step aside butter pecan, theres a new nutty ice cream in town
roasted peanut brittle ice cream (a recipe)
hey hi hello,
WELCOME BACK, and baby we are so back with a new ice cream recipe. Now that San Diego has seen some pretty consistent high 80 to mid 90 and all the way up to low 100s… days… ahahahahahahaha why the fuck is it so hot ahahahahahhHAHAHELP.
Now that it’s scorching hot out, I’m throwing my oven away and will not be looking at that hot box from hell until October or something idk. Going forward new recipes will require little to no heat ♡ The most I’ll have ya do is turn on the stovetop for a little bit. jk, it’s a me so there will still prob be some light oven action, but only to give you a dessert that’s best served cold. Ice cream is obviously OBVIOUSLY topping that list. Because I did not spend 2 years developing my perfect base recipe to never touch it again.
If you want the primer and deep dive on ice cream, you can find that all here:
Now, I’ve been on a big peanut butter kick- trying desperately to develop a lightly spiced, peanut butter cookie that doesn’t suck. I had this spicy PB caramel ice cream a few years back that I literally think about once a month and I thought a cookie would be the perfect homage to it. Well, developing this recipe has been a journey, losta dry crumbly cookies :( It’s an ego hit for sure, so at a certain point I take a step away to work on something else. Though still in the mood for peanut I decided I could easily develop a banging, salty, nutty ice cream to scratch that itch instead (right right right, the beauty of having a great base recipe that I spent 2 years and probably 2 mil dollars to develop is that every iteration to come after just jumps off from all that hard work and it’s a few tweaks and mods, “easy”)
Now, I recently, basically got a new set of teeth. IDK basically, I spent 2 months and a small fortune getting WORK done on my teeth. Working my way up to the ok from my dentist to get… adult braces…. YEAH, this is what happens when you spend 10 years living in fear of the dentist ok. Take care of your shit now kids. ANYWAYS, the point of this tangent… My teeth that were once so weak, are stronger now and so I can stop lying about not liking a textural element in my ice cream. Ok for years I held back from a little crunchy moment touting that I only love a soft, silky, muy cremoso dessert (which is in fact very true). BUT I’VE BEEN LYING, it’s because my teeth were so gd weak, that a little peanut brittle could have done irreparable damage. I mean, I literally broke a tooth in half while eating salmon… SALMON!!! Now, that my teeth have been reinforced (this is also me tempting fate a little but also enjoying this shit before the dreaded adult braces come into play) I’m gonna entertain a little more crunch in my life. Hence, peanut brittle ripple- well chunks but whatever.
Enough yappin, here’s the recipe :)
PEANUT BRITTLE ICE CREAM
A printer friendly PDF version of the recipe will be available for paid subscribers for easy viewing + printing at the end of this post xx
TOOLS
Mixing bowls, 2 medium + 1 large
ROASTED PEANUT BRITTLE
INGREDIENTS
50 grams water
113 grams unsalted butter
113 grams granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
135 grams salted, roasted peanuts
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
DIRECTIONS
Start off by lining a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Place the 50 grams water, 113 grams unsalted butter, 113 grams granulated sugar and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt in a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Make sure to put the water in before the sugar. This helps to ensure the sugar fully dissolves into the water and helps to avoid crystallization.
Stir the mixture until the butter completely melts. Then you’re just gonna leave it alone until the mixture reaches 240F.
Once it reaches 240F you’ll add in the 135 grams of roasted peanuts and begin to stir constantly with a wooden spoon until the mixture reaches 290F. The candy will go through some visual changes. It starts off looking like a pot of melted bubbling butter, eventually it will emulsify into a mixture that looks like melted marshmallow, which the longer it cooks and the hotter it gets will deep in color until it’s a nice amber brown.
When the mixture hits 290F, remove from the heat and add the 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda, quickly stirring it in. This will cause the mixture to bubble and foam slightly CAREFULLY pour it out on the the parchment lined sheet pan.
