Rum raisin ice cream is one of my favourite flavours but I only ever eat it in the summer and get it in a cone from an ice cream stand. Even then it's missing the punch of alcohol that hasn't been cooked out.
I have the ice cream maker attachment for my trusty Kitchen Aid but I haven't been able to use it for years because it didn't fit my freezer. I now have a big ass freezer again and the first thing I popped in it was the attachment as I knew I wanted to make my favourite ice cream.
Let me be clear right from the start, this in not a tutorial, I'm totally winging it and I don't intend to tell you any exact amounts because I don't even know them myself. Makes it real easy to modify the recipe for next time but that's how I roll...
Since this is no tutorial I can annoy/entertain you with an anecdote; my mom had a summer job in an ice cream factory when she was young and as a benefit they could eat as much ice cream they wanted to. The other people stopped after a couple weeks but my mom never did and still maintained a physique of a star athlete. I am forever thankful to those same genes passed down to me, and the love for ice cream, year round.
It took me 6 days in total to make this ice cream but it was so worth it. The process started with soaking the raisins in dark rum for 3 days, an essential part where they fatten up, soften and drink up the rum, drunk raisins are a key. I might or might have not eaten a few out of the jar in the back of the fridge. I cooked the base on day four, let it cool completely, churned it the next and finally got to eat it on day six. So_worth_it.
The problem with homemade ice cream usually is that it ends up being rock hard even though the flavour is quite alright. There is a few things along with the ice cream maker to combat that. Fat, alcohol and sugar don't (doesn't? what is grammar...) really freeze in home freezer temps, so those are the things that you need in your frozen dessert, and luckily all are delicious too. Rum for alcohol and sugar, sugar as sugar, egg yolks and cream for fat, and glucose for extra silky texture and anti-freeze.
I had a what I call a positive problem because my ice cream was so alcohol filled that it took over 24 hours to freeze to a proper consistency after churning in the ice cream maker. Driving a motorised vehicle was out of the question after eating my ice cream.
