Ice cream season has officially begun, and we returned to one of our very favorite ice cream recipes last night. It's also one of the easiest.

We found this recipe a long time ago on Heidi Swanson's blog. It's utterly simple - cream, milk, honey, and vanilla bean. We've made it several different ways - such simple ingredients allow for experiments and changes. This time around we didn't have a vanilla bean so we used a teaspoon of high quality vanilla extract, adding it at the end of cooking. We also cooked in two egg yolks, stirring them into the warmed milk and cream until a thermometer just hit 170°F. This gave it just a little extra richness and smoothness. Delicious!

• Maison du Miel's Heather Honey Ice Cream Recipe at 101 Cookbooks

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