My partner bought me an ice cream maker this past Christmas.  While I was obviously overjoyed with the gift, he too was excited about it for many reasons, the obvious one being access to all future batches of ice cream but also to put a stop to my (irrational) desire to procure a commercial-grade ice cream spinner.  

The machine he got has all the bells and whistles of pro machines I care about (mainly that I don’t have to fuss with chilling a bowl ahead of time), and it makes a batch in 20-30 minutes, which isn’t too unreasonable.

As a thank you for the gift, I’ve been working on a cookies and cream recipe since it’s his favorite flavor.  El, this post’s dedicated to you.

RECIPE: Malted cookies and cream ice cream

Author: Kathleen Hayes; ice cream base recipe adapted from the humphry slocombe ice cream book, cookie recipe adapted from The San Francisco Cooking School

Makes ~1 quart of ice cream

MISE IT

Oreo cookie crumbs (no judgment if you go the store-bought route here instead)

Dry ingredients

• 132g all purpose flour

• 38g dutch-processed cocoa powder

• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

“Wet” ingredients

• 113 grams unsalted butter, room temperature (1 stick)

• 52 grams sugar

Ice cream base

• 465g heavy cream (around 2 cups)

• 244g whole milk (around 1 cup)

• 140g granulated sugar

• 50g brown sugar

• 50g egg yolks

• 22g coffee beans

• 3 pinches of kosher salt

• ~¼ cup of salted caramel (I’ve be using Little Bee Baking’s salted caramel, so use your favorite brand or check out Serious Eats’ Easy Caramel Sauce)

Special equipment

• Ice cream maker

• Kitchen scale

• Chinoise or fine-meshed strainer

• Thermometer (I like my Thermapen)

• Large bowl for an ice bath

• Stand mixer or hand mixer

• Parchment paper

• Rolling pin

MAKE IT

Cookies (can make several days ahead and store crumbs in a sealed, plastic container

• Preheat oven to 338 degrees F (or nearest interval). Note: If you have a convection oven (I don’t), you may want to lower the temperature and/or decrease your bake time by 5 minutes.

• Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.  If your cocoa powder is particularly clumpy, sift it - otherwise, no sifting necessary.

• In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed until homogenous, light and fluffy.

• Add your dry ingredients to the creamed sugar and butter; mix on low until just combined.

• Form a large disk with the cookie dough and, in between two pieces of parchment paper, roll out the dough until it’s ¼” - ½” thick.

• Keep the dough on the bottom piece of parchment and place it on a baking sheet.  Bake for 15 minutes. If you’re not sure it looks done, bake it for another 2-3 minutes.  Because this is going into ice cream, a crispier bake is okay, as it will soften up the longer it’s in the ice cream.

• Let cool on the pan.  Once cool, break up into small crumbs and store in a container for up to 5 days before incorporating into the ice cream.

Ice cream

• In a medium saucepan, combine cream, milk, and salt.  Heat until it’s just at a soft boil, then remove from heat. Add in your coffee beans and cover securely with plastic wrap to start your hot infusion (the wrap will puff up and then drop back down from the steam).  Let this sit for 10 minutes.

• While your cream base is infusing, whisk together your sugars and egg yolks until combined.

• Create an ice bath for your final mixture to cool down in a large mixing bowl

• After 10 minutes, remove the plastic wrap from your pan, strain your beans out of the mixture and return the infused base back to the same pot.  Reheat until just under a boil, and then turn off the heat.

• Temper your egg mixture by ladling (or carefully pouring straight from the pan) ¼  - ⅓ cup of your hot cream mixture into the bowl with your eggs+sugar, whisking constantly to start melding the two mixtures together.  Repeat with a few more ladles worth of the cream mixture, and then transfer the tempered mixture of eggs+sugar+cream base back into your saucepan.

• Over medium-high heat, heat your base and use a spatula to draw figure-8s shapes repeatedly through the mixture to keep everything moving so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.  Do this until it thickens slightly and reaches a temperature of 168 - 172 F, then remove from heat. Congrats - you made creme anglaise!

• Pour your creme anglaise mixture through a chinoise or fine-meshed strainer into a container over an ice bath. Stir periodically and let mixture cool down to room temperature.  Then let mixture chill for at least an hour and up to 1-2 days in the refrigerator.

• Before you spin your ice cream: place a baking dish in the freezer (I use the smaller of these two dishes) so your finished ice cream will go into a chilled container and not melt.

• If you haven't already, break up your baked-off oreo cookie block into crumbs, either by hand or in the food processor (I opt for by-hand to get more variety of crumb size).

• Follow the instructions for your ice cream machine and spin your ice cream.  Depending on your machine, either add your cookie crumbs a few minutes before you’re done spinning, or mix them into your finished base as you take it out of the machine.  If your machine’s bowl isn’t your final storage container, transfer your finished ice cream from the machine to the chilled baking dish and let it set for a few hours.

TWEAK IT

• Use more or less cookie mix-ins

• Sub in a different cookie you have on hand - this recipe easily turns into chocolate chip cookie, brownie, or snickerdoodle ice cream

• Add in roasted almonds to the ice cream

• Omit the malted milk powder for traditional cookies and cream (or use more for extra maltiness!)

• Keep some of your cookie crumbs separate and sprinkle on top of scooped ice cream

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