During my last trip to New York City, I felt inspired by a number of mouth-watering foods: freshly made spicy guacamole at Dos Caminos, frisée Lyonnaise (with chicken livers and a poached egg!) at Bar Boulud, a flight of chilled red wines at Blue Ribbon Downing Street Bar, and Shake Shack's 'Shroom Burger--a portobello mushroom and hunk of cheese breaded and deep-fried. In terms of dessert, my sister and I went to Momofuku Milk Bar for some of their trademark (literally) cereal milk soft serve, which was delicious and interesting with a definite essence of cereal milk in it. But I wondered how the overall effect would be as a more solid ice cream rather than as a soft serve, and figured it should be quite easy to make.
So I did... and it turned out decadent and rich, with the sweet taste of Honey Bunches of Oats (my chosen cereal) contrasting the slight tartness of pure milk. I decided to use a higher cream-to-milk ratio than I did with the previous ice creams, to try something different. I personally thought it was a bit too rich (as in, I probably couldn't eat a whole bowlful), but others preferred the thicker texture.
Momofuku's Cereal Milk Ice Cream
1 c heavy cream
1 c whole milk
1 c cereal of your choice
3 egg yolks
1/4 c sugar (approximately, depends on sweetness of cereal)
- In a medium bowl, combine cream and milk with cereal of your choice. Refrigerate for up to 30 minutes.
- Strain cereal out and discard. Put mixture in saucepan with sugar (to taste) and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks until they turn pale yellow and fluff a bit.
- When mixture is simmering, turn off heat and pour 1 c very slowly into the yolks, making sure to keep whisking so the eggs do not scramble. Then add back to saucepan and turn on medium-low heat.
- Keep stirring over heat until custard thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Then take off heat, cover and refrigerate overnight.
- Freeze in your ice cream maker.
As I mention above, the amount of sugar (and overall flavor, of course) will vary with the cereal you choose to use. I chose Honey Bunches of Oats because that's what I've been eating lately, and I had it handy. Also I thought the honey flavor would go well with the "pure milk" flavor. I think Milk Bar has made cereal milk ice cream with Fruity Pebbles and some other cereal I can't remember right now. But I could easily see making this ice cream again, maybe with a chocolate flavored cereal, and also because it is so easy to make compared to other ice creams. No pureeing or major straining/juicing involved!
Next up: Some real science!
