Warming and spicy, this homemade ginger and black pepper ice cream is lovely by itself or alongside richer desserts.
If you ever lived in Charlottesville, VA in the late 90s or early oughts you probably saw a bunch of bands in the basement of the Tokyo Rose. Those, my friends, were the days. Night after night of crazy, perfect, awesome shows and upstairs amazing sushi. Almost every friend I have worked there in some capacity at some point. I spent my youth eating sushi and listening to indie rock all at the same place. Sniff, the Tokyo Rose, that version, is gone and the heyday of indie rock is on the downswing, but I can still pop open a Kirin Ichiban and have some ginger ice cream.
Homemade fresh ginger ice cream is an upgrade from the standard sushi restaurant fare, but it still has that amazing warm flavor that comes from frozen cream, which would be comforting even if it didn’t flood you with a wave of nostalgia for your squandered youth.
Ginger’s bright, crisp flavor and mild heat is a great counterpoint to fall foods. After curing for a few days the cream fully absorbs the ginger and orange, and the ice cream is silky with a little bite. I guess all homemade ice cream is festive, but this ice cream is especially so. You could even make the argument that you need to eat it after a big meal; ginger, after all, is a digestive aid.
Warming and spicy, this homemade ginger and black pepper ice cream is lovely by itself or alongside richer desserts. Recipe adapted from the Big Sur Bakery Cookbook, by Michelle Wojtowicz, Phillip Wojtowicz, Michael Gilson and Catherine Price
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 2 cups whole milk
- 4 tablespoons honey
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 inch section of fresh ginger peeled and sliced
- 4 egg yolks
- Pinch of sea salt
- Zest of one orange
- 4 - 6 turns of freshly ground black pepper
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Put the ginger in a small saucepan and just cover with water. Bring it to a boil and then let it steep for 10 minutes. Strain out the water (and discard) and then combine the ginger and 1 cup of milk in a blender. Blend well, for two minutes or more.
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Combine the milk and ginger mixture, the rest of the milk, and the cream, honey, salt, and half the sugar in a large saucepan and cook over medium heat, when the cream mixture is starting to steam set aside for ten minutes to allow for even more steeping. Bring the heat slowly back up; put the yolks in a heat proof bowl whisking in the other half of the sugar and the orange zest. Whisk a cup or so, 1/4 cup at a time, into the yolks. The goal is the raise the heat of the eggs so they won't curdle when added to cream. Whisk the tempered eggs into the cream mixture. Cook over medium heat until the custard begins to thicken and coat the back of a wooden spoon, about 7 minutes
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Pour into a large bowl, cover and chill for a long time – 3 hours at least. (Speed things along by putting the mixture over an ice bath.) Then process according to your ice-cream maker's instructions. Please note that this makes slightly less than 2 quarts of ice cream, so you might need to process the ice cream in two batches. Remove from ice cream maker and freeze for as long as you can wait. Three hours is good, but this ice cream is at it's best once it has cured for a few days. Serve with a twist of orange peel and a dash of fresh pepper.
amazing! Black pepper and ginger are without question two of my most favorite spices in the world. This sounds incrediby and different from the predictably sweet stuff!
Black pepper and ginger are slowly making their way into all of my sweets. Yay!
Hi B,
I google yesterday and I found your sour cherry ice cream recipe. cause the simplicity of the way of cooking, I tried and it has been divine. One of the most simple and tasty ice cream I ever made. We are fortunate in my country to have amazing sour cherries and now is their season. But, today I intend to try the your ginger& pepper ice cream recipe. please give me a hint, cause I do not know, how much ginger shell I use for it.
Thank you again for your generous way of sharing with us, your time and gifts. I take a bow.
Liliana from Romania
Hello Liliana, Thank you for checking out our site. For the ginger, I recommend a 4 inch section of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced (this is about 10 centimeters). The ginger steeps in the cream to give it flavor. Hope you like the recipe and thanks so much for commenting!
Hi, Elizabeth. 🙂 I stumbled on your blog in a happy accident, and I am now going to make this delicious ice cream.
I have a question: Do you know why the ginger is boiled/steeped in water first? Doesn’t that reduce the flavor? Thanks in advance.
Hi Néné, So very glad you found us! I steep the ginger beforehand to take out a bit of the bite. Fresh ginger can be quite spicy, and that spice intensifies as the ice cream cures, so the steep method offers a mellow and rich ginger flavor. You could try finely grating a bit of the fresh stuff and adding that to taste of you’re after a bit more bite. I’d guess a teaspoon would give you some intensity.
Aha! Okay. Well, I love the bite of fresh ginger, so I’m going to leave it in and see what happens as it cures. I made a slightly different ice cream from the one you posted: ginger-honey, with black pepper and roasted balsamic cherries. I tasted it last night (24 hours of curing) and it wasn’t too spicy. We’ll see again tonight. 🙂
Thanks for replying! Be well.