cover and steep 10-30 minutes, depending on how strong you want the flavor to be. I let it go 30 minutes.
Double line a sieve with cheese cloth and set over a heat proof bowl. Strain ice cream carefully, making sure no bits of wood chips get into your base. Whisk in vanilla beans and salt after strained. Return mixture to medium heat.
Whisk egg yolks in a bowl. When the milk is hot again (around 150° F) slowly pour a quarter cup of it at a time into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Continue doing this up to about a cup until the egg yolks are warm and tempered. Whisk this egg mixture back into the milk on the heat, adding it slowly and stirring constantly.
Stirring constantly cook the custard over medium heat until it reaches at 170° F and thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Remove custard from heat and strain into a heat proof bowl. Chill thoroughly, a minimum of three hours, preferably over night. Churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions. I usually churn mine in my Cuisinart 15-20 minutes until it looks like the consistency of mashed potatoes.
To create the caramel swirl spoon a thin layer of ice cream and drizzle caramel on it, layer more ice cream, drizzle more caramel, and so forth until filled. Make sure your caramel is room temperature for ease of drizzling. I zap mine for about 10 seconds in the microwave if it’s a little stiff for me.
Cover with plastic wrap pressed to the surface and chill to let it set. Serve. Preferably with pie. Good with toasted walnuts too. Or poached pears. Or both.
This post is so filled with love. I adore it. And I adore the flavours of this ice cream.
When you’ve been as unlucky (though really I wasn’t unlucky, I was just plain awful at relationships) in love as I’ve been… you’re really psyched when you get it right! And this might be my favorite ice cream I’ve made to date. It works, really, really well.
I don’t know how to adequately express my love of this post, for your thoughts, your words, your expression of love, your photographs, and this utterly amazing-yet-simple recipe. Thank you…
Thank you! Sometimes it feels weird pouring myself out in the midst of ice cream recipes, pies, and salads. But that is life. Living, eating, loving, sleeping. And on like so.
I’m completely fascinated by the flavours here. Will have to make some of that caramel, if not the whole thing.
the caramel sauce is also rad in marshmallows. or on anything at all ever that would like caramel. it’s also totally easy. i’ve never had it fail on me. i’m definitely a dry caramel kind of girl.
A tour de force. Two tours: the brilliant, love-drenched narrative, and the imaginative recipe. I am in awe.
Three tours. How could I have failed to include the majestic photographs?
Thank you so, so much! Every time I hit that publish button a rush of self-doubt hits…the kind words mean a lot to me.
I have been thinking about what kind of ice cream to make, somewhat obsessively, for the last 24 hours. Thank you for the inspiration.
Haha. I think somewhere in my psyche I’m always thinking, somewhat obsessively, about what kind of ice cream to make. Be it summer, fall, winter, or spring.
wow, this is so beautiful (words and photography). Now an ice cream maker will be top on my wish list for the season (if only to bring back memories of hot sultry summer days)
the one I have was just sort of sitting at my mom’s. i stole it. it’s awesome! I just wish I had a bigger one…
Toasted oak ice cream? What? This sounds amazing!
I know right. That’s what I thought when they gave me oak ice cream at Catbird. It was like “what?! why didn’t I think of this!”. So glad they put it in my head. This is my fav now.
Fall has me me again, but instantly missing summer things such as ice cream. I love that your recipes are so tailored to the moment, and I mean to say not just seasonally, but the emotions that are so attached to the seasons as they are finding us.
I think there’s something to be said for being in sync with the physical world around us. We are, after all, physical creatures. To let our hearts and bodies ebb and flow with the seasonal tides allows for a lovely spectrum of experience. One of my biggest enjoyments in life is noticing the subtle seasonal changes that occur each day. I didn’t always notice such things. I’m grateful to be able to!
Your are a unique person. I am so glad he found you. Lovely photos, lovely prose, unique flavor.
