Summer's Last Fling

Summer is so fleeting. I looked at the calendar and couldn't believe that it's already the last week of August. What happened? I haven't been to the beach, read a trashy novel, or gone on a roller coaster. No hiking (thank goodness), sailing, or biking. What have I been doing? Well, to be honest, I've been making ice cream.

You thought that because I wasn't posting it, I'd stopped. I'd gotten over my obsession with The Perfect Scoop. Not so. I was just keeping it under wraps, afraid that if I posted everything I'd made, the blog police would make me change my name from Cooke Baker Lynn to Ice Cream Freezer Lynn. And that's just not good. It makes me sound too bulky, for one thing.

But my summer fling with The Perfect Scoop has completely taken over my time. And my freezer. Every available container close to a 1 quart size has been pressed into service. I've got squares, rounds, smalls, talls, and leftovers. (I highly recommend saving the 32 oz plain yogurt containers. They're perfectly sized for a quart of ice cream.) And none of them are labeled. So when someone wants some of the lemon-ginger ice cream they have to hunt.

Dessert time around here sounds something like this:

"Isn't it the yellow tupperware with the green lid?" "It was, but we ate most of that so I moved the little bit leftover into a small treat-cup size. The yellow one now has the banana ice cream in it." "Well, what's in the blue yogurt one?" "What color is it?" "Um, creamy?" "Oh, that's the lavendar-honey." "What's in the red yogurt?" "That would be the peach. That sounds good. Get that one out."


You see, I'm seriously back-blogged, so I'm just going to do one more week of ice cream, then we'll be ready for fall. Almost. I still don't have a single ripe tomato on my four tomato plants.

When I let my husband pick which ice cream du jour I should make he picked the Malted Milk Ice Cream. He's always had a soft spot for Whopper's and I'd already made Whopper Ice cream for him, which he liked. This one, though, he loved. He thought it was the best ice cream he'd ever had. It is seriously good. Creamy, saturated with smooth, malt flavor, and speckled with malt ball crunch.

Malted Milk Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop
by David Lebovitz

1 cup half-and-half
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup malt powder
6 large egg yolks
2 cups malted milk balls, coarsely chopped

Warm the half-and-half, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a large bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, vanilla, and malt powder and set a mesh strainer on top.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and whisk it into the malted milk mixture. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer' instructions. As you remove the ice cream from the machine, fold in the chopped malted milk balls.