I'll leave all you amateurs to your Ben & Jerry's and Häagen-Dazs, this is ice cream that packs a greater punch than anything store-bought.

What you need:
Ice Cream
2 cups milk (be a man, use whole milk)
1 vanilla bean, 4 inches or about 3 tbsp vanilla paste/extract
9 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
Cinnamon Swirl
2 cups heavy cream
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Cinnamon Swirl
1/2 cup clarified butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tbsp ground cinnamon


Ingredients. I couldn't find a vanilla bean so I got this vanilla paste which is really really good and I highly recommend it over extract, it doesn't have so much alcohol and has lots of vanilla bean seed bits in it. I got the best chocolate I could find at Trader Joe's, 72% cocoa and made in Belgium.

I made the cinnamon swirl next, but you can do it while the custard is chilling if you want.


Clarify the butter. It says a half cup of butter, but if you use just one stick, a lot of it is removed in this process. So melt two sticks then skim off all that white stuff on top to leave only the golden yellow goodness below:



Put everything in a saucepan and heat to boil while whisking. Then let it cook for 3 or 4 minutes so it reduces a little. It will turn a golden brown, like so:

Let that sit and cool off to room temperature until it's needed later.


Next scald the milk with the vanilla. Just put it on low heat on the back burner or something out of the way for now.


Mix the egg yolks and sugar in a double boiler. I don't have a good double boiler so I used a stainless steel bowl over a saucepan full of very hot (not boiling!) water. Whisk it vigorously while monitoring the status of the water to keep it from boiling until the mixture becomes thiker and lighter in color:



Add the scalded milk and vanilla and keep whisking and checking the water. Do this until it coats a metal spoon like that. This means it's done, so put it in the fridge to chill out for an hour. You can choose to make the cinnamon swirl here instead of when I made it if you want.


Now I am fortunate enough to have an ice cream mixer. You don't need one, all you need is a large bin to put ice in and a container to mix the ice cream in. Add the heavy cream to the chilled custard from the last step and mix it well. Put the container you are mixing the ice cream in in the bin of ice. The two keys here are lots of ice, lots of salt on the ice, and keep that mixture moving! It doesn't have to be fast, just keep it from freezing solid.


Because I have an ice cream mixer, I can let it go while I grate the chocolate. Do this earlier if you don't have a mixer. I put the chocolate in the freezer first to keep it from melting, then into the food processor. You can use a grater, but the problem is that the heat from you holding the chocolate makes a melty, sticky mess.


Ah! The ice cream has reached a nice consistency. Now add the chocolate and mix it some more:



Once it's mixed, fold in the cinnamon swirl. Don't mix it, fold it; you want it to swirl. Also add the swirl in thirds. After that put it in the freezer for maybe a half hour.


Now serve yourself a couple scoops and enjoy!



I approve!

e: Tried changing the thread tag but it didn't take.