I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

Last week I got a call from a good friend, inviting me round for dinner last night.
After being surrounded by so many foodies the last few weeks, I decided to try my hand at making Ice Cream again. I last made Ice Cream when I made a triple layered Casata for my mom's birthday last year. (which went down very well, I might add...)

Two years ago I bought a Krups Ice Cream Maker for myself as a birthday present. (It's marked down at Dion Wired, in case you haven't figured out what you want for Christmas). Great for making small batches at a time. One drawback is that you have to re-freeze the bowl before doing a second batch.
The only thing left to sort out was what flavour I would make.

Vanilla is too easy. Make Crème Anglaise (from my trusty Larousse Gastronomique Dessert Book. Don't judge. I don't cook often enough to have these recipes committed to memory) and put in maker.. Et Voila.. No. Instead I asked those going to the dinner for inspiration. I got the brief to be creative..and Whisky would not be frowned upon. Capital!

One of my favourite sweets has got to be Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (or Reese's Pieces, or Reese's Wafers). To say I am partial to peanut butter would be an understatement. While browsing the baking shop for inspiration, I found a tub of chocolate ganache. I then found some peanuts and my mind was made. Peanut Butter Ice Cream. I blended the peanuts to a fine crumb and then added some smooth peanut butter and a pinch or two of rock salt. Blended again and came up with a sort of chunky peanut butter.

I poured my custard, which had been cooling in the fridge, into the Ice Cream maker and spooned in half of the peanut butter mixture. I let this churn a bit before adding a few spoons of ganache and then the rest of the peanut butter. The result was small pockets of chocolate and peanut butter spinning around. A nice surprise in your spoonful.

Peanut Delight

Once it was done, I scooped the final product into a container for further freezing.
Luckily, I made a double batch of Cremè Anglaise so I got to work on prepping my second batch. A quick rinse of the bowl and back into the freezer to prime it for it's next challenge. Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey Ice Cream with bits of Sweet Temptations White and Dark Chocolate Toffee (The name needs a bit of work. Might be a tad too long..)

Love my Jack

After attending the launch of Jack Honey a while back, I have been advocating it's use as a social lubricant. Now Jack might not be to everyone's taste, but if you haven't tried Jack Honey, I suggest you remedy this oversight at your next earliest opportunity. With Appletiser it tastes like more, as a cold shot it tastes like trouble and served with Ginger Ale it tastes like hangover. It really is a smooth drink and I wanted to carry this over into my Ice Cream.

While tweeting my inspiration, I got some great advice from the Ice Cream Queen herself, Janine van Zyl. Boil the Jack to get rid of the alcohol. This would prevent the custard from splitting or not freezing. Sage advice.. if only I had seen it before adding three tablespoons of Jack to my custard. I mixed it in well and hoped for the best. By the time my bowl was sufficiently frozen, the custard was still looking good. And tasted amazing.

I poured the custard into the bowl and added in finely diced pieces of the toffee (the texture is similar to the Creme Caramels that you can find in any decent shop, more of a soft toffee than a filling remover). Again, after churning for a while i transfered the Ice Cream to a plastic container and put this in the freezer, ready for transportation.

I decided that I wanted some texture to the dish, so I bought some Stroop Waffels to serve with the Ice Cream.

After a lovely dinner of homemade lasagna and a bottle of David Finlayson Pinot Noir (really amazing stuff) it was dessert time. I'm proud to say that my friends enjoyed it, even though it was a bit on the rich side.

I was well chuffed with my handiwork.

Any suggestions for weird but wonderful flavours?
Leave a comment.

N.