The Root Beer Float To End All Floats
Posted By Michelle on August 20, 2008
(There’s been a lot of experimenting with Miso and Maple as of late. The scallop dish spawned this little concoction.)
We are childless parents of six furry babies, feline and canine alike. But little things like retirement and becoming aged invalids concern us. Who will take care of us when we can no longer feed ourselves? More importantly, who will cook for us so that we are not relegated to a life of Armour heat-and-eat processed frozen dinners?
Our only choice was to teach one of the “kids” how to cook.
Fisty Joe, the youngest of the clan, was attracted to the sights, smells, and flavors of the kitchen almost upon birth. On many a day, we would find him perched on the kitchen counter, face first in a fresh from the oven roasted chicken, that was cooling for that nights dinner or grazing gently from the crisp leafy greens of arugula, that had been tossed with a light lemon vinaigrette, waiting to be brought to the supper table.
Oh sure, there was a lot of yelling at first.
“Get out of that you little bastard!” and “You little S.O.B., go play in traffic!”
Yes, there were a lot of calls for take-out to replace partially eaten chicken carcasses covered with cat spit, but eventually, we realized Fisty was not just some cat sneaking a tender morsel. He genuinely appreciated the entire process.
He would sit in his “safe corner” and intently watch everything we would do. Stirring, sautéing, and chopping, it was all music to his highly attuned little ears.
We have now learned that if we give Fisty a sampling of whatever the day’s creation is, he will not take it upon his feline self to sneak a taste when our backs are turned. So far, his only displeasure is limes and, if it has pork or cream anywhere in the dish, he’ll eat with the fury of a lion. So, you can only imagine his excitement, when Daddy (Greg) taught him how to make Maple Bacon Ice Cream, from scratch.
(Note, the disinterest in the bird house behind Fisty)
Ice cream is actually VERY easy to make and you do not need an ice cream maker or opposable thumbs to get the job done. Any food processor will do the trick. For this recipe, the taste is a cross between custard, bacon, pancakes, and AWESOME!
(We had taken all of these wonderful, step-by-step pictures, but alas, the squirrel powered camera gave out and every picture was blurry.)
We just couldn’t resist the bottles of root beer in the fridge or the not-yet opened bottle of Maker’s Mark in the bar. The Maple Bacon Ice Cream Bourbon Root Beer Float was born and no, Fisty did not drink any bourbon. What kind of parent’s do you think we are?
Blog Update 9-24-2008: GO HERE TO ENTER THE TOP CHEF COOKBOOK GIVE-AWAY
Maple Miso Bacon Ice Cream Bourbon Root Beer Floats
Inspired by David Lebovitz’s Candied Bacon Ice Cream recipe
You can make any flavor of ice cream you wish with the basic process of this recipe, just substitute the maple, miso, and bacon with your flavor of choice.
For the bacon:
6 strips of bacon (1/4 inch, center cut works best)
½ cup light brown sugar (a little more or less, depending on the size of your bacon)
Place the bacon strips on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper so that the strips do not touch, then cover liberally with brown sugar. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, let it cool, then chop.
For the ice cream:
12 each egg yolks
1 qt. Heavy cream
1 each vanilla bean – split
¼ cup Turbinado sugar
4 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp white miso
Combine the maple and miso in a small pot and over heat just until you can whisk the two together, about 4 minutes.
Place the cream and vanilla in a pot over medium heat until steaming, about 8-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the Turbinado sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and beat them like you should have done to the wrestling team back in high school, that time they caught you walking alone at night…. Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m back.
When the cream is steaming gradually add ¼ cup to the egg mixture, stir very well. Repeat this with another ¼ cup. This is called tempering the eggs.
Add the egg mixture to the pot of cream and stir – don’t stop, even for a second, or you’ll get scrambled eggs – until the mixture begins to thicken, about 3-4 minutes.
Strain the mixture into a bowl, then pour the mixture into as many shallow dishes or baking pans as can fit into your freezer and will hold the entire amount. Place this into the freezer for 2-4 hours, until the custard is completely frozen.
Working in batches, use a spoon to scrape thin shavings from the custard and place them in your food processor. Then, pulse the custard in the food processor until it’s creamy. Move the custard from the food processor to a bowl, and repeat with the remaining custard.
Finally, fold in the candied bacon bits; place this mixture into an airtight container and return to the freezer to harden, about 2-3 hours.
The custard is now ice cream, so put some Maker’s Mark in a glass, add some root beer, and top with a couple scoops of the ice cream.
Stumble it!
bahahah awesome!
OK — this looks remarkably good.
I love the unexpected use of miso and bacon… and what ISN’T better with a bit of Maker’s Mark?
Exactly Lo, exactly!
this post brought a huge smile to my face! that cat… THAT CAT!!!! so cute.
How tasty! I admire your creativity.
man, i’d have loved a taste…
i made the candied bacon coffee ice cream from david and blogged it. it got me the most traffic, hands down…
Wow, talk about a flavor explosion! I’m sure I would get brain freeze as I slurped that down quickly. Just tried the bacon-chocolate combo for the first time yesterday (Vosges bacon bar) and it was a little addictive I must say.
We Are Never Full: That cat is my only hope to not rot in a retirement home. Oh, god help me. I have officially become the (almost but not quite yet) old lady with 100 cats and Fisty will be the leader.
Panini: Explosion in deed. We unleashed these puppies at a friends party and filmed the experiment. Many greeted it with a gasp and then a trickling smile and finally a “wow, that does taste like pancakes, only better!”
If I had know how easy it was to make my own ice cream, I wouldn’t have made Ben and Jerry millionaires.
Great idea! We’ll expect a sample in November.
PS; It’s good to see that the family writer gene is alive and well, even by association.
This is outrageous! You’ve combined two of my favorite desserts and all of my favorite flavors. I just made chocolate chip cookies with bacon, they were dynamite! The week before that it was a float with Lambic beer. But you have me craving a bacon float.
Wow…kind of sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen but I give you major props!
So creative!
Look at those little furry babies watching so patiently! I love it
This is quite a float…very adventurous!
Best. Cat name. Ever.
Unkel Steve: We’d planned on buying some chicken fried bacon from Sodolak’s and using that for the ice cream floats. Perhaps a new T-Day tradition???
Zoe: LOVE the Bacon Choco Cookie Idea. BTW, nice photography!
Jeff: He’s named after one of Greg’s friends, a strong little man with a curiously shaped head.
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Evidence that it is yummy, even without the miso, though I’d love to try it with…
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=40421146
ewwwwwwwwwwwwww! You meat eaters are gross! (but I did just add your blog to my blog roll);)
http://www.pezzphoto.com/photojournal
We LOVE vegetarians, they’re yummy! J/K, actually, we go through vegetarian stages ourselves. More of a healthy detox lifestyle. Thanks Amy! BTW, everyone, Amy is an AMAZING photographer.
Yeah, meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.
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OMG! That combination sounds fantastic!
My younger cat is a fiend for raw meat. Nothing can stop her from getting a taste of steak before it’s been cooked.
2 ibc root beers
breyers all natural vanilla
extra creamy whipped cream
large frosty mug
that will end your root beer float
mmmmm… Breyer’s vanilla. Living life to it’s fullest.
[...] Thomas Keller and that we love Cox’s Seafood. You’ve seen the wedding photos and you’ve met Fisty the Cat; as well as the newest member, Ricky Bobby. You know that Greg secretly longs to be Italian and [...]