Originally posted by Sarah – December 26, 2015
I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for the holidays to be over. We had such a wonderful few days with friends and family, it’s one of the best Christmas seasons I’ve had. Our boys are the perfect ages for everything to be magical. We shared laughter, there was kindness and a ton of good food, it really warms your heart. Reflecting on all of this and wanting the season to last, I decided to throw some holiday flavors into the ice cream machine today!
We had a full container of local apple cider from Box Mill Farm in Stowe, still in the fridge from the last winter share box and man did I put it to good use.
How many of you have an ice cream maker or an ice cream maker attachment for your kitchen aide mixer? It’s kind of an extra that isn’t necessary, but provides tons of fun and goodness when you have kids. You can control what goes into your bellies and I use a good amount of Springdell goodness in my ice creams and sorbets. I’m a bargain shopper and a used ice cream machine is the perfect thing to grab at a yard sale or thrift shop. That’s exactly what I did, this guy was $5, and money well spent.
Plain apple cider is really all you need but what fun is that in the holiday season, spiced apple cider would be so much better!
I started with 3 cardamom pods, one star anise, one cinnamon stick and 2 whole cloves in the bottom of a large sauce pan.
Add 1/2 a cup of sugar to that, or you could do 1/4 white and 1/4 brown sugar too!
Stir in 6 cups of apple cider over medium heat, you want to stir until the sugar melts.
Let it come up to a light boil and cook until the liquid reduces from 6 cups to about 4 cups, this should take 10-15 minutes. Turn off the heat and add one whole sprig of Rosemary to the pot.
Cover the pot and let this all steep until the liquid is room temperature, between 1-2 hours.
Set up a medium fine mesh strainer over a large measuring cup (remember you should have reduced the liquid down to about 4 cups). Strain the cooled spiced cider into the measuring cup, discarding the solids.
Use your ice cream maker as directed.
With most machines you need to take the “slush” and freeze it a while longer in the freezer for a harder product. So, into a freezer safe container it went for an additional 30 minutes.
This is so much better than a plain cider, you can taste all of the the holiday spices with a slight undertone of Rosemary, delicious! Go ahead, extend your holidays with this one, you won’t be disappointed. Enjoy!