Book of Days Tales

Today is the birthday (1880) of Helen Adams Keller, an internationally celebrated deafblind U.S. author, political activist, and lecturer. The story of how Keller’s teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of the play and film “The Miracle Worker.” Her birthplace in West Tuscumbia, Alabama is now a museum and sponsors an annual “Helen Keller Day”. Her birthday is commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was authorized at the federal level by presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980, the 100th anniversary of her birth.

Helen Keller fondly recalled many foods from her childhood in her autobiography, The Story of My Life. These were: ice cream, bread and butter, raisins, Christmas cakes/cookies. Her father grew grapes, berries, watermelons, and strawberries in his garden. He always brought Helen the first grapes and choicest berries. Helen loved her family’s orchard which grew peaches and apples. She was also a great lover of hot dogs, but I have devoted another post to them, so I will talk about ice cream.

My wife was a huge fan of ice cream, and she and I spent years perfecting our own recipes. By the time of her death we owned 5 ice cream makers of various sorts. Our favorite was an old hand-cranked model of the bucket with salt and ice variety, although the others were less labor. The thing about hand cranking is that you can vary the speed of churning – slowing down as the ice cream freezes to produce a smoother finished product. My wife also loved ice creams that were drowning in butterfat, but it took us years for us to get it right. We found that the more heavy cream we used the gummier the ice cream was. Then we found a magazine article by Gaston Lenôtre who advocated adding butter to the custard. Voilà !! Problem solved. Here’s our recipe for vanilla ice cream from memory. Make sure you use the best vanilla pods you can find. We mail ordered Madagascar beans. Perhaps later I’ll talk about our other favorite flavors. For now I recommend serving this one with a fresh fruit salad to honor Keller.

©Vanilla Ice Cream

Ingredients

6 egg yolks
2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup whipping cream
1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
2 vanilla beans split open lengthwise

Instructions

Heat the milk in a heavy saucepan, stirring constantly, until it starts to bubble. Stir in the sugar until it is dissolved, then add the vanilla beans. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the egg yolks until they are pale yellow. Add a little hot milk slowly to the egg yolks whilst whisking.   Pour this mixture back into the saucepan containing the rest of the milk.

Cook the custard over low heat, stirring constantly. This is a critical step. You must cook it until it coats a spoon such that if you draw your finger through it on the back of the spoon, the custard does not flow back immediately. Do not overcook otherwise it will become scrambled egg and you will have to start again. Constant stirring prevents sticking. Sometimes I use a double boiler which prevents sticking or burning, but will not prevent curdling.

Remove from the heat and add the cream and butter. Whisk until smooth and the butter has melted. Remove the vanilla pods and scrape the inner vanilla flecks into the custard.

Chill the custard in the refrigerator until it is as cold as you can get it. Then churn in the ice cream maker of your choice. When finished it will be soft, but delectable. If you can resist eating it all at that point, pack it into a Ziplock® bag, squeeze the air out, seal it, and place it in the freezer for several hours. Do not keep it more than a day or two because without stabilizers and other chemical junk, ice crystals will form, ruining the texture.