Basil Ice Cream

Although I bought David Lebovitz's book, The Perfect Scoop, three years ago, it wasn't until this summer that I noticed his recipe for Basil Ice Cream. All I needed was a source of fresh basil, and I knew my friend Valentine's homegrown supply would be ready in August.

The most time-consuming part this recipe was the harvesting and trimming of the basil. My friend was very generous, so I ended up with enough for ice cream, some pesto for myself, and a cup or so of loose leaves for my housemates.

Removing the basil leaves from the stalks.

Once the basil leaves were ready, it was time to get cooking.

Ingredient List for 
David Lebovitz's Basil Ice Cream

• 1 cup packed basil leaves
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• pinch of salt
• 5 egg yolks
• zest of 1 lemon. preferably unsprayed

I started out following the recipe by placing 1 cup of the cream, the sugar, and the basil leaves in my food processor. Within a few minutes, however, I knew there was a problem. It wasn't the fault of the recipe, but the fault of my bargain basement, dollar store, lame-ass food processor. Instead of grinding and chopping up the basil leaves, all it did was bruise the leaves and whip the cream to stiff peaks.

Bruised basil leaves in whipped cream. Not good.

I stood there a moment, trying to figure out how to salvage the mess. Basically, I had derailed the recipe at step one. If I tried to process the mixture any more, I was afraid I'd turn the whipped cream into butter. Picking the basil leaves out of the whipped cream and chopping the, by hand was impractical at this point, not to mention messy.

Making a leap of faith, I decided to move all of the whipped cream stuff to a bowl and continue with the recipe as best I could. Later, at the end of the mixing, I would use the hand wand mixer to--hopefully--grind up those leaves. If it didn't work, people would just have to chew their ice cream.

After I scraped the bowl of the food processor clean, I decided to ditch the lame-ass food processor. I dumped the entire machine and all of its attachments into the garbage. This was the last time I (or anyone else) was going to be fooled into thinking it was a real a food processor. It was not. A mortar and pestle would do a better job.

The next step was to make a light custard out of the remaining cream, milk and eggs. In a heavy-bottomed pan, I heated a cup of cream and a cup of milk over low heat.

In a separate bowl, I whipped the egg yolks with a whisk. When the cream and milk mixture was hot but not boiling, I turned off the heat and drizzled about a quarter cup of the hot liquid into the eggs and whisked them well. Then I added another quarter cup of hot liquid and whisked again.

Once the eggs were tempered, I poured all of the egg mixture back into the pan, whisking as I did, then turned the heat to low. Whisking constantly, I watched to make sure the mixture did not boil. The mixture was done when it thickened into a light custard, lightly coating the back of a metal spoon.

The next step is to pour the custard through a sieve to remove any bit of cooked egg white or other chunky debris left behind by the cooking of the custard. I did this over the basil and whipped cream concoction.

Next, I added the salt and the zest of the lemon and got out the hand wand.

The hand mixer did a beautiful job grinding the basil leaves into the liquid. Within a few minutes, I was covering the bowl with plastic wrap and putting it into the refrigerator to chill down for half a day.

Later in the evening, I got out my new ice cream maker and turned the basil custard into basil ice cream. At the dense soft serve stage, I moved the ice cream into a plastic container and popped it into the deep freeze overnight.

Basil ice cream is a surprise. It doesn't taste like pesto. Imagine mint ice cream, but without the intense palate punch that mint delivers. Basil ice cream is sweet, green-tasting and earthy, with the barest edge of mint.

How can I describe it?

Imagine a summer day. Full sunshine. Blue sky. A cooling breeze. Imagine that you could put a spoonful of the perfect summer day in your mouth.