Reece's Icecream

Ever since I was little I have loved peanut butter and chocolate together. These days it could be considered an almost sophisticated flavour combination, something in the realm of salted butter caramel or Lindt with sea salt. But for me it has always been about that most unsophisticated American chocolate bar, the Reece's Peanut Butter Cup. I discovered them on family trips to the States and would bring big bags back home with me. I remember being very excited when they started selling them in Australia.

My love for PB&C later collided with my love for icecream, when I was introduced to the Baskin-Robbins Peanut Butter N' Chocolate flavour. I can recall that moment exactly. I was in Port Macquarie to watch the Ironman triathlon and couldn't believe I had gone so long without knowing this icecream existed.

Now that I have an icecream maker I can make my own chocolate and peanut icecream - or Reece's Icecream, as I like to call it. The photo is not great as you can't see the big salty homemade-peanut-buttery chunks. But trust me, they are there. And they make this icecream completely irresistible.

I adapted the idea for the peanut butter chunks from a David Lebovitz recipe which is mentioned in many blogs, but is not on his site. I used homemade peanut butter but anything would work. I went super simple for the icecream because I am lazy and cheap, but you could use any chocolate icecream recipe as a base.

Reece's Icecream

Ingredients:

1 cup cream

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1 Tbs icing sugar

3 Tbs peanut butter

Method:

1. Mix the peanut butter and icing sugar until well-combined. Use a melon baller or small spoon to form little nuggets of peanut butter, about the size of a small marble. Place nuggets in a container in the freezer.

2. Gently heat the milk and cream, bring to a simmer but do not boil. Whisk in the cocoa and sugar and keep whisking until the mixture is completely smooth. Remove from heat and cool.

3. Depending on the ambient temperature and the power of your icecream maker, it can help to chill your mixture before you churn it - up to you.

4. Churn your ice-cream, adding the frozen peanut butter chunks for the last few minutes.

Banana Brownie Icecream

I am in love with my new icecream maker. It started when I visited my sister and brother-in-law in the US this year. It was a hot LA summer and sis took the opportunity to get me hooked on her home-made icecream. Then when I got home she insisted, insisted on buying me my own icecream maker as a birthday present.

I took a little while to decide which one I wanted, but after a visit to Peter's of Kensington I came home with a blue Cuisinart ICE20. Sis has the ICE30 and she loves it but the ICE20 seemed like better value. And the nice lady in Peter's said that the Cuisinart rep thinks the 20 has "a better churn" than the 30, so that sold me.

The first thing I made was a very simple lemon sorbet from the Cuisinart booklet. I took sis' advice to halve the amount of sugar and it came out perfect.

Next I took things up a notch with a banana icecream with brownie bits. I used a David Lebovitz recipe, reduced the sugar and added some some left over brownies. Actually, there is no such thing as left over brownies. They were brownies saved especially for this purpose.

Banana Ice-cream

(adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe seen here)

3 ripe bananas chopped into chunks
75g brown sugar
1.5 cups (375ml) milk
1.5 teaspoons lemon juice
half teaspoon vanilla essence

Pinch of salt2 left over brownies, chopped into small chunks

Preheat the oven to 200C. In a small baking dish toss the bananas in the brown sugar. Bake for around 40 minutes or until the bananas are caramelised and golden. Turn them once during cooking.

Put the bananas and all the other ingredients (except brownie chunks) in a blender and whizz until smooth.

Chill the mixture in the fridge or freezer until really cold.
Churn in your new icecream maker for around 30 minutes. Don't forget to add the brownie chunks in the last 10 minutes.

It was really really really good.

Thanks sis, I really love my icecream maker...