Pralines and Cream Ice Cream
I don’t think that I would have ever thought to make pralines and cream ice cream myself if my friend hadn’t requested it. I must say, I’m glad they did – this ice cream didn’t last long in my household and from what I’ve heard, it didn’t last long in his neither.
The only type of “praline” nuts that I could find at the supermarket were a jar of candied mixed nuts and that just wasn’t gonna do. I ended up buying a package of normal ol’ pecans and decided to candy them up myself. Needless to say, it worked! I simply cooked them in a pan with butter, brown sugar, and granulated white sugar until caramelized. I let them cool, and once cooled, the sugar butter had hardened itself around the pecans creating a candy-like shell. Success! It was some kinda heaven!
After chopping the pecans – no, pralines at this point – it was just a matter of tossing them into the ice cream once it was near done in my ice cream machine.
The ice cream base I swear by is the Ben & Jerry’s sweet cream base; It is my number one superstar go-to ice cream base. It is perfection on every level and my ice cream concoctions always turn out dynamite because of it. I mean, who wouldn’t trust Ben & Jerry anyway, right? You’d have to be nuts not to!
Pralines and Cream Ice Cream
Ingredients
- PRALINES
- 1 cup of raw pecans
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 2 tablespoons of brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons of granulated white sugar
- ICE CREAM BASE
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup of granulated white sugar
- 2 cups of heavy cream or whipping cream
- 1 cup of milk
Instructions
- PRALINES
- Melt the butter in a saucepan or frying pan over medium heat.
- Add the pecans and both brown and white sugar.
- Toss to coat the pecans.
- Simmer over medium heat for approx. 5-7 minutes (stirring often) or until the sugar mixture turns thick.
- Remove from heat and let cool.
- Once cooled, carefully transfer the pecans and hardened candy substance to a cutting board and chop into smaller pieces.
- ICE CREAM BASE
- Whisk the eggs until fluffy and light, approx. 1-2 minutes.
- Gradually whisk in the sugar, then continue until fully blended.
- Add in the cream and the milk and whisk to blend.
- Add the sweet cream base to the ice cream machine as per the manufacturer's instructions.
- When the ice cream is close to being done, gradually add the candied pecans by the handful.
- Once all the pecans are mixed into the ice cream, empty the ice cream into pints and put in the freezer for approx. 15 minutes to solidify completely.
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On 6th July 2005 London won the bid for the 2012 games, amid great celebrating.