Pistachio Ice Cream
- Total Time
- 25 minutes, plus several hours’ cooling, chilling and freezing
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 1cup heavy cream
- 2cups whole milk
- ⅔cup sugar
- ⅛teaspoon fine sea salt
- 6large egg yolks
- 1cup unsweetened pistachio paste
- ¼teaspoon almond extract
Preparation
- Step 1
In a small pot, simmer heavy cream, milk, sugar and salt until sugar completely dissolves, about 5 minutes. Remove pot from heat. In a separate bowl, whisk yolks. Whisking constantly, slowly whisk about a third of the hot cream into the yolks, then whisk the yolk mixture back into the pot with the cream.
- Step 2
Return pot to medium-low heat and gently cook until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170 degrees on an instant-read thermometer).
- Step 3
Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Whisk in pistachio paste and almond extract. Cool mixture to room temperature. Cover and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.
- Step 4
Churn in an ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Serve directly from the machine for soft serve, or store in freezer until needed.
Private Notes
Comments
Not having commercial pistachio paste, I made some from scratch using 1 cup California pistachios, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tbsp turbinado sugar, pureed in food processor. Strained out about 1/3 cup of the ground nuts after chilling and before churning. Added 1 tbsp Amaretto in addition to the almond extract. Compelling pistachio flavor.
What exactly is there to strain?
The first time, I tried making my own paste in a Braun food processor at high speed for about 15 minutes. I also individually skinned all the pistachios after blanching the inner nuts. Gorgeous green color. Great taste. Grind/chop consistency? Not ideal. I’m making this a second time using bought paste and so far much better. Way finer grind. $30 pint of ice cream? I mean, I really like it, but would I like 6 pints of bought? Churned with dark chocolate covered pistachios from Trader Joe’s.
I just made the custard and thought I had enough pistachio paste but had some pistachio paste and some pistachio cream. So I added some pistachio nuts and also some pistachio halvah and...well, it's still cooling on the counter but as a creme anglaise, it's delicious!
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