Ginger Ice Cream with Candied Kumquats

Korean markets are awesome. I don’t know how they do it, but their prices are so low. Last month, I walked away with a 4 pound bag of organic ginger for only $2. Ginger is $5.99 per pound at Mollie Stone’s Market. It was a total steal. But as I was unloading my groceries at home, I stared at the huge bag of ginger in my hand and wondered why I bought so much because I don’t really cook with ginger. The deal-seeking Asian in me took control and practicality went out the window. I’ve been racking my brain what to do with the ginger other than hot ginger and lemon water. The idea of making ice cream came out of nowhere and I became obsessed trying to make the most delicious ginger ice cream.

This recipe was actually kind of complicated to make. The crème anglaise was the easy part (I decided not to mess around with what works and used the Bon Appétit ice cream base recipe) – it was getting the right amount of ginger in it. I wanted the ice cream to have the spiciness and freshness of the ginger, but not kill the palate. My first batch had way too much ginger. Husband said it was almost 3x too much ginger. He took one bite and his eyes went big; and not in a good way. The ginger basically sucker punched us in the face and KO’d us. On my second try, I lowered the ginger and upped the sugar to balance the heat. Next, I needed a counter point to the ginger flavor. I had wanted strawberries, but Chris thought ginger and strawberry would be an odd pairing (is it though? I still think it could be delicious). Chris suggested citrus flavors to play off the ginger. I found these beautiful kumquats so that was that.