Sweet Corn Ice Cream

Two truly great things to love about Ohio are summer sweet corn and Jeni's Ice Cream. When Jeni paired the two in her cookbook Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home I knew the recipe would be a winner, and it is. You definitely taste the corn, the sugary sweet best parts of it in my opinion! If you haven't had a chance to make it to a Jeni's location, try out this recipe and see how great her ice cream is. 

Makes 3-4 cups

Recipe reprinted with permission: 
Credit: “Excerpted from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni
Britton Bauer (Artisan Books). Copyright 2011. Photographs by Stacy
Newgent.”

You'll need:

an ice cream maker

1 ear sweet corn, husked
2 cups whole milk
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 ounces (3 Tbsp.) cream cheese, softened
1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup

Prep:

Slice the kernels from the corn cob, then "milk" the cob by scraping it with the back of your knife to extract the liquid; reserve the kernels and liquid. 

Mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. 

Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. 

Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

Cook:

Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, corn and juices, and corn syrup in a 4-quart saucepan, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes.

Remove from the heat and force the mixture through a sieve into a bowl, leaving the corn 'cases" behind. (Steph's note: the leftover corn makes an excellent snack, or even a great treat for pooches!)

Return the mixture to the saucepan and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

Chill:

Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes. (Steph's note: as pictured, I find it easiest to pour the base into a ziploc supported by a 4-cup measuring cup. Then I cover the bag with ice in the cup and stick it in the freezer for half an hour.)

Freeze:

Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy. 

Pack the ice cream into a storage container, press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. 

Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hours.

Jeni pairs this ice cream with a black raspberry sauce, I usually prefer it on its own, some freeze dried corn makes a nice little crunch and lets people know they're eating corn ice cream. There are few things I love more in life than eating a bowl of Jeni's Ice Cream! Try some for yourself, enjoy!