Custard Base for Homemade Ice Cream

Ingredients

1.	Place a metal mixing bowl in the freezer
2.	Pour the 100 ml cream and milk into a large saucepan with the 150g sugar over a medium heat until you can just start to see bubbles around the edge. Do not boil
3.	Take off the heat. With a sharp knife, slice the vanilla pod length ways and remove the caviar. Scrap the caviar into the milk and throw in the pod. Cover the pan, and allow the mixture to infuse for 1 hour
4.	When the mixture has infused, remove the vanilla bean. (You can rinse this and allow to dry then use in vanilla sugar)
5.	In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and 50g sugar together until the mixture is pale and thick
6.	Warm the milk mixture slightly, and add a little to the egg mixture and stir in. Repeat if necessary to slightly warm the egg. Add the egg mixture into the pan with the milk mixture
7.	Heat the mixture gently over a very low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon
8.	Get the bowl out of the freezer and sit in an ice bath, and pour the custard through a sieve into the cold bowl. Cover the surface directly with some cling film so a skin doesn't form and leave to cool
9.	If you are going to use an ice cream machine, pour the remaining 500ml double cream and stir. If doing by hand, beat the remaining 500ml cream until it starts to thicken, then fold in the cooled custard. You now have your ice cream base
10.	Add the flavourings you want, and either add to an ice cream machine to churn, or churn by hand

Variations