Guild Wars 2: Bloodstone Ice Cream

It is that time of year when snow falls in Lion’s Arch and the children build snowmen to celebrate the season. Toymaker Tixx brings joy to the land with many magical gifts from his Golem-shaped airship. The most magical time of the year is just around the corner and I am very excited. I have participated in quite a few Wintersday festivals and really enjoyed them, but I unfortunately missed all of last year. This time, I will be burying my nose deep in the events. I am most excited for earning my Star of Gratitude. Here is hoping it makes a return!

In preparation for Wintersday, I had to come up with a unique treat to recreate. After a lot of planning and talking with my guildmates I knew the direction I needed to take. We looked at our inventories and realized we still had plenty of piles of bloodstone dust. It was said it had no culinary application, that bloodstone dust couldn’t be utilized in cooking! Well I am here to prove the chefs in Tyria wrong. Sous-Chef Seimur Oxbone had the right idea when combining this easily found dust with a delicious cream base. I seemed to have misplaced all of my real-world bloodstone dust, but I assume a combination of cinnamon and cayenne pepper provides for a potent substitution!

Required Equipment: bowl, whisk, saucepan, ice cream maker
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
½ cup sugar
4 eggs yolks
¼ cup brown sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
1 cinnamon stick
3 star anise
2 small dried pepper

1-2 pinches cayenne pepper (or more if you dare)
1 tsp ground cinnamon

In a sauce pan, combine 1 ½ cup heavy cream, 1 cup milk and 1/2 sugar. Place over medium-high heat and stir until combined. Add the vanilla bean, cinnamon stick, three star anise and two dried peppers. Heat and bring to a boil (make sure to stir frequently to avoid the milk from sticking to the pan). Reduce the heat and heat for 20 minutes. Make sure to stir throughout the heating process.

In a bowl, combine the remaining heavy cream, ¼ cup brown sugar and four egg yolks. Mix until everything is combined. Once the mixture in the saucepan has been heated for 20 minutes as previously instructed, remove it from the heat. Slowly introduce the hot mixture into the egg yolk mixture. You want to do this slowly (about a half cup at a time) and to be continuously whisking to avoid cooking the eggs to quickly.

Once you’ve added ¾ of the hot mixture into the bowl, return everything into the saucepan. Warm the mixture up again to a boil and then reduce the heat. While the mixture is cooking a second time, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add them. Heat until the cream mixture has thickened.

Use a mesh strainer to separate the thick liquid into a bowl. This will remove any seeds that may have broken out of the hot peppers. Place the vanilla bean, cinnamon stick and star anise back into the bowl but toss the peppers out.

Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour. When you are ready to make the ice cream, remove the vanilla bean, cinnamon stick and star anise from the mixture. Add the cayenne pepper and ground cinnamon and mix well.

Follow the instructions of your ice cream maker to finish up the ice cream. Place in a freezer safe container and let it freeze overnight. When you want to serve the ice cream, remove it from the freezer 10 minutes before scooping for an easier scoop.