Cinnamon

I took the week of Thanksgiving off from work and since I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to clean out and rearrange some of the cabinets in my kitchen. In the back of the cabinet where I store my spices, I found a single cinnamon stick in its package. That got me thinking about what a cinnamon ice cream would taste like, so I decided to infuse some cinnamon sticks into a hot base for my next batch and serve it alongside a caramel sauce and some spiced graham cracker crumbs.

Rating: 3 scoops

This ice cream had a hint of cinnamon, but probably not enough to tell you this was a cinnamon ice cream. I'm not sure if it was because I didn't break apart the cinnamon sticks to allow a more rapid infusion or if the eggs in the custard were muting the flavor of the cinnamon. It was probably a mix of both. In any case, the texture of this ice cream was great due to the eggs and I'm glad that I made the caramel sauce to accompany the ice cream.

When I first decided to make this ice cream, I was trying to decide if a custard or Philly base would be more appropriate. Whole spices are generally a good match for custards since the extra fat (due to eggs) helps prolong flavor release, but the Philly base would provide a cleaner background for the cinnamon flavor to come through. I ultimately decided I wanted the flavor to be present for longer and moved ahead with the custard.

This was a pretty typical custard recipe, which I made similar to my vanilla. 10 cinnamon sticks were in the package I purchased, so I was hoping that would be enough. Next time, the cinnamon sticks should be broken into smaller pieces to ensure that the cinnamon flavor fully infuses the base.

After an overnight cure, churning, and several hours in the freezer, I had my scoop of cinnamon ice cream! As is typical for custards, this scooped very well and had a nice firm bite to it due to the extra fat. On hindsight, it might have been fun to color the base brown with a little cocoa powder to match the cinnamon sticks as I otherwise couldn't tell the difference between this custard and other ones simply by looking at it.

As I was looking for a mix-in for the ice cream, I came across a caramel recipe in one of my cooking magazines from a few years ago. I don't believe I have ever made it, so I decided to give it a try. This is a "wet" caramel, which uses the addition of water to help the sugar melt more evenly. In addition, I added some corn syrup to provide some glucose to the mixture and make it more difficult for the sugar to crystalize, resulting in a smoother caramel. The recipe also had options for caramel popcorn and caramel-braised shallots, both of which sound delicious!