How do you make ice cream better? Add bourbon and bacon to it, that’s how. I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this before, but I have to thank yesterday morning’s Paula’s Best Dishes on Food Network for the inspiration. After going and looking at the recipe online, I decided I could probably take it up a notch. And I did!
When a recipe calls for pieces of bacon, and it says to cook the bacon and then chop it into bits, I always cut the raw bacon up into about 1/2 inch bits and fry them up in a frying pan. I feel like this gives me more uniform bits of bacon in both size and crispiness. If you want to do your bacon bits differently, feel free, but here’s what I did.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THE CANDIED BACON BITS:
- 6 strips of bacon
- 2 teaspoons light brown sugar
WHAT YOU DO:
- Cut the slices of bacon down the middle length-wise and then into about 1/2 inch squares.
- Add bacon to a frying pan and cook over medium head, using a spatula to break up the chunks of bacon and keep them from burning. You want the bacon to be really crispy, so cook until almost done.
- When the bacon is almost done, sprinkle bacon with 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and stir continuously to dissolve the brown sugar.
- Remove bacon from the pan, drain, and let bacon cool on a paper towel covered plate. (The bacon isn’t going to seem traditionally crispy when hot, but it will crisp up when it cools)
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE THE ICE CREAM:
- 3 tablespoons salted butter
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (you can use light or dark brown sugar. I used light brown because it’s what I had on hand)
- 2 3/4 cup half and half
- 5 large egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons bourbon (The key to cooking with bourbon – or any alcohol, for that matter – is to use what you would drink. If it’s not good enough for you to make a cocktail with, don’t cook with it)
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
WHAT YOU DO:
- 24 hours before you want to make the ice cream, place your ice cream maker bowl in your freezer.
- Melt butter in medium sized, heavy sauce pan. Whisk in the brown sugar and 1/2 of the half and half.
- Pour the remaining half and half in a bowl. Place a mesh strainer over the bowl.
- In a separate bowl, stir the egg yolks together. Gradually add some of the warm brown sugar mixture, whisking the yolks continuously while you add the brown sugar mixture. This is called “tempering” the eggs, and we do this to make sure that the yolks don’t scramble when they are added to the heat.
- Pour the egg/brown sugar mixture back into the sauce pan while whisking continuously.
- Cook over low to moderate heat, stirring continuously with a heatproof spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula
- Pour the custard through the strainer to be added to the remaining half and half.
- Add liquor, vanilla and cinnamon. Whisk together.
- Refrigerate mixture until thoroughly chilled.
- Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Add the bacon bits during the last moments of churning, or stir the bits in when you remove the ice cream from the machine.
- Place in containers and freeze for at least 4 hours.
- Take pictures of you eating the bacon ice cream and post all over Instagram and Facebook to make your friends jealous
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