As I was asking around the office for ice cream flavor suggestions, my coworker mentioned that she had an ice cream with almond cookies in New York. Since I love almond flavored anything, I thought this would be a great flavor to try next. For those unfamiliar with almond cookies, they are a popular Chinese snack/dessert that is similar to a shortbread cookie but has almond flavoring. They are crisp and buttery, a perfect mix-in or topping for ice cream. I was lucky to find some in my local supermarket but they only had one brand. Asian supermarkets probably have a larger selection. The good ones can be found in Chinese bakeries but I'm not going all the way to Chinatown just to get some cookies.
I've made this ice cream twice before starting my blog and was able to fine tune it for this third batch. The first time I made it, I found a few recipes online for almond flavored ice cream and many of them call for almond paste to make the base. As it turns out this ice cream tasted good, but the texture was very gritty due to the bits of ground up almond in the paste. Some people may like this different texture for a change, but I prefer a smooth ice cream base especially if I'm going to add something crunchy to it. I love to eat food with contrasting textures.
The second time around I wanted to find a recipe that would result in a smooth ice cream so I found a few recipes online that only use almond extract for the flavoring and no actual almonds or almond paste. I based this version on a basic vanilla ice cream recipe substituting some of the vanilla extract for almond extract. This time the ice cream was nice and smooth while still tasting very almondy. The cookie gets a little soft (but not soggy) while sitting in the ice cream but still gives a good crunch. For those who prefer more crunch, I would recommend reserving some almond cookie as a topping.
This one makes into my top five of ice creams that I've made so far. It might be number one or number two right now on a very short list. I find it strange that I like almond flavored desserts because I don't particularly like almonds themselves. Almond extract is so much concentrated than the flavor you get in actual almonds that I don't even think of almonds when I'm eating something almond flavored. I just get an intensely sweet flavor and think about other almond flavored desserts I've had like almond tofu (think almond flavored jello) and almond milk tea. This will be one I come back to again.
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Almond Cookie Ice Cream Recipe
Improvised by icecreameyedoc
Ingredients
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
5 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1 cup chopped almond cookies
1 tsp almond extract
Directions
1. Heat milk, 1 cup of cream, sugar and salt in a pot and bring to almost boiling. Remove from heat.
2. Whisk milk mixture into egg yolks.
3. Heat custard (stirring constnatly) until thickened then add to remaining cup of heavy cream. Chill in ice bath until cool.
4. Add 1 tsp almond extract and stir.
5. Refrigerate for a few hours and churn in ice cream maker.
6. While removing ice cream from machine and placing in storage container, add chopped almond cookies in layers between ice cream.