We are both weirdos! It works well. We were friends for about five years before we got together. I never would have imagined us together, and now I couldn’t imagine us apart. Life is funny like that! Your comments, as always, are much appreciated! Hope life is treating you well.
This ice cream recipe looks and sounds divine- what a perfect autumnal treat!
lingerinrepose.blogspot.com
Oh my gosh, this is so beautiful…words, pictures and I just drool thinking of the flavor! I recently smoked my first batch of sea salt and have been waiting for the special occasion to use it. I also just got an ice cream maker over the summer and never put smoking & ice cream together until I read this post! Genius is right! Thanks for sharing 🙂
So lovely! I saw a recipe for parsnip burnt honey ice cream just recently, and then this! I really do need an ice cream maker. You know, what with it officially being fall now. Because that makes sense…
I’m entranced by the gorgeous photos and intriguing recipe, but even more, by your lyrical prose. I just love how you’ve infused poetry into everything — the words, the flavors of the recipe. And your description of autumn as “Rachmaninoff” — one of my fav lines here.
Happy one year to you both!
Ellerinize sağlık, çok güzel ve iştah açıcı görünüyor.
Saygılar.
I am so intrigued by this combination of flavors and had never thought of an oak ice cream, I LOVE the idea. You are so right, seems to be the perfect crossing of summer and fall… I am inspired.
And happy anniversary. You give one hope in love and life.
Truly exquisite, in every way. The words, the images, the sentiment, the recipe. Gorgeous, Beth.
I’m dazzled! A lyrical tribute to the changing seasons of the year and in our lives. I so much enjoy the intermingling of a voluptuous recipe with a special time in our lives. Thank you for sharing such a lavish post with us!
wow. it’s really a good contribution to us guys not good at icecream, you know i did some cakes before but the taste it’s not good, then i quit, so if you have interesting, you can load to omega watches for women
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I just stumbled across the photo for this recipe on Pinterest, and mere idea of this flavor combination was enough to make me swoon. I am absolutely delighted to have found your beautiful blog, with such gorgeous photos and evocative writing!
This is the weirdest, most fabulous recipe I have ever seen. Why don’t you live next door? Susanna
Totally going to steal this but add in a cream cheese ribbon with the caramel and change it to a toasted pumpkin base. Make it a toasted oak caramel cheesecake pumpkin ice cream. Ice cream is a bit of a love for me 🙂
Something about this post is so intriguing to me. . .I have read and re-read it, day dreamed about it. . .It just struck a chord with me, I guess. Anyways. Time to attempt it. I just have one question: The link to order the oak chips is no longer available. When I search for medium toast oak chips online, they look absolutely nothing like the pictures that are posted. . .The dark toasted chips I can find seem to look more similar. If I substitute dark toast chips for medium, how dramatically will that change the flavor? How would I adjust the steeping time for the chips?
These would work! http://labelpeelers.com/french-oak-chips-1-lb/?gclid=Cj0KEQjw4uSgBRDZveXz9M-E1aoBEiQA2RMP6uM73tXQGtSROggT9GWik7RFC32kdbkyKuiaEymmAvUaAhJh8P8HAQ
With four boys tearing around the house, I rarely look at, much less comment on blogs, but I just had to tell you how much your recipes have been the only thing we’ve been cooking and baking from these days. We are having fun menu planning for our annual end of October get away to Washington Island, where bonfires on the beach become our main kitchen and dining area…I can’t wait to wow everyone with this ice cream as a sort of farewell and homage to this last glorious season before the cold descends. P.S. Your photos are equivalent of a modern day Vermeer and your writing is sublime- thank you for doing what you do & making it public. It’s the highlight of my “me” time.
This is yumm!! The recipes look tempting too. I shall definitely try once at least once as milk is the first choice for health and such desserts curate to try a hand. Would also love to share some important facts which will bring the strong selection for including milk in daily diet and in recipes.
Beautiful writing, can’t wait to try making the smoked oak ice cream. Thank you for sharing.