I don't know if heat works to enhance vanilla but I do know that alcohol does, and a lot of people swear by just storing a bean in the sugar for flavor. Not sure that heat will give you a lot of added oomph. Add the bean to the sugar right now, and that should help.

A lot of recipes for vanilla ice cream have instructions to split one side of the bean lengthwise and scrape the tiny seeds into the cream. For maximum flavor you could split the bean, infuse in the heated milk and then scrape the seeds into the mixture.

You probably know this, but you don't want to put the bean in the blender, just the seeds.

Any way you get the vanilla into the mix, I'm sure the ice cream will be wonderful

On a show yesterday, they featured the $1000 sundae (no typo) from Serendipity's in NYC. Besides the edible gold leaf foil, sugar flowers and gilded spoon, the ice cream was mixed with the seeds from vanilla beans.
It looked decandant, but not quite worth a grand.

Thank you for your comments.

I think I should clarify: The recipe does not call for heating the milk; it's added cold with the cream, sugar, and vanilla extract.

If I scrape the vanilla seeds into the cold milk and cream and blend with the sugar, will the vanilla flavor sufficiently infuse to maximize the flavor? Or should I heat the milk with the seeds and bean, and let it cool before adding it to the other ingredients (minus the bean)?

Or does it matter?

I found this via Google

Here is a link that might be useful: about vanilla beans

I would warm the milk a touch with the bean in it...then let it cool to room them..mix up the rest of your ingredients, keeping the split de seeded pod in the ingredients and remove the pod just before freezing it...

I do that with the David Lebovitz Philly Style Ice cream..
He has you just heat 1 cup of 3 cups of the cream/halfnhalf or whole milk then add it all together...

sushipup -- thank you for the very interesting site.

Terri, thank you. I read the recipe in my book more closely and it says to use 1 vanilla bean OR 1 Tbsp. extract, but doesn't alter the preparation method so it seems OK not too. However, I may try the method you posted just to be safe.

The recipe I used said to split the vanilla bean open, add it to the milk (or half & half), scald the milk with the bean, and then remove from heat to cool. Then remove the bean and scrape the seeds, which are returned to the milk. This gave excellent results, but I haven't tried it without heating the milk.

Lars

I can tell you from experience. Unfortunately, I made custard based "vanilla" the other night. I even put the bean in with the seeds while heating it. And never remembered to put in the vanilla extract. It was really good frozen custard, but it had very very little vanilla flavor. Or course, it could be that I just like it to have a much more pronounced vanilla flavor, so I'll stick with my "both" recipe.

Thank you for the tips.

rob333, your experience makes me wonder if a vanilla bean alone gives a weak vanilla flavor. The vanilla ice cream we made with just extract has a delicious vanilla flavor (and my tasters at work agreed). I'm wondering if a vanilla bean alone would infuse enough vanilla flavor.

jenn,
The amount of flavor from the bean also depends on how fresh the beans are. In a pinch, I've bought supermarket beans that were so dry and offered no taste, and on the other hand, the ones in the tube from Penzeys have been so moist and fragrant, they work great just infusing sugar with no added heat.

The key when using a vanilla bean in something like this is to get it's precious "caviar" out...you need those little tiny specks in that cream base.

This is my "base" recipe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vanilla Philly Style Ice Cream

spacific: I found a jar of vanilla bean (2) that are moist and seem (to me) to have a good scent.

terri: I saw that recipe here, and also at his web site. I was planning to follow the technique with the recipe I used last week.

Thank you!

You sound set Jenn...

Looking forward to hearing the outcome...

... and I'm looking forward to tasting it. :-) I'll be sure to report later tonight after the party.

I made a recipe with 2 cups whole cream and 4 cups half-and-half (doubled the recipe), so I used 2 beans and added 1 tsp. vanilla extract. I dipped my pinky to get a taste ... yum! We'll churn it today and eat it with birthday cake this evening.

Thank you all so much for your help.