White Chocolate Chunk Blondies with Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

February 28th was my birthday. My quarter of a century on this Earth. So, while I make lots of amazing birthday cakes for everyone else, I wanted to have something a little different for myself. This was the result


Breaks my heart but as I sell these at my stall, I can't share the recipe. Sorry!!

However:

Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (without an ice cream machine!)
from David Lebovitz

Ingredients
1 cup milk
pinch of salt
3/4 cup sugar (I used caster sugar, which is more fine)
1 vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan on low.
Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the tip of a paring knife. Add the bean pod to the milk.

Whisk egg yolks together in a large bowl.
Slowly add about half of the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks while continuing to whisk. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan.

Cook over low heat (unless you want scrambled eggs!), stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula.

Strain the custard into the heavy cream.

Rinse the vanilla bean and put it back into the custard and cream to continue steeping.

Pour into a roasting dish and allow to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Remove and give the mixture a bit of a whisk, and put the roasting tray into the freezer. Every 30 minutes, take it out and quickly whisk it very quickly, and put it back in the freezer. Within 3 hours it should be set. If its not, just leave it in there a bit longer. I simply scooped it out and put it into an old ice cream container! So decadent.