Adventures in Caramel

We here at Chez Blogberg have been having some fun, since October, with an ice cream machine. Perhaps a precursor to the fulfillment of the dream of opening a kosher ice cream stand similar to a Dairy Queen, but called THE ICEBERG. I would assume that creating higher quantities with better machinery is somewhat different than our one and half quart Cuisinart, but it's a start.

Until now we hadn't even made real ice cream. For purposes of Yom Tov and Shabbos our ice cream was pareve. We used whipping cream and soy milk (that way the WHOLE thing didn't taste like chemicals), and had a good time playing with different flavors and add ins. As big fans of Ben & Jerry's our ice creams were both simple and chock full of extra bits and vibrant flavors.

Right before Shavuos, one of my favorite places, Costco, had the ice cream machine on sale. I decided it was time for us to try it real. (Yes, I know, it's all cold, and one could use one ice cream maker for both, but we felt it is unnecessary for us to do so, and the purchase was made. I think back to a story I heard before Pesach. KAJ does a community kashering and sometime in the late '40s or early '50s  Rav Breuer announced that they had rebuilt themselves to the point that they no longer needed to kasher pots, and could afford to purchase pots especially for Pesach.)

Well, we weren't going to start with some mamby-pamby ice cream, we were going straight for heaven. An ice cream we had made pareve would be transformed to dairy, with real cream and real whole milk. We could almost taste the sweet and salty richness of the salted caramel ice cream we were about to create.

Lucky (it turned out) for us, the first batch of salted caramel burnt. It wasn't really what we wanted anyway, too liquidy, and the cream was kind of "going," so we chucked that batch, and started new. Caramelize the sugar add just a little cream to keep it thick, add some sea salt, spread it on parchment paper and stick it in the freezer until we could chop it up and throw it into the ice cream in the last minute of the machine's cycle (otherwise it blends in too much).

Oh my! That caramel came out splendid; sweet and creamy and salty and luscious, we had to make more. So more sugar, more stirring, when BAM! my finger touched the rim of the pan. That in itself is a burn I've gotten many times, but it made me flinch, which made the caramelizing sugar on the spoon fly up, and rest in almost ten different places on my left hand.  Fear not! I was not about to let another batch of sugar burn, and with one hand under freezing water, the other deftly poured in the cream and finished stirring! I think that batch was even better!  My hand is still killing me, but that ice cream was so incredibly decadent and delicious.

And now I can make a real good caramel...whenever. Hopefully without the blister skin!