Vanilla Custard Ice Cream

1. 1Put the cream, milk, vanilla seeds and the scraped pod into a heavy saucepan. Warm over a medium heat until it steams and just trembles at the edges — do not let it boil. Take it off the heat, cover, and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. This steeping step is where almost all the vanilla flavour comes from; rushing it gives you sweet cream with a hint of something.
2. 2Whisk the yolks, sugar and salt together in a large bowl for a good two minutes, until the mixture pales and thickens enough to fall from the whisk in a ribbon that sits on the surface for a second. The sugar dissolving into the yolks is what stops them scrambling later, so keep going past the point where it looks mixed.
3. 3Fish out the vanilla pod. Warm the cream through again, then pour about a ladleful into the yolks, whisking hard the whole time. Add another ladleful, still whisking. This is tempering — it lifts the yolks to temperature gradually, and skipping it gives you sweet scrambled egg.
4. 4Pour the warmed yolks back into the pan with the rest of the cream and set it over a low heat. Stir constantly with a spatula, scraping right across the base and into the corners where it catches first.
5. 5Cook until the custard thickens to 82°C — or, without a thermometer, until it coats the back of the spatula and a finger drawn through leaves a clean line that does not flood back. This takes 6–10 minutes and the change happens quickly at the end, so do not walk away. Above about 85°C the yolks curdle, and there is no coming back from that.
6. 6Strain the custard through a fine sieve into a cold bowl — the sieve catches the chalaza and any bits that did set. Sit that bowl in a larger one of iced water and stir until it is no longer warm, which stops the cooking dead.
7. 7Cover the surface directly with cling film so no skin forms, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. A properly cold base churns faster, traps smaller ice crystals and simply tastes more of vanilla the next day.
8. 8Churn in an ice cream maker for 20–25 minutes, until it holds the texture of thick soft-serve and the paddle leaves a trail. It will not be firm in the machine, and churning on hoping it will get there only works air in and makes it greasy.
9. 9Scrape into a shallow container, press a piece of baking parchment onto the surface, and freeze for at least 4 hours until scoopable. Move it to the fridge for 10 minutes before serving if it has been in the freezer overnight.

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