Ice Cream Without a Maker–Soufflé Glacé

Soufflé Glacé au Grand Marnier is a classic French frozen ice cream souffle (“au Grand Marnier” is optional, it means “scented with orange liquor.”) This is rich and delicious ice cream.  The churning/whipping happens before freezing, eliminating the need for an ice cream maker.
I used both a hand mixer (a Braun handheld with the whip attachment) and a stand mixer (with whip attachment), for speed in putting this together. If you don’t have both, simply wash the beaters after whipping the egg yokes/sugar/milk, and then whip the cream. But you’ll still need two large bowls.
I adapted this recipe from a German cookbook, The Great Cooking School for the Modern Household” by Martina Meuth (1980).

The concept: First you make a kind of sweetened condensed milk. Boil it and add part of it, hot, to egg yolks and whip it to a frenzy, then add the rest of the heated-to-boiling milk, whipping constantly while the mixture cools (less than 5 minutes). In a separate bowl whip the cream until stiff. Blend together carefully–add the liqueur (vanilla or almond extract would also work, because they contain alcohol) which prevents a total-freeze and keeps the texture ice-creamy. Then, freeze it for a couple of hours (2-3 will do the trick if your freezer is cold enough) and enjoy.
Ingredients for 6 servings:

• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup vanilla sugar (I keep a vanilla beans in a sugar-filled container; but if you’re using vanilla extract in place of Grand Marnier, you can use ordinary granulated sugar)
• 3 egg yolks
• 1-1/4 cups whipping cream
• 2 teaspoons Grand Marnier or Triple Sec (or substitute an alcohol-based extract)

Your egg yolks should be ready in a large bowl (when you add the sugared hot milk and whip, the volume will increase dramatically). Have your mixer at hand and your whipping cream measured, in the fridge.
Combine the milk and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat to dissolve the sugar. Now raise the heat to medium high, and stirring steadily, bring it to a boil.
Add 1/3 of the milk-sugar to the egg yolks in a slow stream while you whip them. This tempers the eggs and keeps them from curdling. Now, return the remaining milk (in the saucepan) to the stove to bring to a boil again. This will ensure that you’re heating the egg yolks to a sufficiently high enough temperature to instant-kill the germs that cause food-related illness. Drizzle the rest of the milk-sugar mixture into the yolks while whipping. Keep whipping until the mixture is barely luke warm.

Here are Martina Meuth’s instructions, in German.

Then whip the cream until stiff.

And stir the egg/milk mixture carefully into the whipped cream. Don’t beat it, just blend it, or you’ll deflate all the air you just whipped in (think soufflé; think careful, light touch).  Pour into a container to freeze. Martina shows how to do it the fancy way, in a soufflé mold.

Serve in a pretty sherbet dish, or as I did–with lemon-butter filled crêpes. Luscious. (I’ll post the recipe for the crêpes very soon).

Don’t even ask how many calories is in this stuff. It’s an indulgence. But, if we can pronounce all the ingredients, that means it’s almost nutritious, right?
The “Cooking School” is a treasured gift from two of my dear German friends who spent a summer with me in America, a few years ago. What was the first cookbook you ever owned? Was it a gift or did you buy it for yourself? And do you still own it?