Cardamom is the New Vanilla

​Whenever I visit my Dad, I like to take a trip into the city of Asheville, NC to explore the food scene. The Hop Ice Cream Café was on my radar for this visit. I usually eat ice cream in the Summertime, however this visit came in an unseasonably warm December with temperatures in the 60s (just warm enough for ice cream).  We went to the shop and tried samples. After sampling sweet potato maple, salted caramel, cardamom, and chocolate orange flavors, I chose the cardamom ice cream.​

Although cold in temperature, the flavor was warm, toasty, creamy, and delicious. It was like a chai tea latte, but ice scream.  I knew that I would want to try this again and quickly went online to find a recipe to recreate the ice cream at home. After some research and a few recipe modifications, I was ready to make ice cream. Ok so let's get to the fun stuff.

​Note: I highly recommend making this recipe a 1-2 days ahead.

Cardamom Ice Cream Recipe

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
​4 Whole eggs (farm fresh if available)
1/2 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
​1 teaspoon ground cardamom
​1/8 teaspoon of salt
​pinch of cinnamon

Whisk together in a saucepan, milk, heavy cream, vanilla, and cardamom. Heat until just simmering, not boiling.  In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together. After the eggs and sugar are combined, continue whisking and slowly add 2 ladles of the cream base to raise the temperature of the eggs (This keeps the eggs from becoming scrambled). Then while whisking, slowly pour the eggs back into the simmering cream base. Continue whisking until lightly thickened and the base clings to the back of a spoon.

Pour the mixture into a clean glass bowl. Cover the mixture with cling wrap. Make sure the wrap touches the ice cream base so it does not form a skim. Put it in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight. The longer it sets the better the flavor.

Finally prepare the ice cream according to your ice cream maker's instructions. Once set, place the ice cream in a container, cover, and freeze until ready to serve.

I served mine "al a mode" with peach cobbler.

Source(s): ​Cardamom Ice Cream with Spiced Candied Pistachios
​https://www.savorysimple.net/cardamom-ice-cream-spiced-candied-pistachios/#wprm-recipe-container-20083

​​Smoked Cardamom Ice Cream with Salty Honey Caramel Swirl
​http://bojongourmet.com/2014/02/smoked-cardamom-ice-cream-with-salty/