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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.
On 6th July 2005 London won the bid for the 2012 games, amid great celebrating.