2 Recipes to help you use all those eggs!

Homemade Custard Ice Cream

Remember that ice cream maker attachment that you bought for the Kitchen Aid that has been hanging out in the back of the freezer? Time to put that baby to use. Make sure it’s nice and cold now, because you’ll be using it tomorrow to churn the custard. 

You’ll need: 

• 6 egg yolks
• ½ cup sugar (you can use whatever kind of sugar you want here, sugar in the raw, demerara, brown sugar, maple syrup, etc. Go ahead, get crazy)
• 2 cups Good Whole Milk (we suggest Ronnybrook, Battenkill, Ithaca, whatever good local milk you can get your hands on)
• 1 cup Heavy Cream 

This is your basic custard recipe, it will make about a quart and half of churned ice cream. This ice cream will be delicious as is because of the high quality dairy and eggs you are using. But if you want to add some additional flavor, feel free to add any of the following:

• Vanilla extract - 1 tbsp. (best quality you can get your hands on, or if you can get a whole vanilla bean, this is a great time to use it) Add your extract to the milk, or if you’re using the bean, split the bean and scrape the seeds into the milk. Save the pod for another use! 
• Cacao powder. Add about ½ cup (sifted) This will make something akin to a Wendy’s Frosty, mmmmmmmmmm. (just add french fries)
• Fruit ice creams: Substitute 1 cup of super ripe and flavorful fruit puree for the cream. (If you want to make sure your ice cream maintains richness, change the 2 cups whole milk to 1 cup whole milk, 1 cup cream) 

Okay, in a medium saucepan, whisk together your yolks, whole milk (or combo milk + cream), and sugar. Place over medium heat and continue to whisk to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed. You want to heat this mixture gently to make sure the eggs don’t curdle. Keep everything moving and wait until you see tiny bubbles start to form at the sides of the pan and the mixture is steaming gently. Don’t let it boil. It should start to thicken slightly. 

Take off the heat and strain through a mesh sieve into a bowl. The straining will catch any egg bits that may have started to cook too much and you don’t want those in your lovely ice cream. 

At this point, you add your 1 cup of cream (or fruit puree) and stir well until everything is incorporated. Keep stirring to aid the cooling process. Leave your custard mixture to cool on the counter for a little while, maybe an hour. Then cover and refrigerate overnight before churning. 

The next day, churn your ice cream - my batches usually take about 30 mins. Quickly get that stuff into the freezer and you’re done! 

Ultra Fluffy Angel Food Cake 

Angel food cake is a great summer dessert because it’s really light and airy. It’s also great because it’s a perfect way to use up a bunch of egg whites, and you don’t really need much else besides some sugar and flour. You really do want to eat this with something though. Something like ice cream. Or macerated fruit and whipped cream. Or chocolate sauce. Or all of the above.  

You’ll need: 

• A tube pan (straight sided bundt pan) or if you don’t have that, 2 larger loaf pans would work. The point is that you want to maximize the crust on this one, it will bake better that way. 
• About 270 grams egg whites. (this is from about 9 eggs, if you only have 8, it will be fine)
• 1 cup flour - use cake flour please! (Or the Janie’s Mill Sifted artisan flour from the website worked very well.)
• 1 and ½ cups sugar, divided. 
• Fine salt 
• 1 tsp Cream of tartar 
• Vanilla extract for flavor. OR something else: the zest of a lemon or orange? Delightful. 

Preheat oven to 325. You don’t have to grease the pan! 

Very important: SIFT your flour and the ½ cup of sugar together and have it ready to go for later. 

Put your egg whites in the bowl of the stand mixer and using the whisk attachment, mixing them on medium speed for 1-2 minutes until they start to get foamy. Add in your two heavy pinches of fine salt and the cream of tartar. If you’re using zest, add that in now. Keep mixing. 

When the egg whites are really fluffed up and are forming soft peaks, add 1 cup sugar in a slow stream while the mixer is still going. Then add vanilla if using. Keep mixing until stiff peaks form and the egg whites are looking glossy. 

Take your bowl off the mixer. Shake about half the flour/sugar mixture over your eggs whites and start to fold in VERY GENTLY.  Do a few folds until it starts to incorporate and then add the rest of the mixture. Continue to fold gently, turning the bowl and scooping up from the bottom. Don’t over mix, folding should only take a minute or so. 

Pour batter into the pans, level off gently and place into the oven. Bake for 50 mins to 1 hour. Check after 50 mins, mine needed about 1 hour, 5 mins but every oven is different. The cake should spring back to the touch. You want a nice, browned crust to form, that’s the most delicious part of this cake. 

When you take the cake out of the oven, you can invert the pan for the first hour of cooling if you choose. This will help the cake maintain some height and airiness, it’s not totally necessary though. 

After about an hour, take a thin knife and loosen the cake from the edges of the pan all the way around. 

Eat immediately!! (If you have leftover cake or don’t have time to eat asap - you can pan fry wedges of cake, this allows for a nice crispy crust and carmelized the sugar adding hints of toasted marshmallows!