Ample Hills Creamery
Since you probably find most of your recipes online nowadays, you can be choosy when it comes to your bookshelf. These are the cookbooks with the recipes we’re most excited about; they’re beautiful, accessible, and prove the printed word isn’t dead after all.
Courtesy, Stewart, Tabori & Chang
The Book: ”Ample Hills Creamery: Secrets and Stories from Brooklyn’s Favorite Ice Cream Shop”
The Cuisine: Ice cream!
Why It’s Worthy: Brian Smith, father to two cute kids, turned down a steady job offer to open Brooklyn’s Ample Hills Creamery with wife Jackie Cuscuna.
Thank goodness he did. Smith and Cuscuna were among the first to handle the pasteurization process in-house, making their own base, and making their shop, technically, a dairy. The result is some of the best ice cream in New York City, with a texture any aficionado would recognize as the real deal: creamy, buttery, not-too-icy, and saturated with flavor. Smith opened the doors of Ample Hills only to sell out four days later; people were rabid for the stuff.
Bonus: Not only is the cookbook flush with gorgeous photos, there are also sweet little stories for kids about the adventures of a cow named Walt, his best friend Whitty, a chicken, and Peanut Butter the pig.
Go-To Recipe: Smith tells us he’s interested in the idea of “flavor memory—trying to create flavors that make the kid in us smile.” Outré (and trendy) flavors such as goat cheese with miso are “totally respectable,” he laughs, “but you’ll never see it at Ample Hills.” Instead his menu is crammed with nostalgia-inducing options like Peppermint Pattie (using homemade peppermints that conjure the York classic) and our favorite, vanilla malted.
"When I feel like we really hit it with a flavor, it’s because it connects to some part of our childhood and takes us back to a different time," says Smith. "You’re seven, watching a matinee, and eating Whoppers." A generous half cup of malted milk powder means the ice cream evokes the charms of drinking vanilla malteds at soda fountains.
Pro tip: In the shop, Smith uses the bottom of a shot glass to break up the malted milk balls.
Photo credit: Lucy Schaeffer
Walt’s Dream
Pure Sweet Cream Ice Cream
Makes about 1 quart
¾ cup organic cane sugar
½ cup skim milk powder
1 2/3 cups whole milk
1 2/3 cups heavy cream
3 egg yolks
1. Prepare an ice bath in your sink or in a large heatproof bowl.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, skim milk powder, and milk. Stir with a hand mixer or whisk until smooth. Make sure the skim milk powder is wholly dissolved into the mixture and that no lumps remain (any remaining sugar granules will dissolve over the heat). Stir in the cream.
3. Clip a candy thermometer to the saucepan and set the pan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often with a rubber spatula and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking and burning, until the mixture reaches 110ºF, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
4. Place the egg yolks in a medium bowl. While whisking, slowly pour in ½ cup of the hot milk mixture to temper the egg yolks. Continue to whisk slowly until the mixture is an even color and consistency, then whisk the egg-yolk mixture back into the remaining milk mixture.
5. Return the pan to the stovetop over medium heat and continue cooking the mixture, stirring often, until it reaches 165ºF, 5 to 10 minutes more.
6. Transfer the pan to the prepared ice bath and let cool for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour the ice cream base through a wire-mesh strainer into a storage container and place in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, or until completely cool.
7. Now you’re ready to make ice cream! Transfer the cooled base to an ice cream maker and churn it according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Or, if you want, you can keep it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before churning.
8. After churning, serve immediately or harden in your freezer for 8 to 12 hours for a more scoopable ice cream.
Vanilla Malted
Makes about 1 quart
1½ pounds malted milk balls
For the malted ice cream:
1 recipe Walt’s Dream (see above)
½ cup malted milk powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Place the malted milk balls in the freezer for at least 1 hour.
2. Make the malted ice cream: Prepare Walt’s Dream according to the recipe directions. Prior to heating the base, add the malted milk powder and whisk vigorously to combine.
3. Transfer the base to the ice bath, add the vanilla, and stir to combine. Let cool for 15 to 20 minutes. Pour the ice cream base through a wire-mesh strainer into a storage container and place in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 hours, or until completely cool.
4. Transfer the cooled base to an ice cream maker and churn it according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
5. While the ice cream is churning, crush the malted milk balls into pieces. You can use any blunt object, such as a wooden mallet or the bottom of a soda bottle. Lay the malted milk balls out on a baking sheet and start whacking away at them, but be careful not to pulverize them too much. We like to keep our pieces fairly large. If you’re OK with much smaller pieces, you can throw the malt balls into a food processor for a quick spin.
6. Transfer the cooled base to a storage container, folding in the crushed malted milk balls as you do. Serve immediately or harden in your freezer for 8 to 12 hours for a more scoopable ice cream.
Recipe from Ample Hills Creamery: Secrets and Stories from Brooklyn’s Favorite Ice Cream Shop. By Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna with Lauren Kaelin, Published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
