Palm Beach Orange Ice Cream

I know, it's not quite ice cream season yet and while you might want to wait for summer to serve this, I serve it year round. Of course, I'm a Floridian, but still, ice cream has always been my downfall and Maida Heatter's ice cream recipes are really something special. Even when it's cold down here, I love making her ice cream recipes. Ms. Heatter is best known for her baking and she only has a few recipes for ice cream in each of her cookbooks, so you know when you see one, it's going to be great.

This one is a family favorite. It's so versatile. You can serve it over a fruit salad, but it's lovely all by itself with a bit of fruit around it....or serve it along with a scoop of Maida's vanilla ice cream. The color is a delicate pale orange, it's creamy and what with both the orange AND lemon, it has an intense citrus flavor. I've been making it since the early 80's. The lemon prevents it from being too sweet...gives it kind of a refreshing tang.
Unfortunately, you DO need an ice cream maker, but you were going to get one anyway this summer, weren't you?

Palm Beach Orange Ice Cream

From Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk

Finely grated rind of 2 or 3 oranges

Finely grated rind of 1 or 2 lemons

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

3 cups freshly squeezed and sieved orange juice

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed and sieved lemon juice

Method:

Place the milk in the top of a double boiler over hot water on medium heat. Add the grated rinds and let cook uncovered until small bubbles appear around the edge.

In a small bowl, stir the yolks lightly with a whisk just to mix. Stirring constantly, temper the eggs with half the hot milk mixture. Then add everything back to the top of the double boiler. Add the sugar, syrup and salt.

Stir until mixture thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon...about 180° on a candy thermometer.

Strain the mixture. This is very important because the rinds will stick to the paddles on your ice cream machine.

Set aside to cool. Add the cream and both juices. Chill in the fridge until very cold and then freeze in your churn, according to directions.