Ice cream sous vide (with Barbados Custard Vanilla ice cream)
By: 
 
Preparing ice cream custard bases sous-vide is convenient and effortlessly guarantees a perfect cooking result! We test the technique with a Barbados vanilla ice cream recipe courtesy of Kitty Travers, where a little dark rhum and unrefined sugar add a West Indian spin!
Ingredients
For the technical parts:
  • A sous-vide cooker, for example of immersion circulation type
  • A large enough zip-bag / plastic bag
  • (recommended but optional: vacuum sealer)
The Barbados Custard vanilla ice cream
  • 1 teaspoon good quality vanilla powder (or one vanilla bean)
  • 200 ml (about ⅘ cup) whole milk
  • 200 ml (about ⅘ cup) cream
  • 60 gram (about 70 ml or ¼ cup) sugar
  • 50 gram (about 50 ml or about ¼ cup) brown sugar or light muscovado sugar
  • 200 gram (about 200 ml / ⅘ cup) cream fraiche
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1-2 tablespoons (dark) rhum
  • pinch of salt
  • optional: 1-2 tablespoons skimmed milk powder
Instructions
  1. Mix the milk and the cream well with the sugars, then add all the other ingredients.
  2. Whisk and transfer the base to a vacuum-bag of your choice.
  3. Vacuum and seal the bag.
  4. Program your sous-vide machine for a time of (at least) 30 minutes (and to really be on a very safe side,1 hour) on 77° C / 170,6 F and use it to preheat the water in a suitable pot.
  5. When the water in the pot has reached the desired temperature (and with the immersion circulator in place), put in the sealed plastic bag with your ice cream base, start the process and wait for an hour or so :-)
  6. When the program is over, your base should be perfect, pasteurised and ready for churning once cooled down.
  7. Let the base cool down and preferably chill for a few hours or overnight.
  8. Churn in your ice cream maker or still-freeze using your household freezer.
Notes
This is the "heavier" version of Kitty Travers' recipe: her base version uses no cream but only milk (and crème fraiche). The skimmed milk is an optional addition I've made in order to add yet some more body and compensate for the lack of evaporation during the cooking.

In case you decide to use a vanilla bean instead of vanilla powder, you need to remember to remove the stalk from the base before the churning ;-)
Recipe by ICE CREAM NATION at https://www.icecreamnation.org/2023/02/ice-cream-sous-vide-with-barbados-custard-ice-cream/