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1
Preheat the oven to 350. Toast the hazelnuts and let them cool. You may leave the skins on because you will be straining them out anyway; however, if you would like to use your milk-soaked hazelnut grounds (we will get to that later) for another purpose, you may want to take the skins off.
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2
Once hazelnuts are cool, pulse them in a food processor for about 30 seconds, or until coarsely ground. No need to turn them into a hazelnut flour of sorts, and certainly not a hazelnut butter!
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3
Combine milk, half the cream, half the sugar, and ground hazelnuts in a medium saucepan. Let the mixture come to a simmer, and then let stand for 1 hour.
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4
Strain milk mixture through a fine-mesh sieve. At this point, you can either toss or compost your milk-soaked nut grounds, or you can be awesome and rinse them in water to rid them of milk residue, drain them well, spread them thin on a baking sheet, and put them in a low-temp oven (I did mine at 175 for about an hour) so they dry. Once dry, stick them back in the food processor and make hazelnut butter, or, make hazelnut butter and pulse with cocoa powder and sugar and turn it into nutella!
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5
Anyway, back to the ice cream.... Pour strained milk mixture back into saucepan. Beat egg yolks in a medium bowl with the other half of the sugar. Heat milk back to a simmer and then slowly pour into egg yolks, whisking constantly so eggs don't curdle. Return to saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula, until mixture thickens and coats back of spatula.
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6
Cover and chill the custard for at least 4 hours or overnight. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.
