Homemade Peanut Butter Ice Cream

TheKitchn had a post about peanut butter snacks for the weekend and peanut butter ice cream was included. It was not very hard to convince Mike that we needed to make peanut butter ice cream.

We adapted a David Lebovitz recipe that we’ve used before and followed his instructions for how to make ice cream without an ice cream machine. I stumbled across the post last summer but never tried it until a few months ago. I have no idea why I waited so long. Homemade ice cream = Awesome

• 1 cup milk
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 2 cups cream
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips

1. Heat the milk, sugar, and salt in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Once the milk mixture is warm, gradually add small quantities to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. When the yolks are warmed add back to the saucepan. Add the vanilla extract.
3. Lower the heat and cook until the mixture thickens and can coat a spoon. Make sure to scrap the bottom of the saucepan. Stir in the peanut butter.
4. Pour the cream into a mixing bowl. When the peanut butter is incorporated, pour the custard into the cream.
5. Chill thoroughly.
6. Pour the mixture into a baking dish or bowl. Put in the freezer.
7. After 45 minutes, check on the mixture. If it’s started to solidify around the edges stir that into the liquid. Refreeze.
8. Thereafter, check every 30 minutes and give the mixture a good stirring. The point is to break up the ice crystals. When the mixture gets to milkshake-thickness add in the chocolate chips. Ice cream should be ready in a few hours.

(yields ~1 quart)

We used regular sized chocolate chips, but I think mini chips would work better if you have them.

The more you can spread out the ice cream mixture (e.g. having a container with a larger base), the faster the solidifying process should go.