Odd, Dark & Stormy

“Although the mysteries of the universe do not greatly frighten me, I’ve not lost my capacity for astonishment, amazement, and awe. Now, across the keyboard of my mind played arpeggios of those three sentiments.”

— Koontz, Odd Thomas, pages 76-77

There are a lot of reasons I wanted to make ice cream when I was reading this novel. The first, and most obvious reason, is because Odd's girlfriend works at an ice cream shop. The second: the whole story takes place in a desert town, so the heat is mentioned quite a bit.

The next reason I wanted to make ice cream was because of the chill Odd experiences when he's in the Fungus Man's house, and the "bone-brittling cold" he experiences in the dark room there (73).

The dark room is a room that's otherworldly and seems to lose touch with reality. It's comfortable to a group of creatures called bodachs, creatures that Odd can see. They're ghosts, but they're much more animalistic, and something bad always follows them (33-34). 

They're like the thunder that tells you that lightning is about to strike.

And Odd's girlfriend is named Stormy.

Naturally, I had to use flavors based on the dark and stormy cocktail, which is typically made with ginger beer and spiced rum.

So I decided to make ginger ice cream with a spiced rum caramel sauce.

Ginger Ice Cream

-1 c  whole milk

-2 c  heavy cream

-3/4 c  white sugar

-pinch of salt

-5 egg yolks

-1 large chunk of ginger (about 1 c  worth), washed and roughly chopped

-1 tsp  ground ginger

1. Combine the milk, 1 cup of the heavy cream, the sugar, the ginger, and the salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until slightly foamy.
3. When the milk mixture is warm, start tempering the eggs into it until completely combined.
4. Continue cooking over medium heat. It should become thick enough to coat a spatula.
5. Pour the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove all chunks.
6. Whisk in the final cup of heavy cream and let it cool.
7. When the ice cream is finally cool, pour it into your ice cream maker, and leave it there until it's at your desired thickness. (I store mine in an airtight container with a sheet of parchment paper pressed onto the surface.)

Spiced Rum Caramel Sauce

-1 stick of butter

-1 c  light brown sugar, packed

-1/2 c  heavy cream

-1/4 c  spiced rum (I used Captain Morgan)

1. In a medium saucepan, melt down the butter over medium heat.
2. When the butter is almost completely melted, stir in the brown sugar.
3. After the brown sugar is melted down, whisk in the heavy cream. This will take a bit to completely incorporate and make smooth, so keep whisking!
4. Continue cooking for 5-7 minutes, then add the spiced rum and remove from the heat.
5. Continue stirring for another 2-4 minutes.
6. Let it cool completely. The caramel will thicken some more as it cools. This also gives you the chance to add more rum if you'd like (I did, because I'm a lush). You want to keep an eye on the constancy so it doesn't get too thin... it should still look like caramel. You also want to taste it as you add more rum because you don't want it to be too strong that it completely overpowers the caramel.

That's pretty much it! You just have to scoop some out, cover it with your spiced rum caramel, and enjoy!