Crème Anglaise or Vanilla Custard Sauce

I love Crème Anglaise. You can use it as a sauce of course, but the best part is you can make it into ice cream. Any of the sauce that is leftover, you can put in a container, stick in the fridge, and once frozen, voila, you have vanilla ice cream. Better than any vanilla ice cream I've bought in the store.


1 quart half and half
1 whole vanilla bean, split
12 whole egg yolk, whole
10 ounces Granulated sugar


1. Using a heavy nonreactive saucepan, bring the half-and-half and vanilla bean just to a boil.

2. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Temper the egg mixture with approximately one-third of the hot half-and-half, and then return the entire mixture to the saucepan with the remaining half-and-half. (if you don't temper to bring the egg yolks to the same temperature as the hot mixture, you will have scrambled eggs, and that's just not attractive as a dessert)

3. Cook the sauce over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Do not allow the sauce to boil.

4. As soon as the sauce thickens, remove it from the heat and pour it through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Chill the sauce over an ice bath, then cover and keep refrigerated. The sauce should last 3 to 4 days.

Per Serving (20-2 ounce servings):
154 Calories
9g Fat (49.9% calories from fat)
3g Protein
16g Carbohydrate
0g Dietary Fiber
145mg Cholesterol
24mg Sodium

Exchanges:
0 Lean Meat
0 Non-Fat Milk
1 1/2 Fat
1 Other Carbohydrates