Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream
Back when we talked about our Florida vacation and all of the wonderful things about it, we included all of the ice cream that we ate. We made a habit of polishing off a cone just about every evening, which we of course loved! While on vacation, we fell in love with the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup variety from Edy’s Fun Flavors line. It was our choice every night, piled into a waffle cone, thank you much. Once we got back, we knew we wanted to try making a from-scratch version of that ice cream, and also knew that it wouldn’t be too difficult. It has a chocolate ice cream base, with a peanut butter swirl and lots of peanut butter cup chunks. Pretty much our dream ice cream. And now we can eat it without having to make a trip to the store!
We took our all-time favorite chocolate ice cream recipe, added a peanut swirl to it, and mixed in chunks of Reese’s peanut butter cups.
We may have also eaten a significant portion of the chopped-up peanut butter cups before they made it into the ice cream. Oops!
Next time we might try using the peanut butter patties from the Chocolate Fudge Swirl Peanut Butter Ice Cream recipe. It would be like double the peanut butter cups! Woo! We just can’t get enough of chocolate and peanut butter together, it might be considered an addiction. Now we're going to curl up with another bowl and stick our ear to the side of a big conch shell to see if we can hear the ocean.
Do you have a favorite vacation treat?
One year ago: Raisin Bran Muffins
Two years ago: Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Brownies
- Yield: 1 quart
- Prep: 50 minutes
- Total: 50 minutes
Ingredients
Ice Cream:
- 2 cups ( 476 ml ) heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 5 ounces ( 141.75 g ) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
- 1 cup ( 244 ml ) whole milk
- ¾ cup ( 150 g ) granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 5 large egg yolks
- ½ teaspoon ( 0.5 teaspoon ) vanilla extract
- 20 regular-size peanut butter cups, chopped
Peanut Butter Swirl:
- ½ cup ( 129 g ) peanut butter
- ½ cup ( 119 ml ) heavy whipping cream
- ¼ cup ( 55 g ) light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
Method
- 1. Warm 1 cup of the cream with the cocoa powder in a medium saucepan, whisking to thoroughly blend the cocoa. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer at a low boil for 30 seconds, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate, stirring until smooth. Then stir in the remaining 1 cup cream. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, scraping the saucepan as thoroughly as possible, and set a mesh strainer on top of the bowl.
- 2. Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in the same saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolk. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
- 3. Stir the mixture constantly over the medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (170°F on an instant-read thermometer). Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the chocolate mixture until smooth, then stir in the vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
- 4. While the custard cools, make the peanut butter swirl. Combine the peanut butter, whipping cream, corn syrup, and the brown sugar in a small saucepan saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring, until smooth and sugar is dissolved. Transfer to an airtight container.
- 5. Chill both the custard and the peanut butter swirl thoroughly, at least 8 hours.
- 6. Freeze the custard mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (If the cold mixture is too thick to pour into your machine, whisk it vigorously to thin it out.) During the last two minutes, add in the chopped peanut butter cups. When packing the ice cream into its container, alternate layers of the ice cream and peanut butter swirl, ending with the ice cream.
