Our family loves goats milk ice cream.  The flavor seldom matters.  They love peach, huckleberry or blackberry in season.  They love vanilla because “it goes with any dessert”.  They love chocolate and all the variations of chocolate like adding nuts or caramel chips or even fudge crumbles.  But making ice cream can be frustrating.  The flavor is always there but the consistency can be a challenge.  They say practice makes perfect so I am just going to keep on making ice cream. 

Two of my favorite recipes follow:

Goats Milk Ice Cream (from Epicurious submitted by KLSO8 on 24 June 2017) – modified based on our experience at Almosta Farm

Ingredients:

• 4 cups goats’ milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Zest of 1 lemon (optional)
• 4 egg yolks

Directions:

• Add milk, sugar, vanilla and salt in a sauce pan and slowly head until the sugar dissolves.  Do not over heat.
• Beat the egg yolks
• Temper egg yolks by slowly adding the warm egg mixture to them gradually – this will avoid having scrambled eggs in your ice cream.
• Add tempered eggs to the milk mixture
• Add lemon zest to the milk mixture
• Heat the mixture to a near boil and cook for two minutes
• You can strain the mixture (we never do) before refrigerating it until completely chilled
• Churn and freeze

Note:  We often add fruit or fruit-based jams or jellies to this recipe!

Rich & Fudgy Farmhouse Ice Cream – published by Millie Johnson 19 July 2018

While the flavor of this ice cream is to die for, the consistency can be sketchy.  We often make a batch of this ice cream and then churn it in 3 separate parts, each one flavored differently.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup cocoa powder (we sometimes use dark)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 6 cups goats milk
• 2 large eggs

Directions:

• Sift dry ingredients into a large pot.
• Add milk
• Add eggs one at a time whisking after each egg.  Mix well.
• Turn on heat to medium and heat until almost boiling.  Let mixture cook about 2 minutes.
• At this point you can strain it or simply put it in the refrigerator to chill completely.
• Churn and freeze.