S’mores Ice Cream

So let’s talk ice cream. It is amazing. No question about it, but the thought of making your own might seem a bit daunting.  Don’t be afraid! First of all, there are a few different ways to make ice cream. You can do the faux frozen banana style, no ice cream maker style, the old fashioned custard style, and Philadelphia style, which is what I am offering up today. What is Philadelphia style, you might be wondering. Well, it is possibly the easiest, and fastest, way to ice cream. Essentially you combine all your ingredients (minus any mix-ins), put them in your prepped ice cream maker, and a matter of minutes later, voila, ice cream! If you want to read more about the science stuff and history behind this style check out this article from Serious Eats, it is awesome.

Anywho, I love ice cream, so the other day I decided to put the bowl to my ice cream maker in the freezer, just in case I decided I would ACTUALLY make some. Then, while looking for something else, I found the supplies for s’mores just sitting in my kitchen cabinet. What are the odds? They are pretty good when you almost always make sure to have s’mores supplies on hand, but I digress.

So, there I was with all of this s’mores stuff and a prepped ice cream maker, the only logical thing to do was to make s’mores ice cream. Obviously.

First thing I did was decide on a vanilla base for the ice cream. I knew I wanted something simple and basic to start and that the s’mores part would come when I added additional mix-ins.

Then I went searching for information on the best ways to add things to ice cream. This might sound silly but it was actually really helpful! If not for my research, I would have dumped all the marshmallow creme in while the ice cream was in the mixer and it would have just clumped together, that would have been a marshmallow disaster!

Here are my tips for adding mix-ins:

1. If you want to add a ribbon of something (ie. peanut butter, caramel, hot fudge, marshmallow, etc) add it in layers when you transfer the churned ice cream into a freezer safe container. Start by adding a layer of ice cream, then a layer of your mix-in, then ice cream, and so on until everything is in there. That will ensure a nice ribbon and it will keep the mix-in from just clumping together.
2. Be mindful of how your mix-in will react in the freezer. Chocolate, for instance, can freeze and make the ice cream experience less than great. There are two ways to help avoid frozen chocolate, the first is to pick a version of the item with a higher fat content (for chocolate that means go with a milk chocolate rather than bittersweet or dark). The second is to chop the item up into slivers rather than chunks. This keeps the items from becoming a big frozen chunk and breaking your teeth.
3. Make sure not to add in your extras too early! It is standard to add any fun additional items to ice cream at the end of the churning process. I like to add them in when I have about 3 minutes of churn time left on the timer – this keeps them from messing with the ice cream freezing process, also, this keeps items that might soak up a lot of liquid (ie. graham crackers) from getting soggy.
4. When you are ready to dig in remember my best piece of advice – ice cream always tastes best as a fancy sundae. For me that means taking some additional add-in materials (ie. graham cracker crumbs, hot fudge, marshmallow creme) and add it on top!

There you have it, my tips and tricks for making quick and delicious ice cream. The only thing I have left to say is, go make some yourself because I’m not sharing!