Maca-Almond Ice Cream

Maca-Almond Ice Cream Ingredients:

1/2 tsp Maca Powder

1 tsp Almond Extract

3 cups unsweetened Almond Milk (or sweetened vanilla and add less sugar below)

4 egg yolks

1 cup sugar, honey, maple syrup or other sweetener

3 tbsp vanilla amaretto (amaretto with a few vanilla beans soaking in it for at least a week and up to an eternity)

Maca Powder

Do not:

1. Make so many kinds of ice creams that you forget what you put in each.

2. Use more than 1/2 tsp maca total

3. Scramble the eggs

4. Eat the whole thing at once because it’s so delicious. That’s 4 eggs…

I only did point 1 above…but one is bad enough. I forgot that this had maca in it, and as a person who can’t even handle the energizing effects of a cup of coffee or tea after 11am, maca really kicks me into a non-sleeping, high energy mode. Not as bad as raw cacao, and much more vanilla-y, but beware. It is a superfood. It’s also ridiculously expensive here because of that fact. Fortunately, I brought back a bunch from Peru and am using it 1/2 tsp at a time. Kind of like a vanilla powder, it slips into ice cream recipes very well. And believe it or not almond and vanilla are a great combo. They don’t conflict at all.

Instructions: So! Melt the sweetener (sugar, agave, honey, whatever you want, but preferably something without a strong flavour of its own) over medium heat in a heat-proof bowl set above gently boiling water in a saucepan (this is a home-made double-boiler system and helps you NOT scramble the eggs or overcook the milk), stirring constantly to dissolve and not let it burn. While this is happening, scald the milk in another saucepan (bring it just to the edge of a boil). Then pour the milk over the melted sugar. Stir and cook until the sugar is dissolved. While the sugar is cooking separate the eggs (reserve the whites for another purpose – I tried to make cookies but baking powder is not flour, as it turns out…darn you, bulk food store and my inability to properly label things! Foiled again). Beat the egg yolks with a whisk and add about a quarter cup of the hot mixture to the yolks, whisking constantly so the eggs don’t scramble. Then add the eggs slowly back into the rest of the milk mixture on the stove (called “tempering”).

Whisk in the maca powder and the amaretto, and cook over medium or medium-low heat (depending on your stove) until thickened (I do it until my candy thermometre reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit, to make sure the egg is definitely safe to eat, just because it’ll be sitting in my fridge freezer for awhile and I want to make sure it has a really hard time reproducing any bacteria). Don’t let it boil or the eggs will curdle and you’ll still end up with scrambled egg ice cream. It’ll taste WAY too egg-y. Like a bad creme caramel or flan. When the milk is thick (and hot) enough for you, take it off the heat, add the almond extract, let the mixture cool to room temperature, and stick it in the fridge overnight.

The next day pass the milk mixture through a sieve (this gets the cooked egg or top layer of film out of the ice cream), and put in the ice cream maker. Hurray Il Gelataio 1600! 20 minutes to ice cream! DE-licious!