The summers of my youth could be described in three flavors. Grape juice, cheddar cheese and homemade honey vanilla ice cream. Being from a long line of beekeepers meant that my family had learned to incorporate the very nectar of their labors into almost every food they ate.
I have mentioned that as a young child, a spoonful of honey was a snack. A few drops of pollen, a special treat.
But nothing compared to my grandma’s honey ice cream. And nothing ever will.
I have tried to replicate it the best I could. I also wanted to make it a bit less rich. I believe my grandmother used mostly cream. I decided to use half milk. Half cream.
If you have never had honey ice cream, well, I don’t know if you should try it now. You will never go back. It is that good.
Seriously knees-dropping-to-the-ground-as-you-pay-homage-to-a-passing-bee good.
The person who invented the saying “you’re the bee’s knees,” may or may not have been referring to this phenomenon after just having eaten honey ice cream.
I mean, that makes sense right?
Well, it makes more sense than comparing someone to bee’s knees. Which, while they are quite cute and fuzzy for knees, do not come close to comparing to this treat.
Let’s make some heaven!
Ingredients:
2/3 cup honey
2 cups milk
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Caviar from one vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
Directions:
Pour your milk and cream into a large pot on the stove. Add your honey. Turn heat to medium-low.
While that is heating up, separate five egg yolks. Whisk the egg yolks for two minutes continuously. Or bust out your stand mixer if you have one. And let it do the work for you on medium speed for two minutes.
Add the caviar of a vanilla bean to the steeping milk mixture. Whisk. When milk mixture comes to a light boil, turn heat to low. Very slowly add a ladleful (about 1/2 a cup) to the egg yolks while you whisk them. Now add that mixture back into the hot milk mixture. With a wooden spoon, stir continuously until the mixture begins to thicken. This should be about three minutes.
Turn heat off. Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer. Add vanilla extract. Stir.
Cover bowl and refrigerate at least two hours to overnight.
Follow your ice cream maker’s churning instructions. For my machine, I simply dump in the chilled ingredients.
Freeze your ice cream in a freezer-safe container. And then indulge the next day. I like mine covered in Trader Joe’s Fudge Sauce.
I warn you. You will never look at vanilla ice cream the same way again.
Or a bee for that matter.
Now let’s get some padding for those knees.
*I adapted the vanilla ice cream recipe that came with my Cuisinart Ice-100
him one of those babies. I might love it more than David Beckham.