Gingerbread and Trappist Ale Ice Cream Recipe

As the temperature drops and New York's skies take on a dignified gray, we've put our window fans away and taken out our fall jackets. Summer may be on the way out, but making ice cream isn't. A new season brings a new set of flavors to play with, and favorites of ours are rich, dark ales and moist, spicy gingerbread. It allows us to do more work with alcohol and lots of spices, which, in retrospect, is turning into something of a hallmark of ours.

The key to a solid gingerbread, be it in cookie, cake, or ice cream form, is an intensive but considered use of spices and seasonings. Molasses is a must for a base flavor, but it needs to be balanced by another sweetener lest its dark twang overwhelm everything else. Too often gingerbreads taste nothing like ginger, usually the fault of old, low-quality powdered stuff, so we made sure to steep a generous amount of fresh ginger in our base, and stirred in some candied ginger as well.

A gingerbread lives or dies by its spices, and while our use of them here is both ample and aggressive, the end result is quite approachable. Yes, this recipe has a longer-than-average ingredient list, but our blend of autumnal spices becomes far more than the sum of its parts. Some unusual flavors are also present, but they each lend a special touch: the tiniest bit of chocolate for complexity, a hint of lemon for lightness, and a bit of black pepper that lingers in the throat.

To both add to the gingerbread flavor and make this a bit more exotic, we made this ice cream with Chimay, a Trappist ale. It comes in fancy bottles and is made by monks, but more importantly, tastes like a holiday in a bottle: sweet, rich, and spicy, with hints of dried fruit and chocolate. It lends this ice cream a bittersweet bread-like flavor and texture, not unlike gingerbread batter. Either the red- or blue-labeled bottles will serve you well.

A brief note about making ice cream with beer: all that extra water can turn an ice cream icy, so take out some texture insurance with extra sugar, egg yolks, or cream. Letting the custard cook till quite thick also does wonders, as does serving the ice cream slightly warmer than you would others. What with? Gingerbread, of course! Add some apples or pears browned in butter and you've got the perfect autumn-celebration dessert.