mole ice cream

Recently there was a special Oaxaca-themed dinner at my school. It was put on by the students who had attended the Oaxaca summer abroad program in order to raise money to help the students going next summer.

Each of us had a station with a dish that we'd learned to cook in Oaxaca. Mine was the octopus salad we made at the restaurant El Origen.

But to challenge myself, I also decided to make the mole ice cream I'd dreamed about when I was in Oaxaca.

I've made a savory (buttered popcorn) ice cream before, so I applied the same process to this one.

Basically, I soaked the mole spices (dried chihuacle+pasilla+mulato chiles, thyme, oregano, cinnamon, clove, peanuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins) in a milk and cream mixture, added corn syrup and sugar, then heated it, pureed it, and added beaten yolks and heated it again, and strained and cooled and churned it.



Sesame seeds were a mole ingredient I left out, to put on a tuile cookie. Like I learned in first semester, I had to cut a mold out of a cake box, spread the tuile batter on, then sprinkled sesame seeds and baked them. The silicon mat is indispensable in this case - without them the tuiles stick and never come off in one piece!



Just having the ice cream and tuile made dessert seem a little forlorn, so I added fried plantains. I didn't want them to get soggy so I pan-fried them, twice. They were hot after frying and I didn't want the ice cream to melt on them so I popped them in the freezer. I think the freezing made the outside crispier, which was a plus.



I was worried about the dessert being too savory, so I added goat's milk caramel that Cris and I made in Oaxaca. The caramel is really thick and un-drizzleable, so I made parchment paper cones for dispensing.



This is everything put together, with some cotija cheese sprinkled on top (since cheese often accompanies plantains but also for garnish).



The ice cream itself was pretty good, maybe too spicy. It tasted like chai ice cream but spicy. And everything went well together, although I did forget chocolate as an ingredient. Everyone liked it, so maybe I could do it again next time with chocolate?