Peanut butter ice cream… Does it get any better than that? Oh wait, yes it does! Peanut butter ice cream with a hot fudge swirl… Much better! Mind you, the swirl is not hot. I originally planned to give this post the following title: ‘Peanut Butter Ice Cream with a Hot Fudge Swirl’, but I decided against it. Too confusing. I mean, ice cream and a hot swirl? Crazy! I mean, the swirl is just as cold as the ice cream. Aka: frozen!
Wait, did I say ‘Frozen’? I looove that movie! Is it weird that I can sing along to ‘Let It Go’? And to ‘Do You Wanna Build a Snowman’? Because I’m not apologizing for it…
But let’s get back to the ice cream. As you might have guessed, this is the ice cream I mentioned in my last post on homemade hot fudge sauce. For those of you who missed my last post, I’ve been craving peanut butter ice cream for the last couple of weeks or so. And what do you do when a craving hits you and you happen to also run a food blog? You come up with a killer recipe!
Wow, that sounds like developing this recipe was really easy! Trust me, it wasn’t. But more on that later… Let’s first discuss why this is the most delicious peanut butter ice cream out there. First of all, this ice cream is super smooth and super creamy. Creamy to the max! And secondly, it is just packed full of flavor! Akak: packed full of peanut butter!
Lots and lots of creamy, smooth peanut butter…
About the peanut butter: make sure to use sweetened peanut butter. Don’t use the organic stuff here! Save it for peanut butter sandwiches and apple slices. I once made a peanut butter cheesecake with unsweetened peanut butter and the results were, well, not so sweet…
I explain all about the importance of using the right kind of peanut butter in this post. It’s very helpful! I’d even say I’m almost willing to give that peanut butter cheesecake recipe a go again! Almost…
Anyway, there’s quite a lot of peanut butter in this recipe. Because there’s nothing worse than peanut butter ice cream that doesn’t taste like peanut butter. Am I right or am I right? There’s also a fair amount of vanilla in this ice cream, because vanilla somehow makes everything better. Well, almost everything. Not candles. I hate vanilla-scented candles. But then again, I can’t stand scented candles, so it could be that vanilla has nothing to do with it. Is it weird to hate scented candles? I hear most food bloggers really like them. Does that make me a weird food blogger? Wait, what? When did food blogging become about candles?
Moving on…
In my last post I briefly discussed the first peanut butter ice cream recipe I made in my quest to come up with the ULTIMATE peanut butter ice cream. It was really just a combination of cream, milk, sugar, peanut butter and a little vanilla and I didn’t really like it. Somehow, it didn’t melt right. It sort of split as it melted. The flavor was fine, but I just couldn’t get over that weird-melting thing…
So I came up with a custard based ice cream recipe instead! Custard based is always better. It’s just richer and smoother. Besides adding eggs, I also added more peanut butter and a little less vanilla. Vanilla might make everything, well, almost everything better, but I didn’t want it to overpower the peanut butter.
Besides, there’s a lot going on in this recipe, flavor wise. There’s the peanut butter of course, but let’s not forget about that magical chocolate fudge swirl! It really takes this ice cream over the top! I made mine with homemade hot fudge sauce, but you can use storebought instead if you don’t feel like making hot fudge yourself. You’ll only need a few tablespoons anyway…
When it comes to churning, I used an ice cream machine. Because I have one. Having said that: this is one of those ice cream recipes that really work well even if you don’t have an ice cream machine.
Last week, when I thought my ice cream machine was broken – it wasn’t really! The Rocking Rebel fixed it for me! – I had to ‘churn’ it manually. Aka: I plopped the unchurned, chilled ice cream mixture into a freeze-proof container and froze it, stirring it with a fork every half hour. Three hours later, I had delicious ice cream. It was a little thicker and harder to scoop that the ice cream in the photos, but delicious nonetheless! No ice crystals, no weird texture. Just perfectly smooth ice cream.
So if you don’t have an ice cream maker, go for it anyway!
As for me, I’m going to get myself another scoop!
And watch ‘Frozen’ again! Thanks Netflix…
- 6 large egg yolks
- 480ml (or 2 cups) heavy whipping cream
- 240ml (or 1 cup) whole milk
- 150g (or ¾ cup) granulated sugar
- 350g (or 1¼ cup) creamy peanut butter, I used Skippy
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4 to 6 tablespoons of homemade or storebought Hot Fudge Sauce
- Combine the yolks and half the cream in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk until foamy.
- Add the remaining cream, the milk, the sugar and the peanut butter to a large saucepan and heat over low heat, whisking to dissolve the sugar and peanut butter. Once the mixture is smooth, crank the heat up to medium-high and allow the mixture to come to a boil, whisking occasionally. As the mixture heats, it will thicken.
- Gently drizzle the hot, thick peanut butter mixture into the yolk mixture, whisking continuously to prevent the eggs form scrambling.
- Once everything is combined, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and heat gently over low heat, whisking constantly. Clip on a sugar thermometer (or the probe of a multimeter) and heat the mixture until it reaches a temperature of 80°C (175°F).
- Immediately remove from the heat and pour the peanut butter custard (which it now is) trough a medium-meshed strainer to make sure it's completely smooth. Whisk in the vanilla, then press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard. Allow the custard to come to room temperature before placing it in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.
- Churn in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions, or freeze the mixture 'manually' by placing it in a freeze-proof container in the freezer and stirring vigorously every half hour until it has frozen (this may take up to 3 hours, depending on the temperature of your freezer).
- Once churned, place the ice cream into a clean bowl, plop in dollops of the hot fudge sauce (make sure it's only slightly warm!) and gently fold it into the ice cream. Transfer the ice cream to a freeze-proof container and place in the freezer to firm up for at least 4 hours or overnight.
New favorite food quote:
