Recipe: Biscotti e Crema

Commonly known as "Cookies and Cream", but I'm far too sophisticated for that!

400ml milk
300ml cream
3 eggs
100g sugar
1 vanilla pod
~125g chocolate cookies (I used arnotts 'chocolate ripple')

Of course you don't have to use a vanilla pod for this, you could just use vanilla essence, but where's the fun in that? Take your vanilla pod and make a slit along it lengthways. Scrape out all the seeds and put them in a saucepan with the milk. Make sure you get 'em all. Then throw the bean in the pot as well and heat the milk up until it almost boils. Let it steep for about 20 minutes, then take out the bean and pour the milk into the egg and sugar mixture. Mix it a bit and put it back into the saucepan. Heat and stir until you get your custard*, then let it cool, down mix in the cream and refrigerate. Then it goes into the machine and when it gets thick you put in the biscuits which you have crushed.

Remarks: Yes, yes yes. It is good. Possibly the finest textured ice cream I have ever produced. The only flaw was that the smaller biscuit crumbs dissolved as the ice cream was mixing and made it into a weak chocolate ice cream, rather than a vanilla base. Which was actually pretty good, but I prefer the contrast between the plain vanilla ice cream and the chocolate bits. So next time I would use larger chunks of biscuit and/or add them at a later stage. But this either way this is damn good. It's firmly nestled in my top 5. Rock 'n' Roll!

* The custard used in making ice cream is often called "Creme Anglaise', which is a FRENCH term meaning "ENGLISH Cream". Which seems pretty stupid to me.