Lemon-Basil Ice Cream (GF & Organic)

So, while staying on this basil kick, I figured I'd add my recipe for Lemon-Basil ice cream.

Don't knock it until you try it!

It was the most refreshing ice cream I've had. So incredibly yummy! Mark and I gobbled it up (see my previous post about his love for basil pesto) before I could even get a finish product picture of it. Sorry!

I got the original idea from a recipe for Lemon-Basil yogurt in my Taste of Home magazine and decided to adapt it to what I wanted.

Here's what you need:

1 cup organic cream
3 cup organic milk
4 organic egg yolk
2/3 cup organic sugar, divided
1 bunch of fresh basil
1 organic lemon
1 T organic vanilla (Those observant eyes will see that I didn't have any organic vanilla that day...oops!)
salt
organic walnuts, optional

Put the milk, cream, zest from the lemon, salt, and 1/3 cup of sugar in a medium-large saucepan. Squeeze the juice from your lemon and tear up your basil leaves and place in the cream mixture. Bring almost to a boil, but remove from heat before it gets to a boil.

Cover the mixture with a lid and let it steep for at least 30 minutes. The longer it steeps, the better the flavor.

In a separate bowl, beat your egg yolks, the remaining sugar, and vanilla for about a minute or until pale.

This is where I removed the basil. You could leave the basil in during the next step and it'd be fine and I know some recipes leave the basil in, but I didn't want a gritty texture, so I removed the basil here.

Take about 2 Tb. of the cream mixture and place in the eggs. Whisk it in. Add another Tb or so and whisk in. It's important to temper your eggs so that they don't scramble when you add them to your warm mixture. Then you may transfer your egg mixture into your lemon mixture.

Cook this for 4-6 minutes on medium heat or until it coats the back of a spoon.

Let this cool completely either in the fridge for a few hours or in an ice bath for about 30 minutes.

Once cooled, put in your ice cream maker and let it do it's thing.

In the last 5 minutes, you may add the walnuts if you like. I thought this was a great addition!

Like I said, I don't have any final pictures because we ate it too quickly. It was the perfect after dinner dessert because it was so cool and refreshing!

Enjoy!