Pumpkin Ice Cream

Wow! My blog hit 2000 views in the last day or two! I'm so happy :). And now that I'm home for winter break, I've been baking and cooking up a storm, particularly for Christmas. The problem with that, however, is that I forgot to take pictures of most of the recipes :(. Luckily, these are all recipes I will be making again, so photos will be posted when I do. But you're in for a treat: caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream, ginger cake, roasted butternut squash, vanilla extract, royal icing (the gingerbread cookies failed because my oven has been malfunctioning), and many more. I've got an angel food cake in the oven right now!
I made the angel food cake because I had a lot of leftover egg whites from when I made ice cream to go with my Christmas dessert. One of my family's favorite restaurants is Chow, and my mom's favorite dessert is a ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. For Christmas this year, I was in charge of side dishes and the dessert, so I decided to recreate the ginger cake. This is the pumpkin ice cream that went with it.
The bourbon listed in the ingredients (I used whiskey) is OPTIONAL. We used the recipe without trying it out and the alcohol was very potent, so if you don't want that, then leave it out. It's delicious even without the bourbon. If you're tasting it throughout the process, it will taste like pumpkin pie filling, even when it is at soft serve stage, but it will taste like ice cream after you freeze it. I promise.

Pumpkin Ice Cream

Makes about 1 quart.

Ingredients:

1 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin puree

1 t vanilla

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

5 egg yolks

1/2 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t ground ginger

1/4 t salt

Pinch ground nutmeg

1 T bourbon (optional)

Instructions

1. In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and the vanilla. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 8 hours.
2. In a heavy sauce pan over medium heat combine 1 1/2 cups of the cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar and cook until bubbles form around the edge, roughly 5 minutes.
3. In the meantime, whisk together the rest of the cream and brown sugar with the egg yolks, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and nutmeg until smooth and the sugar starts to dissolve.
4. Remove the cream mixture from heat and gradually whisk about 1/2 cup of it into the egg mixture until smooth. Pour the egg mixture back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly and keeping it at a low simmer, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, 4-6 minutes. Strain though a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl.
5. Whisk the pumpkin mixture into the custard and then cover with plastic wrap (the plastic should be touching the top of the custard so a skin does not form) and refrigerate until chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight. 
6. Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to instructions. Add the bourbon during the last minute of churning and then transfer to a freezer safe container, cover, and freeze until firm.
7. Eat.

Source: Williams Sonoma