Recipe: Easiest Coffee Ice Cream Recipe Ever

I don’t, as a rule, eat sweet stuff.  Candy bars, chocolate cake, tapioca pudding, etc., aren’t really my thing.  I wish I could say it’s out of a disciplined desire to eat healthy, but it really just comes down to a weekend I spent as a middle schooler staying at my best friend’s house and, because there was nothing else to eat, we ate candy bars all weekend.  I thought I was in heaven, but by Monday I was forever cured of ever wanting to cram myself full of refined sugar again.  Imagine that old cliche about the dad catching his son smoking and then making him smoke a box of cigars, but replace cigars with Butterfingers.

I have two exceptions to this rule:  First is red velvet cake, that Southern staple, which my wife makes for me every year for my birthday.  It’s the only time all year that I eat cake of any kind.  Second is ice cream, which I will admittedly eat the hell out of.  I love ice cream.  Learning this recipe was probably a huge mistake.

This is my riff on the semi-famous Two Ingredient Ice Cream recipe over at Instructables, adjusted to make for a pretty great bowl of coffee-flavored ice cream.  Even with the extra ingredients it’s one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever found for homemade ice cream.

You’ll need:

• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 teaspoon grated vanilla bean (more or less to taste)
• 1 heaping tablespoon finely ground coffee (more or less to taste)

Steps:

1. Using a hand mixer (or a whisk if you have the arms of a boxer), beat 1 1/2 cups of the whipping cream until it stiffens.  Set it in the fridge.
2. Make a simple syrup by boiling the water and stirring in the sugar, taking it off the heat as soon as the sugar completely dissolves.
3. Lightly whisk in the remaining cup of whipping cream, grated vanilla bean, and the coffee grounds to the simple syrup until it’s all fairly even.
4. Take the stiffened whipping cream out of the fridge and blend in the simple syrup/vanilla/coffee mixture until it’s completely folded in and once again stiffened.
5. Cover and freeze for six hours.

There are only two very minor pain points with this recipe:  First, whipping the cream takes forever if you’re not using a decently powerful hand mixer; second, you’ll want to whisk in the cream/vanilla/coffee quickly once you remove the simple syrup from the heat, to ensure it mixes evenly before it thickens.

If you leave out the coffee and vanilla bean, you can vary this recipe almost infinitely.  Sub in Irish cream, or grated dark chocolate, or salted caramel.  (Don’t use fruit though.)

This recipe serves about 6 to 8 people…or 1 if you’re me.  I’ve eaten an entire batch of this in one sitting.  I’m not proud.