Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream

A certain Pittsburgh food blogger’s obsession with peanut butter rubbed off on me, and upon receipt of a large box of Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups, I was immediately struck with inspiration for this variation on peanut butter cup ice cream. “Standard” peanut butter cup ice cream is a chocolate ice cream with a peanut butter swirl. It’s fine – dandy, even – but I wanted something more like a Reese’s sundae: a vanilla base with swirls of chocolate and peanut butter studded with chunks of peanut butter cups.

Well, that’s easy enough to come by. I already had a chocolate swirl recipe from my foray into mint ice cream (from David Lebovitz’ ice cream bible The Perfect Scoop.) I found a recipe for peanut butter caramel that was just crying to be a swirl. All that I needed was a basic vanilla ice cream. I mixed in a rather massive pile of quartered mini peanut butter cups, then ayered it into a container with alternating drizzles of chocolate and peanut butter sauces. A little time in the freezer, and voila: it’s practically Chubby Hubby, but without the pretzels. Come to think of it, pretzels would be brilliant…

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream
A Burghilicious Original

Keep in mind that ice cream generally takes two days to make. On day one, you freeze your ice cream maker insert (if that’s how yours works) and make the custard. On day two, you churn the ice cream.

2 cups heavy cream, divided
6 large egg yolks
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Chocolate Fudge Swirl (the same fudge swirl I used in mint ice cream, hence the link)
Peanut Butter Caramel Sauce
15 mini peanut butter cups, quartered

Special equipment: ice cream maker

To make the ice cream:  Put one cup of heavy cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. Whisk the egg yolks together in a small bowl. In a medium saucepan, heat remaining cup of cream, milk, sugar and salt. Once it starts to steam, whisk a tiny bit of hot liquid into the egg yolks, followed by a bit more, to temper the yolks. Continue until about half of the milk mixture has been added to the eggs, then dump the whole mixture back into the saucepan. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom of the pan, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the mixture through the strainer into the remaining cream, straining out any little bits of egg that may have cooked. Stir in the vanilla extract, cover, and chill overnight.

Freeze the ice cream according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. In the last 5 minutes of churning, prepare the additional ingredients. The chocolate fudge swirl works best straight from the fridge, but the peanut butter sauce will need to be warmed gently in the microwave until spreadable. In the last minute of churning, add the quartered peanut butter cups.

As soon as you feel the peanut butter cups are evenly distributed, it’s time to assemble the ice cream. You will need to work quickly as the peanut butter sauce is warm and will melt it. Smear a coating of chocolate swirl in the bottom of a 7- or 8-cup freezer-safe container (square or round, not long and flat). Spoon in a thin layer of ice cream, then top that with a thin layer of peanut butter caramel.  Add another layer of ice cream, then chocolate swirl. Continue, alternating layers with peanut butter caramel and chocolate swirl, until all of the ice cream is in the container. Top the ice cream with a final layer of chocolate or peanut (whoever’s turn is next), then close the container and freeze for at least 2 hours until frozen.

When you scoop the ice cream out, the layering will produce swirls with random peanut butter cup candy chunks. Serve alone, or top with additional warm peanut butter caramel. What adds up to about a quart-and-a-half of ice cream will not use a full recipe of either kind of swirl, so have a backup plan for using the rest. (And no judgment if your backup plan is to eat the peanut butter caramel straight from the jar.)

Tagged as: chocolate, peanut butter, vanilla