Thursday, July 19, 2012

S'mores Ice Cream Experiment

Last week, I was peeking around on Facebook when I noticed my sister-in-law (Staci) added a post about making s'mores ice cream (recipe courtesy of Brown Eyed Baker). Hmm.... I was intrigued. We've recently introduced our kids to the ooey-gooey sticky world of s'mores, and I thought the ice cream would be the topping on the cake (so to speak).

The key to the recipe? Toasting the marshmallows! Genius! Most recipes call for marshmallows, but this one really thought about what makes a s'more a s'more.... the toasting! To make our marshmallows have that "just off the campfire" taste, I used our kitchen torch to brown 'em up a bit... and only had to put out a couple of small fires. Too much fun, if you ask me!!

The next step was making the custard, and I had to agree with Staci, it was beyond amazing!! The trick is to make the custard and toasted marshmallows in the blender and create a smooth (albeit unattractive thanks to the cooked/burned marshmallow bits ... seriously, you've never seen a funkier color of ice cream!) concoction. Funky flavored, but soooo yummy!

Looking back, that's where I should have stopped.

After letting the ice cream custard hang out in the fridge overnight and letting it do its thing in the ice cream maker, I added the crushed graham crackers, as was called for by the recipe. In theory, great idea. In practice, not so much. It gave the final ice cream a soggy graham cracker texture that I didn't really find appealing. I'm a big texture person ... nuts don't belong in brownies, chunks don't belong in peanut butter, and soggy graham crackers don't belong in ice cream.

I also made and added the chocolate fudge swirl that the recipe called for. While I love that I have a better technique for adding swirls to my ice cream, I don't think the chocolate really did much for the final ice cream. I'm not a huge chocolate person, so that may be why... I also might have such a hard time moving past the graham cracker effect that I can't appreciate the chocolate. Either way, I've decided if I try again, I'll stop with the toasted marshmallow ice cream and call it a winner!

Last night, I have the kids some of the ice cream for dessert and they LOVED it... devoured it, in fact. Perhaps it is grand as is and I'm just weird.... who knows??

Who wants ice cream???

No comments: