Cinnamon Ice Cream

I drove to Grinnell Saturday. Roger was in the garden — the garden that is his whole world now, the 83-year-old man who tends six tomato plants and twelve sunflowers with the same care he once gave four hundred acres. He's slower but he's still Roger. He still watches the crop reports. He still calls Jack on Wednesdays.

The recipe this week: lemon chicken with capers. Standing at the stove, Marlene's wooden spoon in my hand (the cracked one, the one that will outlast us all), the recipe either from the card box or from my own expanding collection, both equally real, both equally mine. The kitchen holds all of it — the old recipes and the new ones, the teacher's food and the student's food, the grief and the joy and the cinnamon. All of it. Always.

The garden is waking up. The garlic that overwintered is pushing green shoots through the soil, the annual proof that buried things come back. Jack's seedlings are hardening off in the greenhouse. The Marlene cherry tomato — generation 6 now — ready for transplanting. Every spring the planting is the memorial. Every spring the name goes back in the ground.

Standing in that kitchen with Marlene’s wooden spoon, I kept coming back to the word Roger used when I asked him why he still plants the same sunflowers every year — “because some things just belong.” Cinnamon is like that for me. It shows up in the story whether I plan for it or not, and when I got home I couldn’t shake the urge to make something that tasted exactly like that feeling — warm, familiar, a little sweet, and completely at ease with itself. This cinnamon ice cream is what I made, and it was exactly right.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 4 hrs 25 min (includes chilling & freezing) | Servings: 8

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
5 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional, for depth)

Instructions

Warm the cream mixture. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream, whole milk, and 1/2 cup of the sugar. Stir gently and heat until the mixture just begins to steam and small bubbles appear at the edges — do not boil. Remove from heat.
Whisk the yolks. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the remaining 1/4 cup sugar until pale and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.
Temper the eggs. Very slowly pour about 1/2 cup of the warm cream mixture into the egg yolks while whisking constantly. Then pour the tempered yolk mixture back into the saucepan, whisking to combine.
Cook the custard. Return the saucepan to medium-low heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or heat-proof spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 5 to 8 minutes. Do not let it boil.
Add the spices. Remove from heat and stir in the cinnamon, vanilla extract, salt, and nutmeg if using. Stir until fully incorporated.
Strain and chill. Pour the custard through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Press plastic wrap directly onto the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until completely cold, at least 4 hours or overnight.
Churn. Pour the chilled custard into your ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions, usually 20 to 25 minutes, until it reaches a soft-serve consistency.
Freeze to firm. Transfer the churned ice cream to a freezer-safe container, smooth the top, and press a piece of parchment paper directly on the surface. Freeze for at least 2 hours until firm before scooping.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cinnamon Ice Cream — The Warmth That Lives in Every Kitchen