Salted Caramel Ice Cream, No Eggs or Cream Required

I’ve always been a strong partisan for egg-based ice creams. The velvety-smooth texture and slightly eggy taste of a custard ice cream base to unthickened Philadelphia-style ice cream.

Unfortunately, I don’t always want to sacrifice half a dozen eggs to make a single batch of ice cream. I also don’t have a vast selection of dairy products in quantity in my fridge; milk is usually about it. (I’ve seen recipes that call for milk, cream, and half-and-half—WTF?)

So I was intrigued when I heard about the recipe used by Jeni Britton of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio. She thickens her ice cream base with cornstarch instead of eggs. The ice cream comes out just as smooth and creamy as the egg-based stuff, and it has a cleaner taste—the milk’s natural sweetness comes through more clearly. It is a bit softer and less scoopable than some ice creams, but I kinda like it that way.

This Food & Wine story has several of Jeni’s recipes; I adapted a standard caramel ice cream base with eggs to use cornstarch, and also used all whole milk instead of Jeni’s milk-cream combination (she also adds cream cheese for extra richness; next time I make ice cream and have cream cheese, I’ll try that). You can use half cream and half milk if you want—it’ll make the finished product a bit smoother.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tbsp. butter
1/2 to 1 tsp. salt (depending on how salty you like it)
3 1/4 cups whole milk, divided
1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch

Place sugar and just enough water to moisten in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, swirling occasionally, until sugar has melted and caramelized to your liking (the darker it gets, the less sweet the ice cream will be). Remove from heat; add butter and salt, and whisk until butter has melted completely.

Reduce heat to medium and put the pan back on it. Add 3 cups milk. Caramel may solidify; this is fine, it will melt again as the milk heats up. Heat mixture to boiling, whisking occasionally. Let boil 2-3 minutes, and remove from heat.

While milk heats, dissolve cornstarch in remaining 1/4 cup milk. Whisk into boiled milk mixture, return to heat, and cook, whisking, until it comes back to the boil and thickens somewhat. (It will end up the consistency of a thick soup.

Remove from heat, strain, and place in refrigerator until completely cold, 6 hours or overnight. Freeze in your ice cream freezer as directed. (It helps to let the ice cream spin in the freezer a bit longer than usual—makes it smoother.) Once frozen, transfer to the freezer to harden before eating.