#18 Salted Caramel

Well, this one has been a long time coming. My coworker, Lizsl, has been requesting it ever since I started making ice cream because it's one of her favorite flavors OF ALL TIME.

The first thing I had to do was figure out how to make caramel. I've never done that before, although I've seen it being made a few times. So I enlisted the assistance of a superstar cook, Travis, who makes awesome caramel popcorn, but it turns out the caramel he makes for the popcorn is corn syrup based rather than sugar based, so we scoured the internet for a real sugar-based caramel recipe that could be transformed into tasty delicious ice cream!

Earlier in the day I found a salted caramel recipe that I liked, but it was for a more chewy type of caramel candy. The recipe is here: http://bakedbree.com/salted-caramels-week-5-of-12-weeks-of-christmas#axzz1MFKvYecP I might try to make these one day, perhaps for someone's birthday in December.

We found a caramel sauce recipe on the same website. I'm not the best baker, but with the help of bakedbree.com I think I might just be able bake some tasty treats some day! Her site looks awesome. There's so many yummy-looking recipes on there. Check it out!

Here's the caramel sauce recipe: http://bakedbree.com/caramel-sauce#axzz1MFKvYecP

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

AND (my addition) 1 1/2 teaspoons course sea salt

1. Put sugar in saucepan.
2. Cover with water, medium heat, bring to boil, do not stir or disturb.
3. After about 10 minutes a golden amber color should appear. Well, this didn't happen for me. Instead the sugar began to crystallize. It was very traumatic, like in Return to Oz when you touch the forbidden desert and turn to sand! Only not exactly. We were about to scratch the batch when I had a bout of intuitive inspiration and poured some more water into it and turned up the heat. The sugar crystals dissolved and the golden amber color appeared almost instantly!
4. Add the cream and whisk away! I used the whisking attachment on the immersion blender. This also helped to dissolve the remaining sugar crystals.
5. After it's well mixed (smooth and silky) then add the vanilla and sea salt.
6. Take off the heat. The sauce thickens as it cools. It cools faster in the refrigerator.

I think this recipe made about 2 cups of caramel sauce.

For the ice cream I used 1 1/2 cups of the salted caramel sauce as the base and then added 3 cups of half & half. Yes, I'm trying half & half this time instead of heavy cream. Just because.

I sprinkled a few course sea salt crystals on top of the ice cream after it had frozen, which added a little extra salty kick. Although I might recommend serving this ice cream with a little sea salt on the side so the devourer can add as much or as a little salt as they desire. This ice cream truly captures the essence of the salted caramel flavor.

According to Lizsl there's only one word that describes it: Heaven!

#17 Chocolate Peppermint

Going on vacation made me fall a little behind on my one ice cream per week schedule, so I'm going to try and catch up over the next few weeks. To get back into the swing of things I made a simple chocolate peppermint ice cream.


I had one package of German baking chocolate left over from the German Chocolate Cake ice cream, so I threw it into the pot along with the other ingredients from the basic ice cream recipe.

After the chocolate melted I used the immersion blender and mixed everything up until it looked smooth and silky. I was tempted to pour myself a glass of this super sweetened hot chocolate milk, but I resisted. (Although I did taste it a few times more than was necessary. /shameless confession)

Next I added 3 cups of cream and 2 teaspoons of peppermint extract. Also, this happened.

Then I chilled it, churned it, and garnished the chocolate peppermint ice cream with some crushed peppermint candy!
And there you have it.

A simple super-tasty chocolate peppermint ice cream dessert of deliciousness!

Four things I learned tonight while making ice cream...

So, after an awesome two week hiatus in Thailand I'm back and I'm making more ice cream, RIGHT NOW, but first I must share...

Four things I learned tonight while making ice cream:
1) dripping peppermint extract onto a burning stove can cause a rather large flare up of FIRE
2) knocking plastic measuring devices into fire (while in shock) will result in more fire and melting plastic
3) burning peppermint extract smells way better than burning plastic.
4) making ice cream is oddly dangerous...or maybe it's just me!

RIP TEASPOON