Ginger Ice Cream with Chai-spiced graham cracker dough

Dear me! It has been ages since my last post. And to make things worse, I made this ice cream way back on March 31 - my birthday! This was my own special birthday treat (along with a lot of pie), and I haven't remembered to post it until now. I will be sure to update more often from now on, even as I try to get my beach body on!

This flavor really came out of nowhere. I was sent this post from a friend of mine, and it looked to delectable to ignore. I had a pile of scraps leftover from the graham crackers, and have been waiting for an excuse to make ice cream with cookie dough! Add some ginger in there (one of my favorite spices) and I had myself a project.

I was unsure as to how to approach add the ginger flavor. Use fresh ginger? and if so, how? Ginger candy bits? Ground ginger? For my first attempt at ginger ice cream, I wanted it to be as natural as possible, so I opted to slice real ginger bits and brew them in the milk.
I'd like to try make ginger ice cream again, even go so far as to perfect a recipe for it. Maybe add ground ginger to the fresh next time to kick up the flavor a notch?

Ginger Ice Cream with Chai-spiced Graham Cracker Dough

Ingredients

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
knob of fresh ginger (see pics for how much I used)
handful of dough bits (again, see pics, and also make sure to check out this link if you missed it above)

Instructions

Chop your ginger into desired bit size. 










Pour two cups of milk into a small saucepan on the stove on med/low heat, add the sugar, and stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Then add the sliced ginger bits and continue to simmer for about twenty minutes.

While this is happening slice the dough into desired bit size. Throw these into the fridge to keep cool and firm.

After the milk is finished simmering, let the mixture sit on the stove (burner off) for about an hour to continue to steep, then place the saucepan into the fridge to cool down.

Once cooled, sift the ginger out and combine the cream with the milk mixture and whisk until combined. Throw this into the ice cream maker, add the chopped dough bits, and let churn for twenty minutes. Scoop the ice cream into a container and then into the freezer to harden a bit.

Now where I screwed up is watching my friend play Dark Souls too long. About 4 minutes too long. By the time I remembered to check the ice cream it had turned into a fluffy cloud! Which is too bad because while this may be someone's cup of tea, it certainly isn't mine. I also could have chopped the dough bits more finely. And don't forget about the ginger note above - the spicy flavor was too subtle for me. It's so subtle that, if I had tasted it blindfolded, I only would have been able to discern that there was a flavor added, but not be able to pinpoint what it is.



P.S.

Sorry about the lighting in the pictures. A) it was getting on in the evening when I was making this. B) the lightbulb in my kitchen is dangerously close to dying.