ICE CREAM SUNDAY

Well, it's official, I'm in love with my Kitchen Aid ice cream attachment. It rules. This past week in class, we had a whole bunch of lessons on frozen desserts, including egg based french ice cream recipes. I've had this ice cream attachment for over a year now and the last and only time I used it was for a TWD recipe that was selected around this time last year: blueberry sour cream ice cream. Why have I waited this long to explore the world of "frozen custard"? It's creamy, delicious, and especially refreshing during these hot summer months. Heck, my love for ice cream making is so grand that I'll be making ice cream through the winter as well. So take that! 

Photographed above is fudge ripple tin roof ice cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. This. Was. Amazing.  Picture this: vanilla bean based ice cream studded with chocolate covered peanuts and a fudge ripple burst within each bite. Mmmm. This recipe calls for a "make-your-own" chocolate covered peanuts as well as fudge ripple.  I followed the peanut recipe, however, in class last week we homemade every component to an ice cream sundae including chocolate fudge. I brought home a huge tub of it and decided to use that as my fudge ripple rather than making more. It was perfect.

Next up on my Sunday of ice cream obsession came cake batter ice cream.  Seriously what's better than cake batter? Nothing! When I was first introduced to cake batter ice cream from cold stone creamery I truly thought the flavor was pure genius.  Once I realized I could make it myself, I was in heaven.  Photographed above is just that, cake batter ice cream with colored sprinkles. This tasted like a creamy, thicker, more dense-melt in your mouth version of actual cake batter.  Again, deeeeelish!  If you have an ice cream maker, go ahead and make these scoops of love, you won't regret it!

Tin Roof Ice Cream

Source: The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

¾ cup whole milk

¾ cup sugar

Pinch of salt

1 ½ cups heavy cream

½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise

4 large egg yolks

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup Chocolate-Covered Peanuts

Fudge Ripple

Warm the milk, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan. With a sharp paring knife, scrape the flavorful seeds from the vanilla bean and add them, along with the pod, to the hot milk mixture. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Rewarm the vanilla-infused mixture. Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream to cool. Remove the vanilla bean, wipe it clean of any egg bits, and add it back to the custard. Stir in the vanilla and stir until cool over an ice bath. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.

Then ready to churn the ice cream, remove the vanilla bean (it can be rinsed and reused). Freeze the ice cream in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. While the ice cream is freezing, chop the peanuts into bite-sized pieces. “

Fold the peanut pieces into the frozen ice cream as you remove it from the machine, and layer it with Fudge Ripple.

Chocolate-Covered Peanuts

4 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts

Put the pieces of chocolate in an absolutely dry heat proof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. In the meantime, stretch a piece of plastic wrap over a dinner plate.

Once the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the peanuts, coating them with the chocolate. Spread the mixture on the plastic-lined plate and chill.

Fudge Ripple

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup water

6 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to bubble at the edges.

Continue to whisk until it just comes to a low boil. Cook for 1 minute, whisking frequently. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla, and let cool. Chill in the refrigerator before using.

Cake Batter Ice Cream

1 cup half & half

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup cake mix (I used confetti with the sprinkles)

Directions

Whisk the half & half and granulated sugar until the sugar is dissolved. 

Stir in the heavy cream and vanilla and then stir in cake mix (to avoid lumps sift in).

Pour mixture into the freezer bowl and churn as directed by your machine. 

Remove ice cream from freezer bowl and place into a freezer proof container and freeze for 8-10 hours.