Birch Syrup Ice Cream
I’m SO excited to finally be giving you a recipe with birch syrup. Birch syrup is something I got a long time ago at a local cooking school (they had a few little items on sale, including pickled spruce tips which will be in an upcoming recipe) and it has been sitting in my fridge forever. It’s an amazing ingredient, but sort of hard to use.
Birch syrup is like maple syrup, but has several key differences. It is similar in that it is syrup distilled from the sap/water taken from a birch tree, rather than a maple tree. The similarities basically stop there. Birch syrup requires WAY more sap (maybe 40 times what you’d require for a bottle of maple syrup?) and as a result it is hard to make, and difficult to find (not to mention costly). As a result, this is a tough ingredient to get your hands on, let alone use regularly in recipes. But don’t let that deter you! It is an amazing ingredient and if you can find it, definitely pick some up. It is totally worth it. The other feature of birch syrup is its very strong taste, meaning it lasts a long time. It tastes NOTHING like maple syrup and you probably won’t want to pour it onto your pancakes. Instead, it has a molasses-like flavour and I advise treating it as such.
Given the information above, I didn’t sweeten the entire ice cream with birch syrup. Instead, I used coconut sugar as the base sweetener since I love the colour and caramel flavour it brings to the ice cream (as well as some vitamins and minerals) and then, similar to a gingerbread recipe, I added the birch syrup in tablespoon increments like you might do with molasses. In this batch I added about 3 tablespoons, but you could add up to 1/4 cup depending on how strong you want the flavour to be. I recommend taste-testing it as you go along (once the eggs in the ice cream base have thickened and cooked somewhat). I also used coconut milk as the base in this recipe because I like the texture and the healthy fats I get from it, but this isn’t a vegan recipe. It uses MANY egg yolks.
I hope you love this recipe. I served it at a dinner party and got great feedback, and I’m excited to keep trying birch syrup in other recipes. Even though it can be hard to find and a bit costly, it lasts a while due to the small amounts you’ll use in each recipe, so it is totally worth buying if you can find it.
Ingredients:
2 3/4 cup coconut milk (canned - good quality)
2/3 cup coconut cream
7 egg yolks
3/4 cup - 1 cup coconut sugar (depends on how sweet you like it)
3 tbsp - 1/4 cup birch syrup
A generous 1/4 tsp of sea salt
Equipment
An ice cream maker, or ice cream making attachment for your mixer (sorry, this isn’t a no-churn ice cream)
Instructions
Place a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and pour in the coconut milk and coconut cream. Cook it for a few minutes, until the mixture comes to a boil. Then reduce the heat to medium-low to stop it from boiling. Add the coconut sugar, the birch syrup and the salt and whisk it together until the sugars are dissolved.
In a large bowl, whisk up the egg yolks. Then add a small amount of the hot coconut milk at a time - I used a 1/4 cup measure to do this. Once you’ve added a few ladles of the milk, whisking constantly, then slowly pour in the remainder. This is called tempering and the idea is to ensure the hot milk is added slowly while whisking rapidly to ensure the eggs don’t scramble. Once everything is mixed together, pour the mixture back into the pot and place it back on the stove on medium heat.
Switch to a silicone spatula and stir the mixture constantly until it thickens and the mixture coats the back of the spoon. You don’t want it too thick, but think of it as being the texture of a really runny custard or pudding. If you run your finger along the back of the spoon, you should have a line that stays.
Once you’ve reached the desired consistency, return the mixture to a bowl and place it on the counter to come to room temperature, then into the fridge to become cold. THIS STEP IS VERY IMPORTANT! Do not put the mixture into an ice cream maker while warm. I let my mixture sit in the fridge overnight, which also gave me the chance to freeze the insert to my ice cream maker.
Once your mixture is cooled and you’re ready to make your ice cream, simply pour the mixture into your pre-frozen ice cream maker base (I have a small ice cream maker we found on sale, but I know some people have an ice cream base attachment for their mixer - use whatever you have). I set a timer for 30 minutes, but I actually found that my mixture was churned after about 25 minutes. Yours may take up to 40. Keep an eye on it, since you don’t want it over over-churn! You want a nice, creamy consistency.
Once your ice cream looks like it has churned enough (it should be the consistency of soft-serve ice cream) then remove it and place it in a container in the freezer. It should firm up for at least 4 hours. Remove about 10-15 minutes before serving, and voila! You have homemade ice cream.
Now, as I said above, this is unfortunately not a no-churn ice cream. However, if you want to try that, simply freeze up some bananas and then add them to your food processor along with a bit of coconut milk, and the birch syrup. I bet that would taste amazing.
Enjoy!
