Peanut Butter Fudge Swirl Ice Cream

Hope you all had a good weekend, and a nice Mother’s Day! It probably couldn’t have been more gray and rainy here, but we made the best of it. Yesterday I met up with Shane’s parents and we dodged the raindrops to watch him run the Cox Sports Marathon. After all these years of watching him train and run races, I still don’t know how he does it. 26.2 miles is no joke! He ran a new personal best finishing in just over 3:25 – awesome, right? In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon (his long term goal), he needs to improve his time by another 20 minutes or so, but he’s inching closer with every race. Yay Shane 🙂

(Oh, and many thanks to Shane’s dad for most of these pics – he’s our official race photographer!)

Last night Shane made his inaugural trip to our local ice cream shop and rewarded himself with a giant bowl of ice cream. One of the perks of being a runner, I guess! It’s almost enough to make me want to get out there and start training… Actually, no it’s not. I’ll stick with Shaun T, I think.

No doubt we’ll be eating a lot of ice cream in the coming months, and while there will be more trips to our local shop, I’ll be making a good majority of it at home. Considering summer hasn’t even started yet, I’ve actually tried quite a few new recipes already. I shared the double cookie dough ice cream a few weeks ago and today I’m bringing you this peanut butter fudge swirl ice cream. I knew it would be good – I mean, you can’t go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate, but Shane and I both agreed this was one of our favorite homemade flavors to date. It has so much peanut butter flavor! Combine that with the fudge sauce swirled throughout and a perfectly smooth and creamy texture, it was heavenly.

Best of all, the recipe makes more fudge sauce than you need for this ice cream so you have extra to drizzle on top every time you grab a scoop. If you want to throw a brownie under there too, well even better 🙂

Peanut Butter Fudge Swirl Ice Cream
from Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones by Kris Hoogergyde, Anne Walker, and Dabney Gough

{Note: I haven’t tried making this ice cream with regular peanut butter so can’t say what difference it makes. The ice cream gets pretty hard in the freezer, it’ll be easier to scoop if you let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes first.}

Fudge Ripple
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup water
6 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Peanut Butter Ice Cream
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup 1% milk
3/4 cup sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 large egg yolks
1/3 cup natural peanut butter
1/4-1/3 cup fudge ripple

To make the fudge ripple: Whisk together the sugar, water, cocoa powder, corn syrup, and salt in a small saucepan. Set over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, whisking frequently. Remove the pan from the heat once the sugar has completely dissolved. Add the chopped chocolate and set the pan aside for 1 minute, then whisk until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the vanilla extract. Transfer the sauce to a heatproof container and refrigerate until completely chilled. Do not add to your ice cream until very cold.

To make the ice cream: Add the heavy cream, milk, half of the sugar, and the salt to a medium saucepan and set over medium heat. Allow the mixture to come to a simmer.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks and the remaining half of the sugar in a heatproof bowl until pale in color. Add the peanut butter to a second heatproof bowl and set aside. Slowly add the warm cream mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour back into the saucepan and set over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon (about 170-175 F on an instant read thermometer). Strain the custard into the bowl containing the peanut butter and stir to combine.

Cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled (overnight is good). Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As you transfer the ice cream to an airtight container for storing, drizzle in the fudge ripple every so often. (You can really add as much or as little of the fudge sauce as you want – the quantity listed above is just a suggestion.) Once you’ve add add of the ice cream, gently swirl with a butter knife. Freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.

Makes about 1 quart