Bacon Ice Cream

What with all the comings and goings over the last month (see the last post), I completely failed to complete this post. Now things are a little calmer and we're settling down nicely in Gaillac, I thought that I would finish and publish the details perhaps one of my proudest culinary achievements to date...

Yes, this is bacon icecream, and yes, it honestly is nice!

I had been wanting to do this for a long time and with Jen away for the weekend, and me having finished a massive work project the week before, the time seemed right to get bacony. If you like this post, I would recommend you having a look at my earlier bacon vodka post, the method in that one was good, but the subsequent use in making the bacon and coke jelly left a little to be desired...

 

There were a large number of influences in pulling this recipe together, and I've done my best to make sure that they are all listed:

• A great meal at Jason Atherton's new restaurant/bar Pollen Street Social, finished with an amazing range of ice creams and sorbets, including a truely brilliant hay icecream, which for me beat the tarragon flavour into second place. 
• Jen's amazing spot was this brilliant bacon caramel recipe on not without salt (I am yet to try this but it's certainly on my to do list).
• Heston of course has done his bacon and egg icecream but watching his explanation, I didn't want the eggyness that he was after. 
• A search for other bacon icecreams showed up this recipe with candied bacon in a vanilla icecream. This looked good but I wanted candied bacon in a bacon icecream.

My creation therefore was an amalgam of the above, the combination of bacon bits with sweetness in the caramels and icecream recipes, and the bacon permeated custard base inspired by Heston and Jason.

The result is quite special, and Jen honestly liked it (she actually ate a fair amount of it while I was out). For me, there was some room for improvement, it was a bit too sweet and rich, next time I would cut down the sugar by half and maybe cut the cream with some milk.

Ingredients:

• 12 slices of smoked, streaky bacon
• 1 pint of double cream
• one teaspoon of vanilla extract
• caster sugar for candying
• 3 oz sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• more sugar for candying

Method:

1. Fry-off two thirds of the bacon to the well done but not completely crispy stage (use as little oil as possible for this as any that you use will end up in the ice cream). Just check first that the frying pan isn't too shallow to take the cream later.
2. Once the bacon is done, deglaze the pan with a pint of double cream and bring the cream and bacon up to the boil.
3. Once boiled, pour the cream and bacon mix into a suitable receptacle and store it in the fridge overnight. Maybe if you had more bacon, you wouldn't need to leave it overnight...
4. The next day, take the remaining bacon and lay it out on grease-proof paper, sprinkle liberally with sugar and grill. You will want to stay in the kitchen for this bit to whip out the bacon at the faintest smell of burning, it can go very quickly...
5. Once cooked and cooled and all bacon-and-sugary, pull apart the bacon and remove the fat. Now dice the sugared meat fairly finely. This stuff is seriously good, I suggest you save some for a special treat or gift for a loved one.
6. To make the custard, whisk the yolks and sugar until pale and light (ribbon stage) then pour into a non-stick sauce pan, pass the bacony cream through a sieve into the pan as well and heat gently.
7. Keep at a low heat and keep stirring, if you go to far and too fast, the custard will curdle. You can tell when it's ready when the spoon starts to pick up set custard off the bottom of the pan. Immediately turn off the heat and stir manically for a bit and leave to cool.
8. Transfer to a suitable container and place in the freezer. Stir with a fork once an hour until set. The first time you do this, drop in the chopped candied bacon and stir through (it will probably just sink to the bottom or float on top if you add the bacon bits sooner.
9. Enjoy!