Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Years ago, a bright eyed girl went off to college, had a roommate, lived away from home, and was truly in control of what was stocked in her fridge for the first time. At 18 I received a bit of a wake up call. Firstly, I had not considered that I would have to share the fridge with my roommate, and secondly, it had never occurred to me that there would be yogurt in it, many types of yogurt, and that she would eat yogurt daily. Yogurt had never taken up more than two seconds of my time thus far in my life.

Opening my shared fridge for the first time and finding yogurt was a bit of a wake up call. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but I was an 18 year old who had no living memory of having ever tried yogurt, or seeing a person eat yogurt. That's just.....weird. It gets worse. I also realized I had never tried mustard. HOW does an American girl make it that far in life without eating mustard? On a hot dog? That's just not right. I mean, at least I have had apple pie, but no mustard? Not okay.

Through the years there have been concerted efforts to right these deviances from the normal American life experiences. I  tried yogurt for the first time in my dorm room. My roommate was stunned and gave me a yogurt to try. I was not a fan, but at least I now knew I was not a yogurt person and could move on in my life one step closer to normalcy. Mustard took more effort for me. I mustered (bad pun) up the courage one day in the Student Union building, and bought a ham sandwich with mustard and an old fashioned donut to reward myself for good behavior. I truly enjoy mustard. To be fair to my family, mustard is my own fault. We probably had mustard in a little yellow bottle that I just never thought to try. Most likely it's a holdover from being a stubborn four year old who says "no" about foods they've never tried for no intelligible reason. Yogurt however....well, Mama didn't grow up in a yogurt home either. It's a multi-generational problem I hope to correct for my own children down the road.

With all this thought about childhood foods peanut butter ice cream just had to happen, along with homemade peanut butter cups. *sigh* I also did not enjoy peanut butter until college either. Judge away. 

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

1 cup milk

1 cup sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

5 egg yolks

1 1/3 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky, but I recommend organic either way) 

Scald milk and cream.

Lightly whisk eggs in a stand mixer along with the sugar, and then add the scalded mixture in a slow stream running down the side of the bowl on a low speed. Pour back into saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon add 1 cup of peanut butter. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl. If you’re making chunky reserve the peanut pieces to add in later.

Chill custard, stirring occasionally, until cooled. Freeze custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. When nearly finished, add in the last half cup of peanut butter and the peanut pieces.  Allow to integrate and then transfer to a suitable freezing container and put in freezer to firm up. 

Enjoy!