This recipe is insane. What’s more insane than each component is the sum of its parts. Matt saw a recipe for Japanese Brick Toast a few weeks ago and I had seen a similar recipe on Pinterest that looked downright heavenly. He said in Japan they put ice cream with buttery toasted sweet bread as a dessert (…which is doubtful – I’ve seen Japanese people. They don’t look like they eat ice cream in bread bowls). Why has no one thought of doing a bread bowl for ICE CREAM?! It’s genius. The bread soaks up the melted ice cream and you’re left with this spongy cake-like texture when you get to eating the bread part. This dessert demands to be shared. Because if you don’t share it, you’ll feel like a dadgum glutton. I mean, LOOK at that thing!
For the ice cream, we look no further than Jenni’s Splendid Ice Creams. I posted about her Brown Butter Almond Brittle ice cream last year. I’m a broken record when it comes to browned butter. I can’t help it. We began making ice cream out of her book about four years ago and haven’t even wasted our time with a different method. She’s perfected the texture of homemade ice cream, in my opinion. So for this recipe, I used her browned butter ice cream base and added honey and vanilla bean paste. It was perfect in our little ice cream bowl. The bread deserves a post of its own and don’t you worry – we’ll blog about it, soon. Matt loves it too much and loved the process too much to only make it once. He can’t wait to try it, again. For now, enjoy a truly amazing bowl of browned butter ice cream:
Browned Butter and Honey Ice Cream
for the base:
2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1.5 oz (3 tbs) softened cream cheese
1/8 tsp fine sea salt (I use kosher)
3/4 lb unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbs light corn syrup
1 tbs vanilla bean paste
Raw honey to fold into the ice cream
Mix about 2 tbs of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a large bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.
Melt the butter over medium heat in a 4 quart saucepan. Bring to a boil and let bubble until the foam starts to subside and the butter is a rich dark brown (not black!). Remove from the heat and let stand until the butter solids settle to the bottom of the pan, about 5 minutes.
Pour the clear butter oil into a storage container (once it solidifies you can use it as you normally would for cooking so it’s not a waste!) As you get closer to the butter solids in the bottom of the pan, use a teaspoon to remove as much liquid butter as you can. You should have about 1 tablespoon of brown butter solids and a little bit of melted fat in the bottom of the pan (it’s impossible to remove all the fat).
Add the remaining milk, cream, sugar, vanilla bean paste and corn syrup to the butter solids, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry (you’ll need to stir it up again as it will settle and solidify some). Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula or whisk, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese mixture until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.
Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister of your ice cream maker and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container, folding in drizzles of raw honey as you go. Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface of the ice cream (this is important to avoid freezer burn and maintain a good consistency) and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze until firm, at least 4 hours.
Layer ice cream with sliced bananas and serve in boring porcelain bowls, or sweet bread bowls. It’s up to you. :) (recipe for bread bowls coming soon!)