Allow to cool completely before chopping up for the ice cream. If you’re not using it straight away, once it’s cooled and solidified- wrap the sheet pan with plastic wrap and throw a desiccant in if you’ve got it, to preserve freshness.
PEANUT + BROWN SUGAR ICE CREAM BASE
Now, this base is sweet, salty, nutty, sexy all on her own. Making the peanut brittle extremely optional- you know if you still have weak teeth unlike me (humble brag), you can omit the brittle.
INGREDIENTS
475 grams whole milk
175 grams salted, roasted peanuts, finely chopped
50 grams light corn syrup
370 grams heavy cream
65 grams granulated sugar
65 grams dark brown sugar
100 grams egg yolks (approx 5 large yolks)
3/4 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt- half if using Morton’s
about 3/4 of the batch of peanut brittle, from above, and optional
DIRECTIONS
Heat the 475 grams of whole milk to just below a simmer. Once warmed remove from the heat and add the 175 grams of finely chopped peanuts. Allowing the milk to infuse with the nuts for 45 minutes.
Once the milk has been infused, strain through a fine mesh sieve and discard the soaked peanuts. Reweigh the infused peanut milk to 350 grams, if you’re shy of the weight, you can top off with a lil more plain milk.
Add 350 grams infused milk and 50 grams light corn syrup to a medium saucepan. Place the saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer.
While that comes to temp, prepare an ice bath for your base. Fill a large mixing bowl with about 4 cups of ice and 1/2 cup of cold water. Nestle a smaller, shallow metal or glass bowl into the ice water. Fill this smaller bowl with 370 grams of heavy cream. Place the fine mesh sieve over the bowl and set aside.
Once the milk is at a simmer, drop the heat to medium-low and maintain the simmer for 5 minutes. You do not want this to boil, so keep an eye on it. Gentle simmer. 5 minutes. Set a timer.
While that simmers away, to a separate bowl add the 65 grams of granulated sugar, 65 grams of dark brown sugar, 100 grams egg yolks and 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt. Use a whisk to aerate the mixture. It should be light and paled in color.
Once the 5 minutes of simmering is up, gently temper the hot milk into the sugar yolk mixture. You’ll add a ladle full of milk to the yolks, whisking to fully combine before adding the next ladle full. The mixture will be sufficiently tempered once about half of the warm milk has been added in.
Pour the tempered yolks into the remaining milk in the saucepan, while agitating the mixture in the saucepan with a rubber spatula.
Keep the mixture moving with the rubber spatula to avoid scorching/scrambling the egg proteins.
Cook until the mixture reaches 180-185F. The mixture should be thick enough to coat the back of the spatula, a process known as achieving nappe.
Strain the mixture into the heavy cream that’s sat over the ice bath. Use the rubber spatula to gently swirl the two together until evenly combined.
Stir the base every so often until it reaches 50F or below.
Transfer to a storage container, covering the top of the base directly with plastic wrap.
Chill in the fridge overnight, allowing your ice cream base to cure.
The next day pour the base into your ice cream machine and churn to the manufacturer’s instructions. Depending on the machine this could take 15-30 minutes. You want the base to reach a texture similar to soft serve ice cream and should have a temp of 25F (this can be hard to reach in drum style machines).
Chop your peanut brittle into 1/4” sized pieces. You can either add the brittle into the machine while the almost ready ice cream is spinning, it should be at the soft servey stage when added. Or you can sprinkle it in between layers of ice cream as you move it to your desired storage container.
Transfer the ice cream to a freezer safe airtight container. Nothing too thick otherwise this can get in the way of the ice creams ability to freeze down, which can ultimately affect its final texture. I usually just throw it into a deli.
Label + date your container always.
Freeze for a minimum of 3-4 hours before scooping and serving. Of course you can sneak a few spoonfuls of the fresh churned ice cream too.
Consume within 2-3 weeks for the best texture. Your ice cream will freeze down pretty hard, thats to that high butterfat content & because home freezers aren’t set to a temp for optimal straight from the freezer scoopabilty. So, just let your ice cream sit out on the counter for a few minutes to temper for the best texture!
ENJOY!!
