TWD: Vanilla Ice Cream (one week late)

First of all, my apologies to Mary of The Food Librarian she chose Dorie's classic banana bundt cake for this week's recipe, but after my husband's birthday party this past weekend - where I made a sweet and salty cake, an agave-sweetened ricotta cheesecake, blondies and browned butter shortbread (recipe tomorrow), I just couldn't make any more sweets. I will make this cake at some point, but for now, I have the vanilla ice cream from last week's TWD.

I wasn't able to make this for last tuesday, but after reading rave reviews on so many blogs - many said it was the best ice cream they had ever had. I was anxious to give it a shot.

I finally had a chance to make it one night last week. I started to heat my cream, I had all of my other ingredients ready, all was going well. I looked over at my pot to check on my cream, and what should be floating there but a moth, its wings disintegrating into the liquid. I had to toss it all, and I had no extra cream to start over with.

A few nights later, I tried it again, and this time I was successful!

The only change I made to the recipe was to sweeten it with agave. I used 1/2 cup for the full recipe of ice cream, and it was plenty sweet.

This was really yummy ice cream, but not the best vanilla I've ever had. Actually the brown sugar vanilla we made for SMS several weeks ago was probably the best. This wasn't nearly as creamy, and I honestly felt it was a bit of a waste of a vanilla bean... Vanilla extract would have worked just as well (which is actually what I used for the SMS ice cream). I'm sure it's a great base for all kinds of fun add-ins, though.

Thanks to Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu for selecting last week's recipe, and thanks to Mary of The Food Librarian for hosting this week. I promise I'll give the bundt a chance soon! I'll be out of town next week, but I'll try to bake in advance so I can keep up with the group.