Bailey's Ice Cream

There is something very rewarding and satisfying about making homemade ice cream from scratch. It tastes way better than any ice cream you will buy in a store and you can experiment with different flavours. 


Over the past few summers I've made many different flavours of ice cream, but my personal favourite is Bailey's Ice Cream. In many ways, Bailey's is the perfect liqueur. I've used it to flavour cheesecakes, ice cream, lattes etc... In college, I always had an emergency bottle of Bailey's to go with some coffee after a hard night of drinking. How many other liqueurs can you do that with?


I highly recommend anyone interested in making homemade ice cream to pick up "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz. You can consider this book the ice cream Bible. The vanilla ice cream recipe from this book is my go to recipe for experimenting with flavours. It is the base for this Bailey's Ice Cream recipe.

A quick disclaimer, you will need an ice cream maker in order to make this. The good news is, they aren't that expensive. Even better news, if you have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, you can get the ice cream bowl attachment. It's easy to use and you don't have to buy another machine to take up space in your cupboards.

What the Kitchen Aid Ice Cream Attachment looks like.

Baileys Ice Cream

Adapted from a recipe by David Lebovitz

1 Cup whole milk

A pinch of salt

3/4 Cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 Cups whipping cream (35%)

5 large egg yolks

1 Tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 Cup Baileys Irish Creme

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk with a paring knife, then add the bean pod to the milk. Cover, remove from heat, and infuse for one hour.

2. To make the ice cream, set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart (2l) bowl in a larger bowl partially filled with ice and water. Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.
4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.
5. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract and the Bailey's, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. Preferably overnight.
6. Remove the vanilla bean and freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes about 1 Litre


TIPS: 

- For a richer custard, you can add up to 3 more egg yolks. For a less-rich custard, substitute half-and-half for the heavy cream, realizing that the final texture won’t be as rich or as smooth as if using cream.

- Used vanilla beans can be rinsed and dried, then stored in a bin of sugar. That sugar can be used for baking and, of course, for future ice cream making.