Pumpkin pie ice cream and Bake! ox tongues

Right after I went on my baking/dessert hiatus, I stumbled on David Leibovitz's post for pumpkin ice cream. Each week when we picked up our squash-overwhelmed CSA box, I would click back over to the recipe and drool. I'm normally a chocolate-chocolate-chocolate girl, but for some reason, I have been obsessed by the idea of ice cream that tastes like pumpkin pie.

And today was the day! Today was our annual orchard/pumpkin festival trip with some good friends and their little ones, and we decided to come back to our house after the festival for dinner. I needed a dessert, and what better treat after a pumpkin festival than pumpkin ice cream?

I still had some pumpkin puree in the freezer, leftover from my pumpkin muffins (post tomorrow!), so I was able to skip the roasting-the-squash step. I started organizing for DL's recipe, and then said, "I wonder if Jeni has a recipe for pumpkin ice cream so I can skip the egg/custard part?" and sure enough, she did! Her recipe calls for Chinese five spice, and first of all, I didn't have it, and second of all, I really wanted a more pumpkin pie flavor. So this is what I came up with:

Pumpkin pie ice cream
adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams and David Lebovitz

3 1/8 cups (800 g) half-and-half (both Jeni and DL call for a combination of whole milk and cream, but half-and-half was all we had in the house)
2 tbsp (33 g) milk
1 tbsp + 1 tsp (13 g) cornstarch
3 tbsp (43 g) neufchatel cream cheese, softened
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 c (85 g) honey
3/4 c (180 g) fresh pumpkin puree
2/3 c (135 g) packed light brown sugar
2 tbsp (22 g) light corn syrup
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves

1. Whisk the softened cream cheese with the salt in a large bowl. Then whisk in the pumpkin puree and honey. Set aside.
2. Combine half-and-half, brown sugar, corn syrup, and spices in a large sauce pan. (Use a 4 qt saucepan. I tried a smaller one and it boiled over!) Bring to a roiling boil over medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes.
3. Whisk two tablespoons of milk with cornstarch.
4. After the milk mixture has boiled for four minutes, turn off the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil for one minute, stirring with a heat-proof spatula.
5. Pour the milk mixture into the bowl with the cream cheese/pumpkin mixture, whisking until smooth.
6. Strain the mixture into a gallon zip-top plastic bag. (I actually strained it into a measuring cup and then poured it into the bag to limit the mess.)
7. Put the bag into an ice bath for 30 - 60 minutes until cool. (Or put in the fridge overnight.)
8. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Freeze in a container for four hours.

I decided that we needed a little cookie treat to go with the ice cream, and Phyl's Bake! pick of ox tongues seemed like the right choice. So I took a small piece of puff pastry from the freezer (about 200 g), rolled it out in some sugar, used a small round cutter to cut out small circles, rolled them into ovals, chilled them, and baked them for about 15 minutes until the sugar had caramelized.

This ice cream was a huge hit! In fact, the entire quart disappeared in one night, and one of our friends' little ones kept saying, "More? More?" after the container was empty. It tasted just like pumpkin pie filling, only in ice cream form. The ox tongues were perfect; a little piece of sugary buttery goodness to round out dessert.

Check out the layers!