Currently cooking out of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home by Jeni Britton Bauer
I set the sourdough aside long enough to churn up another ice cream from this book. I wanted something other than chocolate, and brown butter and almonds sounded like a good choice.
You start off by browning a whole bunch of butter and separating the brown milk solids from the oil. To the milk solids you add whole milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup and salt (the clarified butter gets set aside to use elsewhere). This mixture is brought to a boil, and the corn starch slurry is added. Once the mixture thickens, cream cheese is whisked in, the ice cream is cooled, churned and layered with almond brittle and frozen.
Almond brittle you ask? Oh. My. God. Yes. This candy recipe blindsided me. I’m usually indifferent to brittle; I prefer toffee, but this stuff is magnificent. It’s crunchy, but crumbly enough that you don’t break a tooth biting it. It has a deep caramelized flavor with just enough butter to soften the edges. And it is chock full of almonds. How good is that?
I say damn good.
Out of all the recipes I’ve tried so far out of this book, this is my least favorite. The ice cream is good, tasting exactly like you’d imagine a brown butter ice cream with almond brittle to taste. It’s just that the ice cream is sort of timid. It doesn’t blow you away with flavor like some of the other ice creams. I think this ice cream would be great served as an accompaniment to something else, maybe an apple pie or a peach crisp, but I wouldn’t make it again to eat by itself.
Except for that almond brittle.
One other note: In the book, the picture of the ice cream shows an ice cream that is a uniform pale tan; apparently they use butter extract. My ice cream looks like it is flecked with chocolate shavings from the browned milk solids. I’m betting that a trip through a blender or a strainer would take care of that.
Interesting, I also made this but with honey hickory pecans. My brown butter ice cream looks just like it does in the book, no flecks. You’re right that the ice cream itself doesn’t have a strong flavor, but it’s a wonderful for add-ins because it really lets the sweet salty pecans or almond brittle shine. If you didn’t break up the almond brittle and mix that into the ice cream, I’d highly suggest you do next time
It looks so good! I say we make an apple pie and try this again. LOL If only… I love peanut brittle so I can only imagine how tasty almond brittle would be. I wish I was a fabulous cook like you. I could try some of these if I weren’t such a chicken. Ha.