I finally indulged in a KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment for my mixer the other weekend. I was planning to wait for my birthday that is in a few weeks, but I found a really great deal on one that I could not say no to. It was extremely difficult to decide on what flavor ice cream I wanted to create first. I read through lists and lists of flavors as my boyfriend and I drove to the grocery store. My favorite type of hard ice cream is chocolate with peanut butter swirl, which we happened to have a pint of in the freezer. We decided to go my boyfriend’s favorite flavor, pistachio nut.
I found an awesome recipe online and picked up the ingredients while we were grocery shopping. I was able to find shelled pistachios which only came in salted. I rinsed the salt off of the 1 and 1/3 cups of pistachios that were going to soak in the milk/cream mixture and then baked them for 5 minutes in the oven to dry them out. I kept the other pistachios that were added to the ice cream salted and it seemed to work out perfectly. I added a small amount of green dye to the ice cream to make it looks like the classic pistachio ice cream. This is optional of course.
The custard tasted like delicious pistachio ice cream right away so we anxiously waited for it to chill, churn into ice cream and then freeze all the way in the freezer. When we finally got to taste the end results, it was awesome! I was very impressed with my first ice cream making experience. I am not over-exaggerating when I say thi,s but it was the best pistachio ice cream I had ever tasted!
- 1⅓ cups shelled roasted pistachio nuts
- ¾ cup sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk
- pinch of salt
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- ½ tsp. almond extract
- Green food coloring
- ¾ cups pistachios, roughly chopped
- If your pistachios are salted- follow this first step. Rinse 1⅓ cup of pistachios with water in a colander. Dry nuts on a towel and spread out on a baking sheet lined with parchment papers. Place in oven heated to 350 degree and place in the over for five minutes to dry.
- Add nuts to a food processor and grind into small pieces. Set aside.
- In a medium sauce pan; add milk, sugar, 1 cup of cream, and salt. Heat on medium-low heat until warmed. Take off heat and stir in ground pistachios. Let soak for 30 minutes.
- Strain the nut mixture liquid with a mesh strainer, apply pressure to the nuts to make sure all the liquid comes out. Dispose the nuts and add milk mixture back into sauce pan.
- In a large heat proof bowl add the remaining 1 cup of cream to bowl and place cleaned mesh strainer on top.
- In a medium sized bowl beat 6 egg yolks with a whisk. Slowly whisk egg yolks into sauce pan with milk mixture. Heat mixture over medium heat stirring the entire time with a heat proof rubber spatula. Stir until the custard thickens and easily coats the spatula.
- Pour the custard through the strainer into the cream in the large bowl. Stir to combine.
- Mix in the vanilla and almond extract into custard.
- Add custard to an air-tight container and refrigerate until completely chilled.
- Add chilled custard to your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer’s instructions. Once ice cream is churned add in green food coloring, adding a few drops at first and working up to the green color you prefer (this is optional, it does not add to the flavor.)
- Gently stir in roughly chopped pistachios and place back into an airtight container. Freeze for an addition 3-4 hours until complete frozen. Serve and enjoy!
Source: slightly adapted from Brown Eyed Baker
