Bacon and egg ice cream
This forms part of a dessert served at the restaurant. It's a twist on breakfast: caramelised brioche in place of toast, tomato and red pepper compote for jam, chewy salted butter caramel with wild mushrooms, and this ice cream, all washed down with a small cup of jellied Earl Grey. The idea stemmed from thinking about why some ice cream tastes of egg. I came to the conclusion that it's because the custard is overcooked. When you cook custard, the heat makes the proteins in the egg coagulate, which thickens the mix. If you continue cooking the custard, it will scramble, with the proteins completely clumped together. Egg yolk sets at 72C. So, by cooking the custard to 82C or more, as advised in many traditional recipes, the proteins begin to coagulate. Although the custard may still look liquid, tiny clumps of protein will have formed. And so, according to the coffee bean theory, the custard will be full of little bursts of egg flavour.
All of which got me thinking about how to exploit this eggy flavour, and so this recipe was born.
300g sliced streaky smoked bacon
1 litre full fat milk
25g skimmed milk powder
24 egg yolks
50g liquid glucose
175g unrefined caster sugar
Roast the bacon in an oven at 180C until slightly browned. Place in cold milk and leave to marinate overnight. Tip the milk and bacon into a casserole, and add the milk powder. Put the egg yolks, glucose and sugar in a mixing bowl and, using an electric whisk, mix at high speed until white and increased in volume.
Heat the milk and bacon mix to simmering and, with the whisk still going, pour a little on to the yolks. Tip this back into the milk pan, and cook over a lowish heat until it hits 85C. Hold at this temperature for 30 seconds, then remove from the heat. Cool the mixture down by stirring it over ice, tip into a blender and liquidise until smooth. Pass through a sieve and churn.
