Fresh from the Freezer

Sometimes, in life, all we need is some good vanilla ice cream. I made this ice cream to accompany an apple pie, but the ice cream stole the show. The apple pie just ended up being an excuse for me to make vanilla ice cream. As I gathered the ingredients and grabbed a jar of vanilla bean paste, I saw that it had “bourbon vanilla” written on it on the label. My eyes innocently flickered to the bottle of bourbon in the kitchen. You know where this is going. The best vanilla ice creams are the ones that are off-white-almost-yellow and with lots of black speckles of real vanilla bean. I wanted to add more egg yolks to get a rich, custardy yellow, but to be perfectly transparent, it already has slightly too much egg yolk. I considered lessening the amount of egg yolk, but then I thought… No. The people need this.    Even in this blurry photo while it’s in the midst of churning, you can see the dark vanilla bean flecks, not to brag. This recipe doesn’t call for whole v...