Parmesan Ice Cream
Smooth, creamy, delicious parmesan ice cream that doesn’t taste cheesy. A Tasting History favorite!
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1789
Ice cream today comes in pretty standard flavors like vanilla, chocolate, rocky road, and chocolate peanut butter (my favorite). But in ice cream’s history, it’s had such wild flavors as artichoke, asparagus, foie gras, and hartshorn (shavings from the antlers of a stag that have an ammonia scent and was used as a chemical leavener before baking soda), and people used dried rye breadcrumbs like we use sprinkles.
I was afraid that this ice cream would turn out overpoweringly smelly and cheesy, but it didn’t. It was absolutely delicious. It’s smooth and creamy and sweet, and the parmesan lends a really interesting savory note to it. If I didn’t know there was parmesan in it, I don’t know that I would know that there was parmesan in it, if that makes sense. It doesn’t replace chocolate peanut butter as my favorite, but it’s definitely up there.
“No. 150. Parmasan Cheese Ice Cream.
Take six eggs, half a pint of syrup and a pint of cream; put them into a stewpan and boil them until it begins to thicken; then rasp three ounces of parmasan cheese, mix and pass them through a sieve, and freeze it. ”
Ingredients:
- 6 medium eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup (235 ml) simple syrup*
- 2 cups (475 ml) heavy cream
- 3 ounces (85 g) freshly grated parmesan
*See notes below.
Instructions:
- Whisk the room temperature eggs in a medium saucepan until they’re smooth. Whisk in the cream and syrup.
- Set it over low heat on the stove. Once it starts to warm, stir constantly. Don’t be tempted to raise the heat or you run the risk of getting scrambled eggs. It should start to thicken around 170°F (76°C). Don’t let it get much hotter than that or you once again run the risk of scrambled eggs. If you don’t have an instant-read thermometer, you can dip a spoon into it and run your finger over the back. If it leaves a defined line, the custard is ready.
- Take the custard off the heat and add the parmesan cheese. Whisk until it’s all melted.
- Pour the mixture through a sieve into a bowl. Cover and let it cool to room temperature or colder. You can put a piece of parchment or plastic wrap directly on the surface of the custard so it doesn’t form a skin.
- Pour the cooled custard into your ice cream maker of choice and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
- You can either serve the ice cream forth right away and it will be like soft serve, or you can freeze it (in a mold for extra authenticity) for a few hours. Both ways were done at the time of the recipe.
Notes
- You can make your own simple syrup by heating equal parts sugar and water until the sugar dissolves.
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