More Ice Cream! (Cookie Dough, Espresso, Brownie, Raspberry, etc)

So last weekend absolutely ignited my love for making ice cream at home.  First off, it takes about a half hour to make some soft serve.  Seriously?  When you add up the time it takes me to find my keys, get in the car, wander around the grocery store buying a ridiculous amount of things I don't need, get some store bought ice cream, and drive home- that's a half hour.  And I can have homemade stuff instead!?  No brainer.

PS- I totally did that today because I needed pumpkin to make diet muffins.  I decided to bike to the grocery store, because my husband was cleaning my car because he could no longer stand the disgusting way in which I've come accustomed to living, and I didn't want to rock that boat by taking the car.  But hey!  Burned some calories and I have a clean car.  I also acquired about 13 pairs of shoes and a ton of Tupperware that apparently was hiding under my seats.  Yay productive Sundays!

Anywhoo- In conclusion, making ice cream at home doesn't take much time.  Unlike reading my rambling thoughts about it.  Second reason why I needed to make me some more ice cream?  I was going to a barbecue with my friends!  And it's flipping hot out, so I thought this would be a grande idea.  And like a good little guest, I emailed the hostess making sure they would have room in the freezer, and she kindly informed me that there was going to be about 30-40 people there.  That's a lot for my little quart sized ice cream maker to handle.

But did I drop the idea like a sane individual and bring pasta salad instead?  No!  I made ice cream every night until the party in order to have enough.  Was it worth it?  Yes!  I might have come across as the crazy lady who likes ice cream, but damn it, people left with tummies full of refreshing, delicious sinful ice cream.

And here are some of my concoctions!

Espresso

Pure Happiness.  Ice cream + caffeine.... what could be better?  And it's simple- mix in 4 tsp of instant espresso in with the milk for the vanilla ice cream, recipe follows.

Brownie Batter

Ok, we are getting a little more complicated with this one.  But not that complicated- it still starts with a boxed mix.  

Grab a brownie mix and split it half.  Grab a small pan (mine say's it's "6 cups" which is not that helpful.  Husband  measured and it seems to be 6 by 8.)  Following the instructions on the box, prepare and bake half the mix, making sure to adjust the cooking time down.  I doubled the amount of water in the recipe by accident- but the brownies were SUPER moist and kind of crumbled into the ice cream, giving it a cookies and cream type consistency.  It was amazing.  Happy accident?  

Let them cool.

Chop them up.

Try to not eat them all.

Freeze these suckers.  Mix up the basic vanilla ice cream, and after 20 minutes add in 1 cup of the remaining brownie mix.  Let that blend, and add in the frozen brownie bites.  If you do not want them to break apart, you will want to instead fold these in after the ice cream is out of the mixer.  But having them all broken up by the mixer into different sized pieces was amazing!

Cookie Dough (Nope, no eggs!)
We can't go crazy for homemade ice cream without attempting a good cookie dough!  The recipe I made for the cookie dough makes enough for four (count em' FOUR) batches of ice cream.  So you can either
A.  Cut back on the recipe...
B.  Make more ice cream to mix the cookie dough into... or
C.  Eat a lot of cookie dough.

I went for a combo of B and C.  Mostly C.  A lot of C.

 Cream together your butter and sugars.  Add the vanilla and flour.  Then (get this) add in your can of sweetened condensed milk (this takes the place of the egg and adds sweetness.  It's amazing.)

Mix in your mini chips.

Next, line a baking tray with saran wrap, and put your dough on top of it.  Place another layer of saran wrap over the dough, and press it down into the pan.  Making sure everything is covered, you can freeze this tray of cookie dough.  

Yum.

Let this set up for a few hours or overnight.  Then, pop the entire batch out of the tray, and start cutting up your cookie dough pieces.

 It's hard to tell from this picture, but the pieces are pretty small- maybe 1.5 cm cubed.  

