Cinnamon Nut Crunch Ice Cream

With Thanksgiving and then Christmas sneaking up on us with such rapidity, I've started to develop some (what I hope will be) tasty different variation on the usual holiday fare.  I made this cinnamon ice cream and a version of the nuts last week for my Om Dinner and realized that together they would make great an even better ice cream!  

Try it over some simply roasted apples or by itself this ice cream it's a winner, but a scoop on the side of a Blue Hubbarb Squash Souffle (recipe tomorrow) will have your dinner guest wanting to move in!

Cinnamon Nut Crunch Ice Cream

Wrap 3 or 4 cinnamon sticks in cheescloth or a small muslin spice bag, smash with a rolling pin or a hammer and place in a large heavy bottomed sauce pan.

Then add 2 1/4 cups heavy cream and 1 1/2 cups whole milk and bring just to a slow simmer.  Reduce heat and simmer on low for about 20 minutes.  

Meanwhile, as the milk/cream mixture is heating up, place 6 egg yolks and 1/2 cup brown sugar in a bowl and whisk until the mixture looks like a thick mayonnaise (I use a standing mixer with the whisk attachment and mix it for about 3 minutes).

Very slowly add the warm milk mixture to the egg sugar mixture.  Once fully incorporated return the mixture to the sauce pan over medium low heat until it reaches 160-165 on a candy or instant read thermometer, stirring constantly. 

Pour through a fine sieve into a bowl, add 1 Tablespoon of good quality amber rum and let cool to room temperature.   You can put this bowl in an bigger bow of ice cube and water to speed up the process if you want to.

Cover and place in the fridge until completely chilled 4 hours or overnight. (In truth often if I decide in the morning I want to have ice cream at dinner I place this mixture into my freezer, stirring every 10 minutes and in about 45 minutes it is completely chilled. I'm sure this breaches some culinary etiquette but it works for me and saves you having to wait.  Just make sure you stir it often).

Place the chilled mixture into whatever ice cream maker you have and process accordingly.

When the ice cream is finished processing add 11/2 cups of roughly chopped  spicy sugar coated nuts and slowly stir in until well incorporated.

Place in the freezer until the ice cream has firmed up, anywhere from 2-4 hours.

(I decreased the amount of sugar I added from when I initially posted this recipe - tho not because anyone complained the ice cream was too sweet in reality it was quite popular I just felt the sugar in the nuts was significant enough that it was better to eliminate the 1/4 cup of cane sugar that I had originally added to the base of this ice cream....so now the recipe is just 1/2 cup of brown sugar.   And even though I am going to make a similar note on the sugar coated nuts I figured I'd mention it here as I have tweaked them as well, increasing the amount of salt and adjusting the measurements of spice).