Back in June I "borrowed" an ice cream maker from Jill... Borrowing usually implies you'll give something back... And now that it is October, and I am still in possession of said icecream maker, I feel it is necessary to use the term "borrowed" loosely. (I swear, I am going to give it back!)
I have recently become addicted to the
Brown Eyed Baker website. I dare you to look at her recipe index without swooning over the never ending supply of amazingly delicious sounding recipes. So when I had nearly a dozen egg yolks left over from baking Ashley and Andrew's wedding cake and cupcakes, I went on an ice creaming making rampage.
Heavy cream and cocoa powder.
Here's what you do-- you start with heavy cream, and you whisk in some cocoa powder. The base for your chocolatey goodness. And please-- don't try to make this recipe healthier. If it says to use heavy cream, use heavy cream. If you try to cheat and use half and half or milk, something with a lower milk-fat base, your ice cream will not turn out. I can state this from experience! You'll just have to embrace the decadence of this dessert...
Chopped semi-sweet chocolate.
Once you've brought your whipped cream and cocoa powder to a boil, you dump in some chopped chocolate, and stir until it's smooth and cream. Then you set aside the chocolate mixture.
Next, you heat up sugar, salt and milk on a medium heat. You will whisk your egg yolks in a separate bowl, and then pour your warm milk and sugar mixture into them. This process is called tempering your eggs. It is an important step in the ice cream making process. Then you pour your milk, sugar and egg yolk mixture back into a pot, and heat until it begins to thicken. Unfortunately, sometimes during this process you end up cooking some of your eggs. So when the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, you pour it through a strainer, into your chocolate base.
Strained egg, an unwanted side effect of tempering your eggs.
If you've cooked any of your egg and capture it in your strainer (like I did), you can discard it! Blegh!
Peanut butter swirl.
Now you can make your peanut butter swirl. A delicious combination of peanut butter, brown sugar, and heavy cream.
Peanut butter swirl.
Now comes the tough part. WAITING OVER NIGHT. You can put your ice cream base and peanut butter swirl into separate air-tight containers, then leave them in the fridge overnight.
Ice cream base in the ice cream maker.
Bright and early, you add your ice cream base to the ice cream maker. Follow the directions on your maker. For me, this meant turning it on for 20 minutes of churning.
Chopped peanut butter cups.
While the machine was churning, I chopped up peanut butter cups into little bite-sized tenths. And when there was about two minutes left in the churning process, I dumped half of the peanut butter cups in. I was supposed to put in all the peanut butter cups, but the ice cream vessel was too full, and would have overflowed.
Soft-serve style ice cream.
When the 20 minutes of churning is done, your ice cream will look like it is soft-serve. So that means you will have to scoop it out into containers and freeze it some more.
Peanut butter swirl and peanut butter cups.
As you are scooping your ice cream into your containers, you will pause as you fill each third of the container, add a dollop of peanut butter swirl, and some extra peanut butter cups. Mix the peanut butter swirl into the ice cream so you have an even mix.
Seal your container!
Finally, you can seal up your container and let it freeze for a few more hours. The results will be amazing-- restaurant or store-bought quality chocolate ice cream with loads of peanut butter goodness.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream
And there you have it. Ice cream you will hoard, and refuse to share with others. It's THAT good.
