Oh my goodness. This ice cream.
As you may recall from the Portland Donut Crawl, I promised to make ice cream with doughnuts from the winning shop. Pip’s Original came out way, way, way on top, so I picked up a few dozen cinnamon sugar doughnuts and got experimenting with ice cream. And self-control. I only ate one doughnut during the making of this ice cream, and that is the greatest accomplishment of my life. Okay, plus half of the six Dirty Wu’s we got when we had to make a second trip to Pip’s for more ice cream ingredients.
Originally, I was planning to put the doughnuts into a bourbon ice cream with a marionberry ribbon (Oregon style). I did this, and it was good. But when you think of doughnuts, you naturally think of coffee, so I tried a coffee ice cream with doughnuts. Holy cow. Incredible. Magical. The best.
So that’s what we have here. Coffee ice cream. Rich, deeply coffee flavored, incredible ice cream, with pops of cinnamon sugar covered doughnuts. I tell you what, cinnamon and coffee are a lovely combination. This ice cream smells like a dream. And the doughnuts don’t freeze completely, so they remain kind of chewy and delicious and doughnutty, just like you want them to be. So good.
Coffee ice cream is my favorite ice cream flavor in all the land, and when it came to picking a coffee ice cream recipe, I looked no further than Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams (<–affiliate link). If you haven’t been lucky enough to taste the ice cream from Jeni’s shops back on the east side of the country, you are truly missing out. She makes the best ice creams I’ve ever tasted. And with her book (<–affiliate link), I can make the ice creams at home! In my years of coffee ice cream tasting, I’ve never had any as good as the one from her book, so I just adapted this Coffee and Doughnuts Ice Cream from her recipe for Black Coffee Ice Cream.
Obviously, you’ll need an ice cream maker to make this. I have this one (<–affiliate link), and I love it. I just keep the freezer bowl in my freezer full time, so it’s ready on a moment’s notice (the major perk of having a regular sized freezer in this apartment, as opposed to the baby one in our last place). Be warned: This recipe is a little involved. It requires a few dirty dishes. And some patience, since there are several waiting periods before you can actually dig in. But, trust me. It’s worth it.
- 2½ cups whole milk
- 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1½ ounces cream cheese, softened
- ⅛ teaspoon fine salt
- 1½ cups heavy cream
- ¾ cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
- ¼ cup espresso beans, coarsely ground
- 2 cups small chopped cinnamon sugar doughnuts (8-9 Pip's Original Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts)
- Mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry.
- Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth.
- Fill a large bowl with ice and water.
- Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a 4 or 5-quart saucepan. Bring to a roiling boil over medium heat, and boil for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the milk from burning. Remove from the heat, add the coffee, and let steep for 5 minutes.
- Strain the milk mixture through a sieve lined with a layer of cheesecloth. Squeeze the coffee in the cheesecloth to extract as much liquid as possible, then discard the grounds. (Don't worry if you end up with a few coffee grounds in your milk mixture. It happens to me every time, and it's fine.)
- Return the cream mixture to the saucepan and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring back to a boil over medium heat and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
- Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand for 30 minutes.
- Pour the ice cream into the frozen canister in your ice cream maker. Spin until thick and creamy, until the ice cream starts to pull away from the sides, generally 25-30 minutes. Slowly add the chopped doughnut pieces when the ice cream is almost finished. Allow the ice cream maker to keep spinning until it has distributed the doughnuts throughout the ice cream.
- Pack the ice cream into a storage container. Press a sheet of parchment paper directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze until firm, at least 6 hours.
I use these containers (<–affiliate link) for my ice cream storage. Perfect for the freezer!
-Ally
Leave a Reply