Sweet Corn Ice Cream
You aren’t allowed to be a hater until you’ve made this sweet corn ice cream for yourself and with proper technique! It’s silky, sweet but not too sweet, and tastes like the transition of summer into fall.
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This was the first time in a while I’ve made a yolk-based ice cream and oh my gosh it’s so worth the extra effort.
For some unknown reason, I’ve been craving corn ice cream even though I’ve never tasted corn ice cream in my life. Turns out corn ice cream isn’t as novel as I thought it’d be! I wouldn’t say it’s popular on Pinterest by any means, but it’s definitely been done before.
And out of the dozens of flavors pinned to my ice cream board, I chose corn. lol. I’m not sure what has gotten into me lately either. Rest assured, I’ve made my recipe twice now and can promise you the most delicate, silky smooth custard texture.
This is one of those ice cream flavors you have like once a year and serve for a fun dinner party twist as dessert with corn bread or blackberry compote.
The secret for the best ice cream texture is in the technique and order of operations. But even after making this off-camera as an experiment, I STILL messed up in the middle of filming by adding the tempered yolks to the ice cream base before sifting out the corn bits. 🤦🏻♀️ If you accidentally make this mistake, just know you can fix it by adding in 3 more yolks after straining.
But if you want to do it the right way in the right order, here’s what you do.
Recipe
Yields about 1 quart of ice cream
What you need:
5 ears of corn
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
2 tsp salt
Optional : 1/4 cup sweet corn powder
How to make it:
Start by shucking your fresh sweet corn and cutting off the kernels as best you can.
Bring the milk and heavy cream to a simmer on low heat and whisk in half the sugar, 2 tsp of salt, and the sweet corn powder if you have it. I honestly don’t think you even need it, but I wanted my ice cream to be very corn-forward. The one I bought is used by Momofuku for their corn cookies.
Add your corn kernels and cobs to the milk base and cover. Keep the heat on for another 5 minutes or so, then turn off and keep covered for at least an hour.
While your corn is getting infused, separate your egg yolks from the whites and whisk in the other half of the sugar.
After about an hour, remove the cobs from the milk base and use an immersion blender (or stand blender) to blend the corn into the milk base. Strain using an ultra-fine mesh strainer. This is important, and I highly recommend getting one before making this because you don’t want little gritty corn bits in your ice cream.
Pour your corn-infused milk base back into your sauce pan on low heat. After a few minutes, slowly pour and whisk in about a cup of your milk base into the egg yolks to temper them, then pour all of it back into the milk base on the stove.
Whisk every minute or so for about 10 minutes or until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Once thick, turn off the heat and let it sit on the stove to cool.
Pour your ice cream base into a container to refrigerate overnight or to speed things up into a metal loaf pan and pop it in the freezer for a few hours. You don’t want it to completely freeze over unless you’re making no-churn ice cream, which honestly you could do with this; it’ll just be a little icy and not as creamy.
Churn your ice cream base for about 20 minutes or until thick and custardy.
Transfer to containers and freeze for at least a few hours or overnight. I use these paper pints; they’re great for storing all your different ice cream flavors you make and for gifts.
This is no cookies and cream ice cream, and I’m completely aware of that. But it’s fun to have once a year when we’re in peak corn season for something a bit different!
Happy August, loves!
🍦🌽
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