Three Delicious Desserts With Vanilla Beans in Common

By Brooklyn Bill

I've been cranking out the Vanilla Fudge Ice Cream the past couple of weeks like Republicans spew out bullshit. I made some a week ago Monday that I'd planned to take to my Granny (she's my Dad's mother) for her birthday, which was on Groundhog Day. I usually go down to South Jersey the weekend between Granny's birthday and my Mom's, which is tomorrow, Feb. 11. But the snowstorm last weekend, which mostly missed the city, hit down there in a big way. So I canceled my rental car and stayed away.

I took some of the ice cream to the Gamesters on Sunday, and they devoured it. And I made a second batch of vanilla fudge over that weekend to take with me the next time I'm able to arrange a three-day weekend and can visit the birthday gals.

Vanilla fudge is one of my regular flavors, and I've gotten it down to a T. I use the Classic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream recipe from Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library: Ice Creams & Sorbets with no alterations other than to double it. The custard consists of only half-and-half, sugar, and egg yolks plus the star of this post: vanilla beans.

If you've never cooked or baked with vanilla beans, you've been missing out on a wonderful sensual experience (cue the food-porn music): the intense, complex aroma; the moisture of the pod and the oils that attach to your fingers; and the tiny seeds that come out of the pod in clumps on the tip of your kitchen knife.