Cake Batter Ice Cream

We were in florida and my son and daughter were introduced to Marble Slab.  They loved it!  This was also the first time for cake batter, or birthday cake, ice cream.   I've been eyeing this on Annie's Eats for a while, but I knew I'd have to stick with David Lebovitz's ice cream recipe.  I mean seriously, I got The Perfect Scoop from the library this summer, and every recipe was perfect.  And he even has recipes for homemade mix ins like brownies, cookie dough, chocolate swirl.  It's a perfect book.  Perfect.  Why haven't I bought it yet?  As soon as the weather warms up, I will.  I digress.

This ice cream is custard based, which is a good match for the yellow cake mix.  It's very rich, very creamy, and a little goes a long way.

There are a couple quirky things about this recipe-

Why use vodka?    Well, to sum it up, this basically keeps it from freezing fully and being too hard.

Are you really using a cake mix???   Yes.  Yes, I am.  If this offends your moral sensibilities, I would go here.  (p.s. the aforementioned link is not to hades, it's to I am Baker's cake mix!)

adapted mainly from David Lebovitz
and inspired by Annie's Eats

Ingredients:

1 cup (250ml) whole milk

A pinch of salt

3/4 cup (150g) sugar

2 cups (500ml) heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1/2 cup cake batter prepared mix

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1-2 tablespoons vodka

1. Heat the milk, salt, egg yolks, and sugar in a saucepan.  Stir constantly until thickened enough to coat the back of a spatula.  Add the eggs first before heating or you will have scrambled eggs!  Set a strainer over the top of the smaller bowl and pour the cream into the bowl.

2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.

3. Strain the custard. Whisk in the cake mix.  Stir the bowl over another bowl filled with ice until cool, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

4. Add the vodka and vanilla extract, and freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.