Try to leave some to put into the ice cream.  Fold these into a batch of vanilla ice cream, and voila!











Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk
As I progress through these ice creams, they get progressively more and more complicated.  Apparently I got progressively more ambitious.  But this one certainly paid off!

First, let's make a ridiculously intense raspberry sauce to mix into the ice cream.  I've made this before for cupcakes, but I think the sauce ended up better this time, so this is what I did.

Grab two pints of raspberries.  Wash them.  Don't eat them.   Ok, eat a couple.  

Add in your sugar and your lemon juice and heat these over medium heat until broken down.

Once it's a little more broken down then this, place the raspberries in strainer with a bowl underneath to get all the seeds out.  Really try to get all the juice out.

Return the juice to the stove, add 1/8 cup of sugar and 2 tbsp light corn syrup and simmer for 20 min until very thick.  

Place this in a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate until cool (at least several hours.)

SO GOOD!

Ok, once cool you are ready to start you ice cream.  Again, I used the vanilla base recipe.  I also had 2 white chocolate bars chopped up and ready to go.  

After about 25 min, add in your raspberry sauce.  I used about 3/4 of the recipe, and retained the rest to serve as a topping.  Just add and let it blend, and taste it to see if it's to your liking.

Add in the chopped white chocolate once the raspberry sauce is combined, and you are done!

Yay! I'm done with all the ice cream!!  My favorite was the brownie- but the raspberry was a huge hit (probably didn't even need the white chocolate chunks- it was amazing on its own.)  Hubby liked the espresso the best, and the cookie dough was probably the biggest hit at the party.

So gee, I don't know.  Guess you'll have to make them all. Drat.  

Recipe time!!

Basic Vanilla Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 cup Whole Milk

2 cups Cream

2 tsp Pure Vanilla

Directions

Whisk sugar into milk until dissolved.  Pour vanilla into your cream.  Combine milk and cream.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Espresso Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Start with the basic vanilla recipe, but add 4 tsp of instant espresso powder to the sugar when mixing with the milk.  

Brownie Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
1 box brownie mix

1/2 the oil, eggs and other ingredients your boxed recipe calls for

Directions

Divide brownie mix.

Taking half of the mix, prepare brownie batter as directed (adding only half of the ingredients listed, but ALL of the water.)  If the recipe only calls for one egg, crack the egg into a small bowl, whisk, and pour half of the beaten egg into the batter.

Bake the brownies until done.  Cut into chunks and freeze. 

Later, prepare the basic vanilla ice cream .  After about 20 min, pour in one cup of the unbaked brownie mix.  Let process.  Pour frozen brownie chunks into ice cream and let process.  

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paulas-best-dishes/cookie-dough-truffles-recipe/index.html

Ingredients (this makes enough for 4 batches of ice cream.)  

1 stick butter

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk

1 cup mini chocolate chips.

Directions

In a large bowl cream butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour and add milk. Add chocolate chips.

Press mixture into a saran wrap lined pan.  Place another layer of warp over top and press down.  Freeze pan.

Once frozen, pop the dough onto a cutting board and cut into chunks.  Freeze extra dough for future ice cream batches (or snacking!)  

Prepare a batch of the basic vanilla ice cream and fold cookie dough in at the end.

Raspberry Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/raspberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Ingredients 

2 pints fresh raspberries

1/2 cup of sugar, divided

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp light corn syrup

Directions

Wash raspberries and dry completely.  Mix raspberries, half the sugar and the lemon juice in a sauce pan.  Cook over medium heat until raspberries are broken down, about 10 min.

Strain raspberries and collect juice in a bowl. Return this juice to the stove.  

Add the rest of the sugar and the corn syrup and bring to a simmer.  Cook down for about 20 min.  Allow to cool before adding to ice cream.

Prepare basic vanilla ice cream.  After 25 min, add raspberry sauce to taste.  Top with chopped white chocolate.