Peanut Butter Oreo Ice Cream

This week marked the beginning of both student teaching AND my last semester of grad school, which means I’ve been having meltdowns left and right. For starters, the first week of the semester/student teaching = new. New people, new school, new experiences.

And Melanie ≠ good at new.

I am that girl who would happily stay within her comfort zone and routine for the rest of her live-long days – if only that didn’t mean I would likely have stopped experiencing new things around age 7. You do NOT want to know how long it took my parents to get me to call and order pizza over the phone, because that would mean UM, TALKING TO A STRANGER.

I like to know what to expect. I like my schedule. I like things to happen the way I plan them to. So it goes without saying that the night before I started my brand-new student teaching I got totally nervous and spent eighteen hours running through every possible scenario in my head: What if I wear the wrong thing? What if I forget my lunch? What if my bus breaks down? What if the kids don’t like me? What if I’m supposed to bring pencils but I only brought pens? What if I forget the teacher’s name? What if I forget my name? WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANY FRIIIIIEEEEENDS?

Thanks (!) but no thanks, I’d rather stay in my familiar apartment with my familiar experiences. I have plenty of cookies friends here.

BUT, alas. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and this girl’s gotta finish her master’s degree. So I put on my best I’m-not-scared-of-new-things-or-people face and marched to school and survived the day – and immediately came home and ate a giant chocolate peanut butter sundae, complete with homemade peanut butter oreo ice cream, brownies, and chocolate peanut butter ganache.

Thank you, Ben & Jerry’s, for helping this hermit get through yet another [SCARY AND UNFAMILIAR] new day.

Peanut Butter Oreo Ice Cream (based on Ben & Jerry’s recipe)

yield: ~one quart

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk (I used 2%)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped Oreos (I chopped mine into quarters, but you can make the chunks smaller if you’d like)

Directions

1. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the sugar a little bit at a time, then whisk until fully incorporated, about another minute. Pour in the cream, milk, and vanilla extract, and whisk to combine. Place about one cup of the mixture in a separate bowl and whisk in the peanut butter. Add the peanut butter mixture to the rest of the ice cream base and stir until fully combined.
2. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker/attachment and freeze according to maker/attachment directions. When the ice cream has frozen to soft serve, gently fold in the chopped Oreos. Place the ice cream in an airtight container and put it into the freezer until frozen to desired consistency (I like it best after it has hardened up in the freezer over night).

I served my ice cream with these brownies and chocolate peanut butter ganache (pour 1/4 cup hot [not boiling] heavy cream over 3/4 cup chocolate chips and 1 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter. Whisk to combine.)

Birthday Cake Crumb Ice Cream

Here are two things you need to know about homemade ice cream:

1. It’s preeeetttttyyy dang easy to make. Vanilla ice cream has like, five ingredients.

2. Raw eggs. Do they freak you out? Too bad. They are allllll up in your homemade ice cream.

Ever since I made homemade ice cream for the first time, I stopped being afraid of raw eggs. I’m pretty much one of those dudes that cracks eggs into a glass and chugs them for breakfast.

Except totally not because I STILL feel like I need to be careful not to touch anything in my kitchen and wash my hands with three pumps of soap after cracking open an egg. But for some reason when the egg is whisked inside a pool of cream and vanilla and sugar I have no problem touching/eating/covering my kitchen with it. No hand washing required.

Will someone pleeeeeease explain to me why eating raw cookie dough is frowned upon but eating raw (?) ice cream is not?

Remember how I mentioned that you could potentially mix up melty vanilla ice cream and birthday cake crumbs and it just might be heavenly? Well, I decided to step it up a notch and make my own vanilla ice cream to pump full of crumbs and rainbow sprinkles (and maybe even *GASP* a chocolate buttercream swirl).

Zeeeeess. Eeeeez. Gooooooood. Is Funfetti ice cream a thing yet? If not I totally just invented it. RAINBOW SPRINKLES AND BIRTHDAY CAKE. IN ICE CREAM FORM. FUNFETTI ICE CREAM.

If you’ve been wishin’ and hopin’ and dreamin’ and prayin’ about getting an ice cream maker/attachment…

 It is time {said in Rafiki’s voice}.

Birthday Cake Crumb Ice Cream (Sweet Cream Ice Cream Base slightly adapted from Ben & Jerry)

yield: ~one quart

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream*
• 1 1/2 cups milk (I used 2%)*
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups birthday cake crumbs**, cooled completely
• 1/2 cup rainbow jimmies

*The original recipe calls for 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup milk, but I liked the slightly lighter and airier consistency that resulted from 1 1/2 cups of each. If you want a denser, creamier ice cream go with the original ratio (2 cups cream, 1 cup milk).

**note: I used Momofuku’s birthday cake crumbs (recipe link in the ingredients list) for this  – which are different than crumbs from a leftover cake (they are a much denser, crunchier consistency). You might be able to use pieces of a leftover birthday cake in the ice cream, but I haven’t tried it so I can’t be sure!

Directions

1. In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the sugar a little bit at a time, then whisk until fully incorporated, about another minute. Pour in the cream, milk, and vanilla extract, and whisk to combine.
2. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker/attachment and freeze according to maker/attachment directions. When the ice cream has frozen to soft serve, gently fold in the birthday cake crumbs and rainbow jimmies (and if you’re feeling fancy and happen to have some chocolate buttercream lying around, fold that in too!) with a rubber spatula. Freeze in an airtight container for a few hours, or until ice cream reaches desired consistency (I liked mine best after it had been sitting in the freezer over night).