Santa Lucia Saffron raisin ice cream
 
Ingredients
  • 400 ml (1.7 cups) cream
  • 300 ml (1.3 cups) milk
  • ½ vanilla bean (cut in half, and with the seeds peeled and collected for use) or ½ teaspoon of genuine, good quality vanilla powder
  • 0.6 gram saffron
  • 125 ml (a full ½ cup) sugar
  • 5 egg yolks
  • 1 egg
  • optionally) 1½ tablespoon inverted sugar (honey, agave nectar, corn syrup or similar)
  • 100 gram slightly chopped raisins
  • About 6 tablespoons glögg (10-15 % alcohol)
Instructions
  1. Slightly chop the raisins, put them in warmed-up glögg and leave aside to soak at least one hour, preferably longer.
  2. Whip together the sugar, the egg and the egg yolks. Put aside for now.
  3. In a sauce pan, mix the cream, the milk, the vanilla, the saffron and the inverted sugar. Bring close to a boil.
  4. Little by little, and while whisking constantly, add the hot milk/cream mixture to the egg/sugar mix (the tempering phase).
  5. Pour everything back into the sauce pan, and - while stirring constantly with a spatula - bring the mixture to about 82-84 degrees Celsius (179-183º F) on low-moderate heat.
  6. Quickly take off from the heat - remove the vanilla bean now - and cool as quickly as possible (in waterbath, ice bath or cold exteriors).
  7. When cooled down, chill the ice cream base in the fridge, preferably over night and at least a few hours (this will improve both the final taste and the texture).
  8. Churn the chilled ice cream base in your ice cream machine according to instructions. When the ice cream almost is ready, add the glögg-soaked raisins and any remaining glögg to the base.
  9. When churning is finished, put in freezer-proof container, cover with plastic film and seal with lid.
Notes
Glögg is a Swedish mulled wine, usually quite sweet and with an alcoholic content of about 10-15%. If you don't have any, you could possibly use any mulled wine (appropriately sweetened) prepared with spices like cloves, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon. Or just skip the glögg, follow the pirate way and soak the raisins in Rhum instead! In case you want to avoid alcohol, soak the raisins in non-alcoholic glögg, or any soft drink or syrup you think could go well with saffron. Just remember that alcohol will prevent the raisins from freezing solid - if you don't use it, you would have to add extra sugar to the liquid, as the sugar will prevent freezing as well.
Recipe by ICE CREAM NATION at https://www.icecreamnation.org/2011/12/lucia-saffron-raisin-ice-cream/