Yesterday afternoon we suddenly had a craving for root beer floats, so we did what anyone else in our position would do: We grabbed a liter of A&W from the local convenience store and made a batch of Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream from The Perfect Scoop.

Yeah, more white ice cream. It’s getting to be quite a theme on the blog, eh? (And I’m not done yet… we still need to try the French vanilla, the toasted coconut, and the white chocolate, just off the top of my head.) I asked for a quart of heavy cream from my dairy delivery guy, and got a short-dated half-gallon for the same price instead, so I’m looking to use up a lot of cream in the next four days. I see a lot more ice cream, ganache or truffles, and—er—possibly some fresh butter in our future. So this vanilla ice cream makes some progress in that direction, without piling on even more fat in the form of 6 egg yolks—that will be for another time. 😉 David gives the option of using all heavy cream or a 1:2 ratio of whole milk to cream. I couldn’t quite bring myself to make ice cream from 3 straight cups of cream, so I used up the last of a jug of 1% milk—perhaps a half-cup. I really prefer a lower fat content in my ice cream, and not just because it makes me feel rather guilty to make. Ice cream made entirely from heavy cream has a way of coating your spoon and the roof of your mouth that actually detracts from the experience for a texturally picky eater like me.

Anyway, this recipe was very easy to make, and out of necessity I used vanilla paste rather than a whole bean. That worked out just fine, and the ice cream had lots of vanilla flavor. I took the opportunity to make up a few more graham cracker ice cream sandwiches, and (mental note) making those with freshly churned ice cream is definitely the way to go. And—the point of this exercise—we had some fantastic root beer floats after dinner: