Milk Gelato

Have you ever opened your mouth and tasted something and suddenly time stops?

Totally stops.

You’re not in charge anymore.

You don’t know where you are, who you’re with or what you ate an hour ago?

Life…

and your palette are frozen in time.

Frozen as in a dish of ice cream – or gelato in this case.

I didn’t know it was National Ice Cream Month when I bought my ice cream maker  last weekend. I wanted to make homemade ice cream – I’m not the ice cream fan in the family. That was before I made a batch of milk gelato tonight.

It takes your breath away.

I didn’t (and still don’t) know anything about making homemade ice cream and that’s why I’m so compelled to learn everything I can. I botched the recipe I tried last night. The mistake I made is that I didn’t give myself time to understand the process nor the ingredients. After throwing the batch out last night, I resolved myself to finding a good recipe and sticking with it so I can get my arms around it.

I found this wonderfully simple recipe from Saveur.

Simple ingredients. Simple flavor. Simple instructions.

You combine milk with whole cream, sugar, cornstarch and a bit of apricot preserves for flavor.

Slowly heat it on the stove until thickened.

Strain the thicken mixture and chill.

Put in your ice cream maker and follow the directions for making ice cream.

As anxious as everyone is for this icy treat, don’t rush the process until the mixture is frozen and needs to be scraped from the paddle.

You can serve immediately for it will have the consistency of soft serve…

or put it in a plastic container and freeze additionally (an hour or more) for a firmer texture.

My daughter opted for the soft serve or the “I-can’t-wait-to-eat-this!” route.

One spoon in her mouth – and silence (very unusual for her!).

We opted to wait a bit and I served my ice cream loving husband…silence again.

It’s that good.

Now a moment of silence please.