Cinnamon Ice Cream
It was decades ago when I had my first taste of cinnamon ice cream during a trip to Julian, CA where my BFF and I nibbled on ice cream and bits of freshly baked pie crust. Eventually, I moved to a place that didn’t have cinnamon ice cream and thusly, I was not only in a literal desert, but a cinnamon ice cream desert as well. A Dessert Desert, if you will. Yeah. I went there. I tried making the treat once, but, while it wasn’t a failure (it was a triumph unto itself!), it wasn’t the flavor I was searching for.
Moving back to Southern CA, I started harassing John about going to Julian for some small town wanders and, of course, ice cream and apple pie. It took me over a year, but we went, and he was hooked. Last weekend he looked at me and said, “I have an idea” and given that I have trouble denying that sweet, sweet man anything, I said, “yes, of course”
My sisters are collectively gagging and the “gimme the recipe” folks are grinding their teeth. So here we go.
I used this recipe, chosen because, well, I forgot a few things at the grocery store. Turns out, I didn’t have everything for this recipe either, but I winged it and it was still okay. I’ll make it again using the correct ingredients, I promise. One interesting thing about this recipe, is that it does not use eggs (I had eggs) it used cream cheese, (I also had cream cheese) which means it is safe for my mom to eat.
The recipe is for vanilla, or you can use her peanut butter pie version, which will happen because John is a peanut butter ice cream with chocolate (not the other way around) fan and once again, see above. Here is what I did to make it cinnamon and the variation that created an accident so delicious, my friend asked if she could keep it and return my container later. Obviously I said yes.
I soaked a ceylon cinnamon stick in in the dairy and sugar mixture while it heated. Next time I will soak it overnight as I did with horchata a couple of weeks ago. I also added ground cinnamon while I cooked the dairy mixture. When it came time to blend the batter into the cream cheese, I blended that cinnamon stick right into everything. Then I strained out the chunky bits. Next time I’ll use a regular blender instead of a stick blender. Make sure you use ceylon sticks, as they are softer and easier to blend. unless you just want to soak, in which case the other kind are fine.
Continue according to directions. Initially, John noted that it could use more cinnamon, but the flavor has gotten stronger since we churned and froze it, so you will need to be aware of your taste profiles.
And if you want to get really wild, replace your regular granulated sugar with vanilla sugar for a flavor so much like a snickerdoodle that my favorite Nevada Storm Lady Football player said, “please leave that here”. And I did because she’s awesome.
Wow. that’s a big photo
Update 9/24 please note, as time has progressed, the cinnamon flavor has gotten stronger. Please take this into consideration as you develop your recipe!
