Editors Of Food52 - Food52 Ice Cream and Friends

Thank Yous

Ice cream is a whole lot more fun with friends, and writing a book is, too.

This book would have in no way been possible without Food52s community members who dared to dream creamier, kookier, and bigger with their ice creams. Thank you for sharing your recipes and wisdom with all of us at Food52 and now in this book. Our freezer is a lot more fun and exciting because of each of you: Abbie Argersinger, Alice Medrich, Amanda Hesser, Angela Brassinga, Barbara Reiss, Big Gay Ice Cream, Bobbi Lin, Brooks Headley, Christina Tosi, Cristina Sciarra, Cynthia Chen McTeman, David Lebovitz, Derek Laughren, Elina Cohen, Emiko Davies, Emily Connor, Emily Vikre, Ethan Frisch, Kathy Wielech Patterson, Katie Quinn, Lisa Canducci Bailey, Liz Larkin, Mandy Lee, Marian Bull, Mary French, Max Falkowitz, Merrill Stubbs, Michelle Lopez, Molly Yeh, Mrs. Mehitabel, Nicholas Day, Nicole Rucker, Pat Aresty, Phyllis Grant, Posie Harwood, The River Caf, Sarah Simmons, Suzanne DeBrango, Virginia Kellner, Winnie Abramson, and Yossy Arefi. A special thank-you to Alice Medrich, who has flooded our website with invaluable information about ice cream and was there to answer phone calls and give advice on probably unnecessary worries.

Thank you to Cristina Sciarra, our ice cream sherpa who leaves no flavor or serving idea unconsidered, but doesnt flinch when we suggest another (burnt toast) and then another another (lemon spoom?). We cant pick our favorite of the 30 recipes you developed for this book, so we wont! Thank you for lugging your industrial ice cream maker from Jersey for shoots, and for responding to e-mails in record time.

The editorsKristen Miglore, Ali Slagle, Sarah Jampel, Kenzi Wilbur, Amanda Sims, Caroline Lange, Samantha Weiss-Hills, and Leslie Stephensate ice cream before 10 a.m. and wrote headnotes that make each recipe sound like the special snowflake that it is. You are all also special snowflakes. This book wouldnt be what it is without Sarah, whose many (in a good way) ideas about how to make ice cream more fun made Alis job of Frankensteining this book together a whole lot easier.

To the photo team, we did it! James Ransom and Alexis Anthony, thank you for loving our muse not just for how it tastes, but also for how it looks. Thank you to James for agreeing to shoot this book while on a Paleo diet, and to Alexis for finding yet another way to show a scoop of ice cream. Kristen and Sarah, ice cream styling is hard, but we found our way. Lets just not do it without air conditioning again, okay? Thank you to Josh Cohen and his helpers Allison Buford, Elizabeth Parlin, Scott Cavagnaro, Elena Apostolides, and Shannon Elliot for filling two freezers with ice cream, week after weekand for only kind of freaking out when our ice cream maker died.

Thank you to our testersAnna Francese Gass, Dawne Marie Shonfield, Jennifer Philipp, Kate Knapp, Lauren Shockey, and Marisa Robertson-Textorfor facing brain freeze in the dead of winter and isolating the great from the good recipes. Youre welcome for making you eat ice cream. Our gratitude to Head Recipe Tester, Stephanie Bourgeois, for answering e-mails with subject lines like burnt toast dust measurement without guffawing. Big thank you to CB Owens, too, for your attention to detail and caring about punctuation as much as we love ice cream.

To Amanda, Merrill, and the rest of the Food52 team, thank you for sharing our belief that ice cream knows no bounds in flavor, season, method, or joy; for participating in ice cream socials, often; and for doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff you do to bring this book to life.

Ten Speed: We know that each of you has touched this book in some way. Thank you for your belief in a different, looser, sillier ice cream book, and for helping us make onethats just silly enough.

Naked Chocolate Ice Cream

Serves 2 chocolate lovers | From Barbara Reiss

Imagine doing the breaststroke through a pool of glassy-smooth melted bittersweet chocolate. We cant give you that experience, but we can give you this unabashed and unadulterated chocolate ice cream.

Borrowing a smart technique from David Lebovitzs book The Perfect Scoop, Barbara uses cornstarch rather than eggs to thicken the pudding base so that the cocoa powder, chocolate, and vanilla extract come through in the end product as if there were exclamation points around them.

For those who arent chocolate-obsessed (are you really out there?), you can use this same techniquea cornstarch-thickened custard for an ice cream baseto make other flavors; Barbara has had great success with churning salted caramel custard, and we imagine a butterscotch or pumpkin pudding would be qualified candidates, too.

3 cups (710ml) half-and-half

1 cup (200g) sugar

cup (65g) unsweetened cocoa powder

teaspoon espresso powder

Pinch of kosher salt

3 tablespoons cornstarch

6 ounces (170g) bittersweet chocolate, chopped

3 tablespoons crme de cacao or liqueur of your choice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large saucepan, heat 2 cups (470ml) of the half-and-half, the sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and salt over medium-low heat.

In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch into the remaining 1 cup (240ml) of half-and-half until smooth, then stir into the cocoa mixture. Stir constantly over medium-high heat until the base thickens and begins to boil, about 5 minutes.

Off the heat, add the chocolate, crme de cacao, and vanilla, stirring until the chocolate melts and the mixture is very smooth. Cover the surface with wax paper and chill until cold, at least 2 hours but ideally overnight.

Scoop the ice cream base (its thick) into an ice cream maker and churn it according to the manufacturers instructions.

Marys Healthy Ice Cream Sandwiches

This recipe comes from Amanda Hessers father-in-laws girlfriend, Mary French: She uses a 3-inch (7.5cm) cookie cutter to make a circle in the middle of two slices of whole-wheat bread, toasts the circles, and, while the breads still warm, smooshes a scoop of chocolate ice cream between the slices. Et voil, an instant ice cream sandwich thats the ragtag cousin of pain au chocolat. Mary insists the wheat bread makes it healthy. We like Mary.

Homemade Sprinkles

Makes about 1 cups (205g) | From Michelle Lopez

Wed have a hard time telling you what store-bought sprinkles are made of, let alone what they taste like. So for sprinkles that are flavorful and delicious enough to eat on their own, its worth it (and pretty dang simple) to make them yourself. The best part? You can think about your ice creams taste and appearance and choose your sprinkles flavor and color scheme accordingly. Make it as elegant (dark sprinkles on chocolate ice cream) or as whimsical (a rainbow of sprinkles on mint-basil chip) as youd like.

8 ounces (225g) confectioners sugar, sifted

1 egg white, at room temperature

teaspoon vanilla or any other extract, such as rose water or peppermint

teaspoon kosher salt

Up to 3 food colorings of your choice

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a handheld electric mixer), beat the confectioners sugar, egg white, vanilla, and salt on low speed until combined.

Divide the paste among as many bowls as you have colors, tinting the paste in each bowl. Use a rubber spatula to stir the food coloring into the paste until its an even hue. Adjust the amount of food coloring (if its too thick) and sugar (if its too thin) in small increments until you find a consistency thats squeezable.