Beer Sabayon Ice Cream

The first real cookbook I ever bought for myself was Biba Caggiano's Trattoria. This was back when I thought Italian would become my specialty. Nowadays, I'd say my specialty is homemade ice cream (not that I'm a reliably good cook), but one of my favorite recipes is Caggiano's Zabaglione Ice Cream. One day, I found a recipe online for beer sabayon, and realized that sabayon and zabaglione are the same thing.

Beer Sabayon Ice Cream

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar
8-10 oz Ommegang (or other beer)
squeeze of lemon (maybe)

1 1/2 cups cream, whipped 

3 TBS sugar

I've made this several times, but never had the diligence to try to perfect it, so I can't guarantee that above is the best version. It's still good though.

Beat the egg yolks with the larger amount of sugar until pale yellow (the usual ice cream step). Place it in a double-boiler above simmering water (I just use a stainless steel bowl on top of a pot). Slowly beat in the beer with a whisk. Keep at it for a few minutes until the mixture is frothy and has doubled in size. Then, place bowl in ice water bath to cool, stirring.

Separately, whip cream with sugar. (Whipped cream is always better fresh.) Fold the whipped cream into the egg yolk mixture, and add a squeeze of lemon if desired. Run the mix through your ice cream machine, or still freeze it if you don't have one.

Whipping the cream first is unusual, but produces a super soft texture. The ice cream itself should be strong enough in taste to cut through all that air (Caggiano's recipe -- made with Marsala -- is considerably stronger). That being said, sometimes I only half whip the cream, which also makes it easier to pour into the ice cream maker. Feel free to experiment, maybe using a different beer (I've only used dark Belgians so far).