Peach Ice Cream

The first in what I hope will be a series of peach flavored recipes.

When I was in high school, I detested the song “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America. I thought the song was dumb and I thought the band’s entire schtick was doubly dumb. I just didn’t get it.

Fast forward thirty some-odd years later, and I’ve revised my opinion to the point where not only do I no longer think the song is dumb, I actually like it. There have been numerous instances over the past few years where the song will pop into my head while driving the kids somewhere (this usually happens during peach season), which I then use as an opportunity to play it in the car via Spotify. My kids reaction, invariably, is to tell me to turn that crap off (though not in such crude language), which only makes me want to crank up the volume.

If the last time you listened to “Peaches” was sometime in the late 90s, do yourself a favor and hit the play button below.

But enough nostalgic yammering: as you already know, we’re doing a peach ice cream this week, and hopefully more peach flavors in the next few weeks to come.¹

For this week, I used a recipe from the esteemed Cooks Illustrated…though I can’t be sure it’s actually from Cooks Illustrated since the recipe is behind a paywall. Instead, I used the recipe spelled out on this blog, which says it’s from Cooks Illustrated. I’m taking it on faith that Josie over at Pink Parsley hewed closely to the original.

Anyway, here’s the ingredient lineup:

First order of business was to prepare the peaches. I cut an X in the bottom of each, blanched them for about 25 seconds, shocked them in cold water, and then peeled ‘em and chopped ‘em up. Then I put them into a pot with 1/2 cup of sugar and some lemon juice. The recipe says to leave them to macerate for 2 hours, but I cooked them on low for another twenty minutes or so.

Clockwise from top left.

Once the peaches were squared away, I made the custard, starting with the egg yolks. You add 6 Tbsps of sugar and then whisk until the color brightens.

Getting the yolks to configure themselves in a star-like shape was a happy coincidence.

With the egg yolks ready, I moved onto the dairy. The ratio of heavy cream to milk was 1 and 1/3 cups to 1 and 1/4 cups. Plus a half a cup of sugar.

Clockwise from top left.

Once the milk is near 180 degrees, you temper the eggs while stirring constantly, then pour everything back into the pot, heat until the custard has thickened, and then strain into a bowl resting in an ice bath. As always, I captured very few photos of this process:

Once the custard has cooled, you add vanilla extract, a small amount of almond extract (recipe didn’t call for it, but I thought it would be a nice touch), and the strained peach juice/puree.

Those pieces of peach pictured on the top right get mixed-in at the end of the churning process.

Speaking of which, here’s the churning video:

And here it is all scooped up:

It tasted incredible, let’s get that out of the way right off the bat. The vanilla-peach flavored ice cream was excellent and paired well with the large pieces of peach mixed-in throughout. The custard consistency was great, and it was nice having a large ratio of peach pieces mixed-in, as it ensured that each bite had some peach in it.

That said, there is definitely room for improvement.

First off, if I were to make this recipe again, I would use way less vanilla. The recipe calls for 1 tsp, but if I had a do over, I would only use 1/2 or even 1/4. The vanilla flavor is nice, but it overpowers the peach flavor.

Second, I would find ways to impart more peach flavor into the ice cream itself. Either by adding more peach puree or maybe steeping the cream in the peach skins I removed.

Finally, I should have found a way to make the peach chunks smaller. It’s nice getting pieces of actual peach in most bites, but since this is a frozen dessert, some of those bites felt too big and (therefore) too icy to me. Similar to the Cherry Garcia recipe, I would want to find a way to make the peaches chewier, smaller, and less icy.

That about wraps it for this week. For the next peach flavored batch (it might be a peach fro-yo, it might be peach using the Salt & Straw method), I think I’ll probably just go with dairy and peach flavor; no extracts of any kind.

I’m heading out for vacation on Saturday. For all the families whose school years are drawing to a close, I hope it ends well. Another year in the books! Onward to summer!

1. I will be on vacation for the next two weeks, so the peach series won’t resume until the third week of June. But have no fear…the blog will continue uninterrupted as I have some posts ready to publish during my absence.