>A few weeks ago I made some vanilla ice cream. In order to do that, I had to buy a vanilla bean, which are incredibly expensive (anyone want to go in with me on a bulk order?). The package I bought had two, and I only had to use one for the ice cream. I saw that I had this Lime-Vanilla Frozen Yogurt recipe bookmarked from Epicurious, so I decided to make that last night before the extra vanilla bean I had went bad!
The result: I think it’s really, really yummy (and easy to make). It’s not super sweet, since you use plain ice cream. I like the slightly tart combination of the vanilla bean and lime together. Gavin thinks it’s ok–turns out he thinks limes have a little too much flavor if you add them to things.
Here’s the recipe, with my commentary:
Two 32-oz containers of whole-milk plain yogurt
1 Vanilla bean
1 tsp finely grated fresh lime zest
6 TBSP fresh lime juice
1/2 c. light corn syrup
3/4 c. superfine granulated sugar
Preparation:
1. In a cheesecloth-lines large sieve or colander set over a bowl, drain yogurt (covered and chilled, 12 hours). Discard liquid in bowl. I did this one container at a time (colander set over a bowl), with two different types of plain yogurt, because I happened to have two different types, Mountain High and Yoplait (did you know Yoplait did plain? I did not know, either). I found that the Mountain High took forever to separate, because it kept on draining liquid. The Yoplait barely drained anything–the consistencies were totally different!
2. With a knife, halve vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out seeds (discard pod). In a blender, puree together vanilla seeds, half of drained yogurt (this was easy for me, since I kept my two yogurts separate), lime zest, lime juice (I only used 5.5 TBSP, since I didn’t want to cut open a whole new lime), light corn syrup (one of the commenters said she used simple syrup, which worked) and superfine granulated sugar (I just used plain white granulated sugar and it worked just fine).
3. In a large bowl, stir together blended vanilla mixture and remaining yogurt.
4. Transfer mixture to an ice-cream maker and freeze. Transfer frozen yogurt to an airtight container and put in the freezer to harden.