Brownie Turtle Ice Cream

Written by on in Ice Cream

First of all, before I say anything, I just want to announce that I believe with literally all on my being that brownies and ice cream are one of, if not THE BEST, combinations ever created in the history of everything.

And boyyyy have I been craving some brownie ice cream this week.

The inspo for this ice cream came in two waves. The first, I just explained, which gave us the brownie portion of this and the second is in honor of my boss.

He recently went on a vacation to Florida with his family with the main goal being to show his 4 year old niece that he’s the best uncle ever. In the process of all that, he somehow landed himself at like ..12 different turtle farms. This little girl clearly fell in love with turtles.

So in honor of getting a text every other day saying “At another turtle farm”, I decided to give him one last turtle experience on his first day back at work.

Candy Turtles are these perfect little clusters of pecans, caramel and chocolate and I saw nothing wrong with turning that all into an ice cream. But the cooliest part about this recipe and these flavors is there’s so many ways you can go about it all.

I did just a classic vanilla ice cream base with a homemade caramel swirl, toasted pecans, brownie chunks and chocolate ganache.

BUT – you could steep the pecans in the base for an hour or so to realllyyyy feature that nuttiness OR you could make a salted caramel ice cream and just add the other parts into it and use that as your caramel factor. OR, you could even make a chocolate ice cream base instead and work with it like that.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS (AND DELICIOUS.)

On my insta-story tutorial, you all saw how fucking terrified I was to make caramel from scratch because holy jesus can that go wrong in .01 seconds.

(What you didn’t see is that I totally did fuck it up because I poured my cream in too fast at the end and it made the caramel sieze so I had to reheat the whole damn thing until the sugar chunks remelted but NBD – WE MADE IT WORK)

Moral of the story as usual – pay attention.

You also saw in this episode that I let my base cook too long and the eggs started forming specs. (We fixed that by straining the mixture a few times which doesn’t make it perfect but gives us less specs, and the ice cream turned out fine in the end.)

So once again. The moral of the story – pay attention.

SO – the best part about this ice cream (other than everything)?

When you layer in the homemade caramel and let it sit in the freezer overnight, this magical thing happens. I expected to take a scoop out and see definitive swirls of caramel in there but the swirls were extremely faint.

WHY? – Because overnight, some of the caramel soaked directly into the ice cream.

So now the ice cream base has this hint of caramel sweetness to it PLUS little swirls of caramel throughout and it honestly FUCKING UNREAL.

That all being said – ENJOY, and don’t stop screamin’.

Caramel Swirl recipe from @thatskinnychickcanbake blog. Ice Cream base recipe from The Perfect Scoop as usual.

YOU’LL NEED:

For the Ice Cream:

  • 1cup whole milk
  • Apinchof salt
  • 3/4cup sugar
  • 2cupsheavy cream
  • 5large egg yolks
  • 1teaspoonpure vanilla extract

For the Caramel Swirl:

  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

For the mix – ins:

  • 1 cup toasted pecans
  • 1 cup dark chocolate chips (for ganache)
  • 1/2 cup warm heavy cream (for ganache)
  • 1 cup crumbles brownie pieces

LETS DO IT:

For the ice cream –

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan.
2.  pour the cream into a separate bowl and set a strainer over the top.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks.
4. Gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.
5. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula, until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. (Don’t overcook like I did).
6. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir over the ice until cool, add the vanilla extract, then refrigerate to chill thoroughly. (Overnight if you can!)
7. Freeze the custard in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.
For the caramel –
  1. Put 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat.(DONT TOUCH IT, even though its super tempting and you’re gunna wanna.)
  2. When the sugar starts to melt around the edges and the you can stir the mixture gently and add another 2 tablespoons to the pan.
  3. Continue to add the remaining sugar 2 tablespoons at a time, stirring frequently and allowing most of the sugar to melt before you add more.
  4. Pay very close attention and stir gently to help everything melt properly.
  5. Once all your sugar is in, add small amounts of cream at a time, stirring continuously as you pour. (It will bubble and steam like crazy but have no fear that’s totally normal)
  6. If you have any chunks of sugar or big lumps, put your mixture back on the heat (on low) and cook until sugar melts.
  7. Stir in salt and vanilla and allow to cool to room temperature.
For the mix-ins-
  1. Toast your pecans at 400 degrees for about 10 mins. (When they become fragrant is a good sign to pull them from the oven)
  2. Warm the cream for the ganache and let sit over the chocolate until chocolate is almost fully melted.
  3. Stir until ganache forms and let sit at room temp until needed.

Putting it all together-

  1. When the ice cream is done being churned, gently fold in or layer your ice cream with brownies, ganache, pecans and caramel.
  2. Freeze overnight before serving.

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