All Dressed Up With No Place For Snow

In Southern California, we never had White Christmases. Maybe up in the mountains we’d see a bit of snow, but down in the basin, it was typically not even all that cold. And that always sort of bother me. I remember how excited I got one Christmas when it rained.

I had received a pair of stilts that year and was excited to be stomping around on the patio in the moist, cool air. That was as close as I figure I was going to get and it wasn’t bad.

As I got older, I rationalized that the real first Christmas probably didn’t have any snow either. (It was in the Middle East after all.) I discovered skiing and snowboarding in college and found out how much fun snow could be but that was after (or before) the big holiday. I also figured out that the whole White Christmas thing was just another east coast media creation describing the way things were supposed to be, i.e. the way they did them. Even so, I’d always wondered what it would be like.

Now that I live in Chicago suburbs, I’ve seen a few White Christmases and have greatly enjoyed sledding with my girls all season long. But the concept still doesn’t carry a lot of weight for me. It’s just a great marketing campaign for Bing Crosby’s greatest hit.

I can’t say the same thing about white chocolate.

When I was younger, white chocolate wasn’t widely available. I discovered it in a candy shop and tried it for the sheer novelty of the stuff. I really liked it then and I still do.

Of course, chocolate snobs will say the white isn’t really chocolate because it doesn’t have any chocolate liquor (pure liquid chocolate) or cocoa solids. And that is perfectly true, the only thing white chocolate actually gets from the cocoa bean is the butter, and people who know better than me (Recognize a pattern here?) say that’s not enough. It’s also true that many “white” chocolates you find out there don’t have any claim to the name at all.

I’m talking to you Nestle white chocolate morsels. Hydrogenated palm oil? Come on. Not that I’m a snob or anything. I still use the stuff.

Now I will tie these two disparate narratives together with this week’s recipe—White Chocolate Ice Cream. (Good guess.)

It was really good. I would describe the taste as vanilla to the 10^th power. (I was going to say “on steroids” but that’s a bit too cliched even for me.) Add the fact that there’s the extra fat from the cocoa butter which gives it additional creaminess and you can see why it sold out pretty quickly at the dinner party where I served it.

I wish I had more, but it’s time to look ahead not back. So, with a few days to spare, I wish you (I’m hoping that’s a plural ‘you’, not just my mom) a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

White Chocolate Ice Cream

(about 1½ quarts)
1 ½ cup milk
¾ cup sugar
2 T flour
A few grains salt
2 eggs or 3 yolks (pasteurized, if possible, see note)
1 ½ cup cream
½ t vanilla
6 oz. white chocolate

1.  Heat milk to 180-190ºF with sugar, flour and salt, stirring until thick, cover for 10 minutes.
2. Beat eggs and add ½ cup of mixture while beating, then add eggs to mixture.

HEALTH NOTE:     Since you’re dealing with eggs here, you need to take care when cooking the custard. Too much cooking and the custard gets lumpy, too little and you risk salmonella.  Another alternative is to use pasteurized eggs.

1. Heat the mixture for one minute over medium heat, then cool with plastic wrap or wax paper pressed onto the top of the mixture to keep it from developing a skin. Cool for several hours or overnight.
2. In the meantime, melt the white chocolate over a double boiler with the cream, then let that cool down too so it freezes well.
3. Blend the custard with the white chocolate/cream mixture and vanilla and freeze the whole blessed thing in an ice cream freezer for about 35 minutes.
4. Put the now frozen ice cream into the freezer for a couple of hours to give it a chance to firm up.

NOTE:     When freezing ice cream, you need to use an ice cream freezer to ensure that a certain amount of air is mixed into the frozen cream. This gives it a lighter, less icy consistency. When freezing sorbet, you may also freeze it in a popsicle mold, a bowl or on a sheet pan. Be sure to stir the mixture occasionally to limit the size of the ice particles. Larger chunks of ice make for granita, miniscule chunks make for a nice smooth sorbet (an ice cream freezer is ideal).

Photo Credit: “Still Waiting for a White Christmas,” Sleds ready, weather not ready. 

With Christmas season nearly over, this officially ends the “Ice Creams of Christmas” series. Hope you enjoyed it. If so, let me know in a comment.