Grapenut Ice Cream | I Scream for Ice Cream

Glory be, it’s ice cream season. July is, after all, national ice cream month. Of course, we New Englanders also consume a healthy portion of the stuff in the dead of winter, but this wilting weather is the perfect excuse to indulge.

Several years ago, during my first tour as Yankee’s food editor, I developed several ice cream recipes that, if you’ll forgive the bragging, were fantastic. I revisited them recently and found that they have stood the test of time.

One is a true New England classic: Grapenut Ice Cream. Among the many reasons I’m happy to call myself a New Englander is our ability to turn cereal into dessert (see our Grapenut pudding recipe and accompanying video).

Ice cream is truly easy to make. For best results, though, you’ll need to plan ahead. Homemade ice cream develops its best texture when the cooked custard base has an opportunity to chill slowly in the refrigerator for at least six hours before freezing. Ice cream experts call this “curing.” But if you’re in a hurry, you can always chill the base over a bowl of ice water and freeze it right away.

RECIPE:
Grapenut-Raisin Ice Cream

Amy Traverso

Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee and cohost of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with GBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.

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