BLT Ice Cream

    A BLT flavored ice cream with bacon and arugula in the actual ice cream and a sweet tomato jam as the topping.  Inspired by Orange is the New Black.

    Ingredients

    • 1 Cup Cream
    • 2 Cups Milk
    • 3/4 Cup Sugar
    • 3/4 Cup Milk Powder
    • 3 Cups Baby Arugula
    • 3 Slices Bacon (1/4 pound)
    • 1/8 Teaspoon Xanthan Gum
    • 1 Vine Ripe Tomato
    • 2 Tablespoons Sugar
    • 1 Pinch Salt
    • 1 Tablespoon Molasses
    • 2 Tablespoons Honey

    Instructions

    1. Cook the bacon until fully cooked and crispy. Warm the milk. Whisk the milk powder, sugar, and xanthan gum into the milk. Whisk in the cream. Add in the bacon and bacon fat, and the arugula. Mix well and allow to sit in the fridge overnight. Freeze in your ice cream maker or with liquid nitrogen.
    2. To make the jam, bring water to a boil. Take the top core out of the tomato and make two slits in the bottom to form an X. Drop the tomato into the boiling water for about 2 minutes. Remove it from the water and peel the tomato. Discard the water. Add the tomato to the empty pot and mix in the rest of the ingredients. Lightly mash or break the tomato into a few pieces. Turn on the heat on low and gently cook, stirring often, for about 15 minutes until the tomato has mostly broken down. Mash the tomato more as needed. Strain with a mesh strainer and press the tomato through so you remove the seeds and other solids. Bring to a gentle simmer for another 2 minutes. Cool to room temperature and serve.

    Notes

    I wanted to make a recipe from Orange is the New Black last week to get excited about the show returning, but I couldn’t really find anything great from the first two seasons. I was thinking of doing prison wine, but after doing some research, it just seemed really gross. Thankfully, during I think the 5th episode of the new season there was a funny scene with Piper’s always comical brother where he talked about how he has recently been “really into” making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Of course I was really interested because of all my recent liquid nitrogen adventures. He said he had been experimenting with some really weird flavors like BLT, and I immediately knew I had to try and make a BLT ice cream, but you know, a good one. I steeped the ice cream base in arugula and bacon, and then strained it to make the actual ice cream. Then I topped it with a sweet tomato jam sauce to complete the BLT trifecta.

    Bacon and bacon fat into the ice cream mixture.
    Arugula too!
    Let this sit overnight to steep.
    Strain it out and then make your ice cream either with liquid nitrogen like Cal and I do, or with your regular ice cream maker.
    To make the tomato jam, boil your tomato for a few minutes after taking out the core and making some slits in the bottom.  This helps it peel really easily.
    Get it into the pan with some sugar, salt, molasses, and honey.
    After it simmers a bit, you want to strain it.
    Push it through the strainer to get all the solids out.
    Then just bring it to one last quick simmer before cooling and pouring over your ice cream!
    I love that the ice cream stays very white so it is a surprise of bacon when you bite in. Just goes to show – TRUST NO BITCH.
    The jam sauce is the perfect compliment for the ice cream.
    This honestly sounds really weird, but the ice cream not only tasted like a BLT, but it was also really good.
    I sort of didn’t expect to like it this much. If it didn’t come out good I was prepared to run around like Red telling everyone I did not make this.

    And if you havn’t been following me on Instagram, here is me making liquid nitrogen ice cream-

    A photo posted by dan (@tfimb) on