Guinness Ice-Cream recipe

 You may have guessed from my previous hubs that I like Guinness - I love the flavor, and the 'heaviness' it has. Guinness Ice-Cream is a treat for me; I think I got into this when one ice-cream maker was doing a special flavor for St Patricks day - it wasn't too successful so it was never made again.

As I loved the stuff I searched for a recipe and eventually found one! It's an easy recipe - however out of all the recipes I've published it is the hardest to master! While I give the ingredients and instructions, there really is a lot of trial and error required to get this right - the bitterness of the Guinness sometimes overwhelms the other flavors, and often the texture is not good.

So try it, and the persevere - it may take a few tries but it is worth it when you hit that magic 'recipe'.

• 12 ounces Guinness - this is the hard part - I find that about 12 ounces works - but for you it may be different - really depends on your taste.
• 2 cups heavy cream  - you can try using lower fat creams, but I haven't tried and would expect that substituting heavy cream with another cream would destroy the texture and flavor.
• 2 cups whole milk  - you can substitute with 2% or 1% milk, but it does change the flavor and texture
• 3/4 cup sugar - you can use brown sugar if you prefer - the ending ice-cream is slightly less sweet.
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence  - this is another element that takes time to measure correctly, as it really depends on how much Guinness you have used and your taste preference.
• 6 egg yolks - average sized eggs.

• Place Guinness in a pan and simmer for about five to ten minutes - the idea here is to reduce the volume to about one quarter of the starting volume - the good thing is that the alcohol burns off making this safe for driving or children.
• Combine the cream, milk and sugar in a bowl slowly - I tend to use a wooden spoon to mix the content very slowly - and add the vanilla essence.
• Bring the cream mixture to a slight boil - watch this very carefully making sure you catch it just as it begins to boil - remove from heat.
• Seperate the egg yolks and beat them gently - slowly begin to whisk in the cream mixture - take your time with this, slowly adding a little and stirring gently.
• Slowly heat the mixture stirring constantly until it thickens - takes about four or five minutes.
• Strain the thickened mixture into a separate container - cover with cling film and make sure the cling film touches the surface - this will ensure no skin forms.
• Chill for 2 hours in the fridge.
• Take the Guinness reduction and whisk into the chilled mixture.
• From here you can either simply freeze it, or for best results use one of those ice-cream making machines - I'm poor so I simply freeze it!

There are several ways you can 'spice' this recipe up a little:

• Mix in some chocolate syrup.
• Add some liquor to the Guinness before the reduction process.
• Add some solid chunks of chocolate.
• Try replacing the cream with vanilla yogurt - to make frozen yogurt instead of ice-cream