Bit o' Honey

This week would have been kind of comical had it been someone else's life.  Let me count the way that things have gone wrong:

Eleemosynary:  Looked so good last week, total nightmare this week.  The set carpenter hasn't shown up for two days and one of the actors has taken it upon herself to declaim that she doesn't like the set or her costume.  Le sigh.

Deposition:  I went to Oregon Tuesday night, a trip that was ill-timed to begin with, to take a deposition on Wednesday morning.  Cue freak snowstorm that shut down parts of Oregon, including the one where the person I was deposing had to travel from--deposition cancelled.  The trip was all for naught.  Le sigh again.

The new living room furniture arrived--good news--and requires assembly.  However, the couch box wouldn't fit through the front door and the couch is in pieces in the garage.  In the meantime, my mother-in-law Hope arrives next week and David is going on a business trip.  See the problem?

I need a good night's sleep, enough time to exercise, a good opening night and perhaps a Valium.  Maybe not in that order.

Enough with the kvetching.  As part of my marathon cooking therapy session (I'm making that up, but maybe there should be such a thing) last weekend, I made gelato.  Our old ice-cream maker died an ignominious death a while ago, and we weren't motivated to replace it until a particularly unfortunate incident last month when the gorgeous vanilla ice cream base fully refused to freeze despite hours in the ice-cream maker.

But I didn't want ice cream:  I wanted gelato.  That's right, I'm dreaming of an Italian vacation that is two months away. 

This is a very basic gelato recipe that seems more or less fail safe.  The only word of caution is to use good-quality honey, because you really can taste it.  I used a clover honey, but next time I will use fireweed honey, which is flavored with the quintessential Alaska flower/weed that blooms everywhere in the summer.  Lavender honey would also be gorgeous.

Honey Gelato

Adapted from A16 Food + Wine

3 3/4 cups whole milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp. plus 1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 cup clover honey

Follow the instructions for your ice-cream maker;  the bowl of mine needs to be frozen overnight and this base needs to sit overnight, so start your prep the night before.

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk and cream.  Transfer three tablespoons of this mixture to a a bowl and stir in the cornstarch.

Heat the saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil.  Whisk in the cornstarch mixture, corn syrup, granulated sugar and sea salt.  Allow it to boil again, whisking often.

Strain the milk mixture through a cheesecloth or very fine sieve to remove any solids and stir in the honey.  Let the mixture come to room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

When you're ready to make the gelato, give the mixture a good stir and pour into the bowl of the ice-cream maker.  Process until the mixture is the consistency of soft-serve frozen yogurt, then remove the bowl from the maker and return it to the freezer.  It will harden a bit more, but not much.

Makes approximately 1 1/2 quarts gelato.