Makes about 1 quart There is no middle ground with this ice cream: people who try it either love it or hate it. Those who don’t like it say it tastes like soap. To us (and its many fans), it may smell like soap, but the flavor—a distinct lavender flavor against a honey backdrop—is a real treat. This remains one of the most popular flavors among our staff.

We get our honey from Bobby Winston, a beekeeper in Sonoma County, California, who harvests his hives exclusively for us. We get 80 gallons of honey from him every year, which come to us all at once in 5-gallon buckets. It’s a wildflower blend, relatively dark and stronger in flavor than your average clover honey, with a slight molasses note. It results in a pronounced honey flavor in the finished ice cream, but you can use a lighter flavored honey for a more delicate effect.

TECHNIQUE: Ice cream

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: Ice cream machine

INFUSING AND CHILLING TIME: 20 minutes, plus 2 hours or overnight

SHELF LIFE: 1 week

INGREDIENTS

• 1¾ cups heavy cream
• ¾ cup 1% or 2% milk
• ½ cup honey
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons organic dried lavender
• 5 large egg yolks

INSTRUCTIONS

INFUSE THE MILK/CREAM

1. Stir together the cream, milk, honey, and salt in a heavy nonreactive saucepan.
2. Put the pan over medium-high heat and remove from the heat when the mixture just begins to bubble around the edges.
3. Whisk in the lavender, cover the pan, and let steep for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the cream has taken on a distinct lavender flavor. Stir occasionally and taste to monitor the progress.
4. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, being sure to press on the lavender to extract all of the cream mixture. Rinse out the saucepan and return the infused cream to the pan.
5. Whisk the yolks just to break them up and set aside in a medium heatproof bowl.
6. Put the pan of cream and milk over medium-high heat and reduce the heat to medium when the mixture approaches a bare simmer.
7. Scoop out about ½ cup of the hot cream mixture and whisk it into the bowl with the egg yolks. Repeat with another ½ cup of the hot cream.
8. Stir the cream in the saucepan as you slowly pour the egg-and-cream mixture from the bowl into the pan.
9. Cook the mixture carefully over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is thickened, coats the back of a spatula, and holds a clear path when you run your finger across the spatula, 1 to 2 minutes longer.
10. Strain the base through a fine-mesh strainer into a clean container. Set the container into an ice-water bath, wash your spatula, and use it to stir the base occasionally until it is cool.
11. Remove the container from the ice-water bath, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate the base for at least 2 hours or overnight.
12. Freeze the base in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
13. While the ice cream is churning, put the container you’ll use to store the ice cream into the freezer.
14. Enjoy right away or, for a firmer ice cream, transfer to the chilled container and freeze for at least 4 hours.

MAKE IT YOUR OWN

• Try fresh rosemary in place of the lavender. Be sure to taste along the way, as the steeping time may vary and too much rosemary can be an overwhelming flavor.

SERVE IT WITH

• Balsamic Strawberry Ice Cream
• Vanilla Ice Cream, Hot Fudge Sauce, and Whipped Cream for a combo called Best Friends Sundae by Anne’s daughter Zoe and her best friend Hannah, so named because it contains each of their favorite flavors!
• Hot Fudge Sauce, blood orange olive oil, and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt (a combination developed by one of our scoopers, Josh, who named it The Dainty Gentleman).