Une glace à la vanille de Madagascar, s’il vous plait/A Madagascar vanilla ice cream, please
Today, we are offering a favorite French vanilla ice cream recipe – Madagascar vanilla ice cream (glace à la vanille de Madagascar). Other than its distinctive rich vanilla flavor and creamy texture, you will notice the beautiful pale yellowish color of our Madagascar vanilla ice cream – simply divine. In France, Madagascar vanilla ice cream is readily available in the frozen section of any grocery store but it is harder to find in the US so we decided to make our own. It’s all natural, and we are always stocked up with vanilla beans so we’re ready to go. Check out our Art of the Home Madagascar vanilla ice cream recipe and Art of the Home suggestions below. Enjoy and bon appetit!
Madagascar Vanilla Ice Cream (Glace à la Vanille de Madagascar)
INGREDIENTS (yield 3 cups or six 1/2 cups servings)
- 1 3/4 cups of heavy cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- 6 egg yolks
- 1 vanilla bean
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- salt
DIRECTIONS
- Split vanilla bean in half lenghtwise. Extract vanilla bean seeds and put both seeds and pod in a pot with the milk. Bring to a gentle boil and remove from heat.
- Using a hand whisk, in a seperate pot, whisk in the sugar, egg yolks and 1 pinch of salt until you get a pale yellow mixture (about 2 minutes).
- Slowly pour hot milk (not boiling, we don’t want to cook the eggs) into the egg/sugar mixture. Cook under low heat, whisking continously. You should stop before it starts boiling and at that point, the custard will have thickened. It should cling to a spoon and nicely coat it when it’s ready. This custard is basically a variation on the “crème Anglaise” (English custard), the basic custard used to make French vanilla ice cream.
- Put vanilla custard inside your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Using our Cuisinart Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker, it is ready for the freezer in 30 minutes. It is recommended to have the ice cream maker bowl at freezing temperature before pouring the mixture so we store our ice cream maker bowl in the freezer.
- Transfer to a freezer-safe glass container. It will be tempting to start eating your ice cream right away but you should wait at least 2 hours before enjoying.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS
- Type of vanilla beans: we do prefer the vanilla beans from Madagascar for their rich flavor. We buy Bourbon Madagascar vanilla beans in bulk – it’s a great deal. But you can also get them in lower quantities (Bourbon Madagascar vanilla bean: 7 beans), both options ship for free on Amazon.
- How to store your Madagascar vanilla ice cream: to freeze as a big tub, we use the stackable freezer safe Pyrex glass container. However to freeze ice cream in smaller quantities, we use “Bonne Maman” preserves jars we have saved over the years.