A Vanilla Father's Day

Happy Monday everyone! I hope your day is sunny and exciting. Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be with my dad on Father's Day. Of course I wanted to bake him something for this special event, but he only requested 2 things - pancakes and vanilla bean ice cream. My dad is a vanilla guy (guess who I got it from?) so we stayed traditional with this recipe, but adding the twist of low fat. Since I forgot my own recipe at home, I found a great replacement. With no further adieu, here's the result:

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream
Adapted from Gourmet, September 1998

Ingredients

• 2 vanilla beans
• 3 cups heavy cream (I used fat free half and half)
• 1 cup whole milk (I used non fat)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs

Directions

1. With a knife halve vanilla beans lengthwise. Scrape seeds into a large heavy saucepan and stir in pods, cream, milk, and sugar. Bring mixture just to a boil, stirring occasionally, and remove pan from heat. (I let it steep for about 30 minutes here, lid on!)
2. In a large bowl lightly beat eggs. Add hot cream mixture to eggs in a slow stream, whisking, and pour into pan. Cook custard over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until a thermometer registers 170°F. (Do not let boil.) 
3. Pour custard through a sieve into a clean bowl and cool. **My bowl sat in a larger bowl filled with ice water. This stops the custard base from cooking.
4. Chill custard until cold, up to 1 day.
5. Freeze custard in an ice-cream maker, in 2 batches if necessary. Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden. Ice cream may be made 1 week ahead.

Happy baking!