Only the herbs are doing well in our garden this year, and we have plenty of sage. I also happened to have some leftover heavy cream around and an orange, so I came up with this. It ended up being really good.
Orange, Sage and Honey Ice Cream
Makes 1 pint
¾ cup cream
1 cup milk
3–4 large strips orange peel
3–4 TB. coarsely chopped fresh sage
pinch salt
1/3 cup honey
1 TB. Sugar
3 egg yolks
(1) Heat the milk, cream, orange peel, sage and salt together in a small saucepan until boiling. Remove from heat and let steep 20 minutes.
(2) Beat together egg yolks and sugar until thickened slightly, about 2–3 minutes. Gradually whisk in about half the cream mixture, then the honey, then the rest of the cream mixture.
(3) Return mixture to saucepan and heat on medium-low heat, stirring constantly until mixture is thickened a bit and coats the back of a spoon, around 180–185 degrees.
(4) Strain mixture into a bowl (preferably metal) and chill.
(5) Churn in an ice cream maker.
If you don’t have an ice cream maker, another method with rock salt, ice and ziploc bags can be found here. This works especially well with kids, as they can toss the mixture around for 15–20 minutes until it’s done. David Lebovitz has a freezer method here that doesn’t require any special equipment, but you do need some time after you put it in the freezer to remix it every half hour or so.
The serving size for this ice cream can be pretty small as the flavors are so intense. I was also thinking a couple teaspoons of black peppercorns during the initial steeping could add a pleasantly sharp counterpoint to the floral overtones. If anyone tries this, I’d be interested in your results.
You can serve this with candied sage if you’d like. My attempt tasted really good, but it doesn’t want to dry out and wasn’t photogenic.
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