Recipe: Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

This is rich stuff. Although we were full from dinner last night, we helped ourselves to some dessert at home in celebration of Ms big birthday. I love you baby!



I took some inspiration from OneOrdinaryDays' recent Daring Bakers blog about valentino cake accompanied by strawberry cheesecake ice cream, and adapted it to make some blueberry cheesecake ice cream.

Boy, was I glad I did!!!!

I borrowed my mothers manual Donvier ice cream maker and I have to say, it is definitely a great recipe for manual ice cream makers!!!

The cream cheese had a higher freezing point than the half & half and cream that I used, making for a nicer texture and churn. Food Technologists use terminology like "overrun" to describe and calculate the amount of air that is incorporated in the churning process.

While different regulatory standards (pdf) (i.e. milkfat / m.f. solids) define the different types of frozen treats (ice cream, ice milk, frozen yogurt), the different quality of ice cream is defined by the amount of overrun. Typically, the more overrun, the lower quality of ice cream.

I can tell you, the ice cream that I made would definitely fall into the "ice cream" category (tons of milk fat. yum!). And as for quality? M appreciated the birthday wishes and the gesture!

Ingredients
1/2 cup half & half
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg

1 250g container of Philadelphia spreadable cream cheese, softened
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup frozen blueberries

Method
In a small bowl, beat together sugar and egg. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat the half and half over medium-low heat until tiny bubbles start to form. Temper the egg mixture by adding a couple tablespoons of the hot cream to the egg, and mixing until incorporated. Slowly add the remaining hot cream and mix until uniform.

Return the mixture to the small saucepan, and heat over medium-low heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Cool down the mixture by plunging the bottom of the saucepan into a cool water bath and stirring the custard mixture. Transfer to refrigerator.

One hour later, beat the softened cream cheese in a food mixer until fluffy. Mix in cooled custard mixture. Mix in whipping cream. (Mixture will be lumpy.)

Pour mixture into ice cream machine; add blueberries on top, sprinkling to disperse. Process according to machine manufacturer instructions. Transfer to a suitable ice cream tub, and freeze overnight.

I served two quenelles of the ice cream (formed and froze them ahead of time) with a ginger snap, a candied hazelnut, and some of the sugar that I had formed ahead of time.

While the recipe was delicious, next time I would use less sugar (1/3 cup) and perhaps use a light cream in place of the half and half. Look forward to making this again!!!



More photos at my flickr photoset.