Cream Caramel Ice Cream - my childhood revived

Growing up, when we went to the doctor's office in Berkeley we'd often get a treat of a cone at Bott's Ice Cream. It was the best ice cream ever. The shop had the same wall paper from when my mom was a little girl. The most important thing was the product. My favorite flavors were orange ice cream - yes! Orange ice cream, not sherbet! It was wonderful. And cream caramel ice cream. A double scoop of the two flavors was luscious.

I set out to replicate that cream caramel ice cream. I found a recipe in Amanda Hesser's book Cooking for Mr. Latte. Sunday night I prepared the ice cream base. I caramelized a cup of sugar in a heavy pan. But went to far and had to discard it. I used lower heat the second time and was successful. When I dumped in the half and half the caramel seized up and adhered to the bottom of the pan! After much stirring and prodding, it dissolved. I added the rest of the ingredients - more sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and salt, strained and chilled.

Last night I put the very thick ice cream base in my ice cream freezer and about 25 minutes later I had it. Cream caramel ice cream - smooth and silky and just a little salty to punch up the caramel flavor.