Honey Lavender Ice Cream

Many of you are friends of mine on Facebook and I have had several requests for the recipe for Honey-Lavender Ice Cream I had on my status update.  I thought I'd go step by step and share with y'all my newest favorite flavor of ice cream!

This past Christmas, my parents bought Chase and me an ice cream maker that can be used as a good old-fashioned, hand-crank or use the motorized crank.  Since Derby Weekend (for those not on the Kentucky calendar, the first weekend in May) we have made about 4 batches of ice cream ranging for a berry blend to peach.

Have you ever seen It's Complicated with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin?  They eat a honey-lavender concoction in the movie and from that moment, I was curious!  I researched recipes for a few weeks and found the perfect one from epicurious.com.  Wow!  It was amazing and I didn't the expect much reaction from my taste testers.   However, my number one fan (Chase) found it to be an odd combination, but he loves it, as well as his sister and mom. 

It's a very simple recipe to follow and freezes quickly in your ice cream maker to a very custard-like texture.  One thing that really set it apart from other homemade ice creams is that once it has set in your freezer for several days, it's consistency takes on ice cream from your favorite chain parlors and not a grainy, frozen texture.

I highly recommend Epicurious.com to those of you who are kitchen fans...I've found some really good recipes from their website!

I'm famous in my family for "doctoring" up a recipe and adding my own touches, however I didn't stray too far from the recipe this time.  However, I'll highlight my changes in lavender.

Honey-Lavender Ice Cream
Yield: Makes about 1 quart
Active time: 20 minutes
Start to finish: 8 hours (includes steeping, chilling, and freezing)

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup half-and-half

2/3 cup mild honey (I bought mine from the farmer's market to ensure freshness)

2 tablespoons dried edible lavender flowers  **I used a 2 T + 1/2t   (I found mine at Whole Foods)

2 large eggs

1/8 teaspoon salt

Special equipment

A candy or instant-read thermometer; an ice cream maker

Preparation

Bring cream, half-and-half, honey, and lavender just to a boil in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, then remove pan from heat. Let steep, covered, 30 minutes.

Pour cream mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and discard lavender. Return mixture to cleaned saucepan and heat over moderate heat until hot.

Whisk together eggs and salt in a large bowl, then add 1 cup hot cream mixture in a slow stream, whisking. Pour into remaining hot cream mixture in saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until thick enough to coat back of spoon and registers 170 to 175°F on thermometer, about 5 minutes (do not let boil).

Pour custard through sieve into cleaned bowl and cool completely, stirring occasionally. Chill, covered, until cold, at least 3 hours. (I let mine set overnight and put into the ice cream maker the next evening.)

Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden. (We're the impatient type at our house and we ate right away.  It was a smooth, creamy and fluffy texture!)