Ingredients
Scale
- Zest of one blood orange (or use an orange if blood oranges are not available)
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup sugar, divided into ½ cup portions
- 2 cups heavy cream, divided into 1 cup portions
- 6 egg yolks
- ½ quart freshly squeezed blood orange juice (Will get 2 cups of reduced blood orange syrup)
Instructions
- Make your blood orange syrup, in a saucepan, add 4 cups of freshly squeezed blood orange juice and ½ cup of sugar. Cook until reduced by half and the juice is syrupy (about 30-40 minutes). Remove from the heat and let it cool completely. Put it into the refrigerator until later. (I used freshly squeezed juice from my local market but you can buy blood oranges and juice them yourself. You will need about 8 to get 4 cups of blood orange juice).
- Combine the zest, 1 cup of cream and milk to a heavy bottomed saucepot and heat on medium high heat. Bring the mixture to a low boil. Put the lid on the pot and take it off the heat. Let the zest infuse into the cream for 30 minutes.
- Re-heat the cream and zest mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the sugar until they are pale yellow. Using a ladle, add one ladle of hot cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture and whisk (this will bring up the heat of the eggs without cooking them). Scrape the warmed egg mixture into the saucepan and continue to stir until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon.
- Have an ice-water bath ready. Remove saucepan from heat and immediately stir in remaining heavy cream. Pass mixture through a sieve set over a medium bowl. Place bowl in ice-water bath and bring the mixture to at least room temperature and refrigerate until very cold (at least 5 hours).
- Add the cold blood orange syrup to the custard and stir until fully incorporated. Follow your ice cream maker’s instructions to churn and freeze your ice cream. Put it into a freezer safe container to have it fully set (about 3 hours). Homemade gelato is best served fresh. This gelato will keep for about 2-3 days in an airtight container in the freezer.