Butter ice cream? YOU BET

Well, actually, BROWN butter ice cream. Or, if you wanna be fancy "beurre noisette" ice cream. I would never have thought of it. Here's the story.
Traditionally, our last restaurant meal every trip in San Francisco is at Woodward's Garden. I've written about our friends Margey and Dana before, and I comment all of you to their website, and even moreso, to their restaurant if you are in San Francisco. Tell them I sent you.
On the dessert menu the night we were there, was brown butter ice cream with fresh strawberries. Now, to be honest, this did not "ring my chimes" dessert wise, as I instead went for apricot tart (and we can debate the issue of whether I made the right choice or not forever. In my mind, I did). The ice cream was very good. To the others at the table, it was something verging on orgasmic. I have had requests to make it. In fact, I had requests at the table to make it.
So, I went to Dana, who handles the cooking and asked where she got the recipe. She flashed me her big golden smile and said "the idea came from John (her sous chef). He used to work at Greens, and they made it there."
Well, I never had it at Greens, so when John freed up later that night I asked him.

I SWEAR, he disavowed any knowledge of it. He said "yeah, I heard of it and I told Dana, and that's all I know."

Now, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but....

So, with the power of the internet, I got to work. There were more than a few recipes for 'brown butter ice cream' around. In reading them, it was clear that many of them were ghastly. (Trust yourself when you read a recipe, by the way. If it sounds like it will be awful, it probably will be). I found one, that was combined with peanut brittle, that sounded pretty good. I made it, leaving out the peanut brittle.

It is very good ice cream. Again, this is not something that I am going to ask for, but the people I love, have. So here it is.

And it looks like it marks an interesting passing in Annalena's ice cream making. In season, my ice creams have been based on different fruits: strawberry, blueberry, apricot, peach, and so forth. It now looks, however, as if I will be moving toward more "white" ice creams: ricotta, yogurt, this one, and so forth, with different fruit toppings. You saw the roasted strawberry recipe preceding this one. Well, I'm thinking apricots in camomile for this one too. Or candied kumquats. Or rhubarb compote. Or....

Here it is. I had to modify the sweetness to make up for the lack of peanut brittle, but it was an easy switch. If you've got an ice cream maker, go for it.

Start with 3/4 of a stick of unsalted butter. Put it in a pot, and bring it to medium low heat, and let it cook, for six minutes. That's all it will take. You'll get a lovely amber type of color, with some dark brown sediment at the bottom. IF you like, strain the butter from the sediment. I don't, because there's flavor there, and if you can put up with vanilla bean in your ice cream, you can put up with this. Anyway, get it off the heat by pouring it into a small bowl.

In the same pot, make a custard by combining 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 cup of milk, 6 large egg yolks, 1/3 cup of brown sugar (I used dark brown), and 2/3 cup of white sugar. (You should feel free to vary those ratios by the way). If you like, add a quarter teaspoon of salt. Make the custard the way I've described making custards for ice creams before: medium heat, stirring constantly to first break up the egg, and then until you get something thick enough to coat a spoon.

Off the heat, pour the brown butter into the custard, and let the whole thing cool. Then put it in your ice cream maker, and let it whirl.

You'll get a quart of this. Let me suggest you err on the smaller side of portions here. Egg yolks, cream, butter, whole milk. Awfully rich, huh? The strawberries? Almost no calories.

You know what you gotta do, ragazzi.