Brown Butter Bacon Ice Cream

This ice cream is the ultimate in decadent indulgence with both brown butter and bacon! Give yourself the epic treat with this southern inspired brown butter bacon ice cream.

I apologize in advance to my vegetarian friends for defiling a usually innocent childhood treat. For yes a pig died and jumped into this ice cream, but at least it died to be in something so epic! 

Since bacon is the candy of meats it only seemed fitting to be in ice cream- AND since it was my birthday and I had a bacon theme for the food- then yeah it had to happen! (I also didn't wanna bake a cake since I don't have central AC) 80% of the time I am eating all healthy and shit, loving my veggies but I go to extremes and then things like this happen and since it was my birthday, it's totally justifiable, right?!

So I thought about how to properly pay homage to the king of cured meats and what would compliment it. I never got to brown butter or even try browned butter, but I liked the idea of the caramel notes it would bring and how that intensity of sweet would contrast with the salty. To further drive this home I used brown sugar for most of the sweetness because it goes with the southern roots and the molasses added to brown sugar perfectly goes with most meats and rubs already. This all sounds fancy, but most of this is deeply intuitive, I am somehow able to taste something before I make it. So that is how my crazy train brain just works.

So basically this ice cream is a heart attack waiting to happen, but you will enjoy your last few breaths at least. You may enjoy it so much that you will make a vat of it to bathe in and roll around in to eat your way out of. Make this and eat responsibly. A little goes a loooong way!

What you need

3 tablespoons butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon corn starch

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 3/4 cup milk

(reserve 1-2 tablespoons of milk to mix with corn starch)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (can sub with vanilla extract)

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon rendered bacon fat   (eeek I know, I'm sooooo soooo bad)

3 slices of bacon cooked crisp and cut into tiny bits (I used Trader Joe's Black Forest Bacon)

How to make it

1- Whisk together cornstarch and 1-2 tablespoons of your milk, set aside.

2- Melt the butter in a medium sauce pan on medium heat, I recommend using a stainless steel pan so you can see the butter turn brown. Here is a great brown butter tutorial!

3- Remove the butter from heat once it's browned, add in your brown sugar and let is dissolve into that magical brown butter.

4- Place pot back on medium heat whisking in your heavy cream,milk, and vanilla bean paste.

5- Once it comes to a boil remove from heat and whisk in cornstarch and milk mixture.

6- Place back on heat and add the rendered bacon fat. Stir well until slightly thickened. (enough to coat spoon once removed)

7- Place in fridge overnight with the slices of bacon to infused it. (Don't chop up the bacon just yet, it will get stuck when the ice cream is churning.

8- Remove bacon slices and churn ice cream as instructed by ice cream maker

9- Add chopped up bacon pieces (I used food processor)

10- Freeze to set and serve!

Hops and Nuts Ice Cream #ICTScoopAdventures #Giveaway

This ice cream that is a love poem to one of the four ingredients to beer: hops. Using citra hops I decided to add some citrus peel to bring out the citrus of the hops and honey to compliment it. This is one decadent treat  for the craft beer lover.

Tuesday is not my normal posting day, but once again I have a treat for you, quite literally! I am participating in another special #IceCreamTuesday, this week we are celebrating the release of Scoop Adventures, The Best Ice Cream of the 50 States. As soon as I got this book and looked over Lindsay's blog I was immediately inspired by the Boozy Scoops and then I saw the one I loved the most. It was meant to be- my eyes locked on the Hops & Nuts Ice Cream and there was no going back!

Princess Badass Ice Cream for #IceCreamTuesday #SummerWeightLoss

 This bourbon cherry infused ice cream with bourbon soaked cherries and a marshmallow fluff swirl perfectly represents to 2 parts to the modern woman, the princess and the badass inside us all!

#IceCreamTuesday

Wednesday is usually the day I get you a post, but this is special guys! It's #IceCreamTuesday (marshmallow edition)!! I joined up with some blogger friends to make my ice cream with marshmallow, NY Foodgasm style! Please be sure to check out all the links from the bottom for MORE ice Cream Mayhem!!

Many thanks to Jenni of PastryChefOnline for organizing!! She did an awesome job wrangling all of us!

The Summer Weight Loss Challenge Begins...

OKAY, the timing is NOT ideal! After all the Summer Weight Loss Challenge like JUST kicked off. I apologize to ALL of you since I was slacking on my social media for this event. It snuck up on me, but this is annual event running from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The challenge is to lose 10 pounds from Memorial Day to Labor Day. You can join the Summer Weight Loss Challenge HERE.

#Beermonth Begins with a Chocolate Stout Shake!

For those of you that have been following me for a while you will remember #Beermonth from last year. It is a month where I celebrate my love for craft beer with: recipes, articles, reviews and more from me and some of my blogging friends! This year I have my friend Lauren from Hall's Nesting, Jessica from Jessiker Bakes, Melissa from Drunk and Unemployed and Nicole from Nibbles by Nic.You can expect BIG recipe posts 4/16 and 4/30 from ALL of us and maybe some articles and general craft beer love coming your way!

The Story of Beer Month...

My love of craft beer started with The Gateway to Craft Beer, Pumpkin Spice. I think you ladies know what I am talking about. If not this is the magic that is pumpkin spice ale- It is ale brewed with pumpkin and spices and then in NY (as I understand this is not done everywhere) they rim the glass with pumpkin spice sugar. TO- DIE- FOR. I fell and I fell hard for the spice. The spice captured my heart and then I just had to know more about craft beer.

I moved on to other fruit beers. One of my first faves was Bluepoint Blueberry Ale, so delicious and perfect in the summer. Then I tried Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. Then I really started getting adventurous and ventured onto the dark side. Dark beers- dun dun dun **cue scary music**

I learned one thing- never to judge a beer by it's color. Just like with people, you should see what's happening on the inside. While I don't encourage you to lick a person to see if they're any good... I do encourage you to at least take a simple sip of a beer. At worst, you can easily spit it our if you don't like it.

Since I had my own blog I knew I had to incorporate cooking and beer together for a month of craft beer love.

Since my love of craft beer grew, it blossomed into a new direction for me. I write for 2 magazines about local craft beer and have become completely immersed with the craft beer culture here on Long Island. Beer month was born so I can share recipes with local craft beer and give you a little taste of the local scene and happenings.

Since I never drink alone- I always invite some bloggers to get in on the fun with me!
I have some surprises too! This month I will be brewing my VERY own beer with The Brewers Collective, a local group of home brewers. I strongly believe that homebrewers' creativity heavily influences the nano and craft brew market. With homebrew you can take those chances and you know I like to get creative!

Now for the reason you are all here- this drippy mess of deliciousness that I call A Chocolate Stout Milkshake...

I have been going to a local restaurant, Relish, for a while now. The food is always fresh, as local as it can be and inventive while still being incredibly comforting and inviting. No small portion or names you cannot pronounce or understand. This is down to earth, creative twists on classic comfort. A place that anyone can feel comfortable. When I heard they were serving beer, I was excited. When I saw they had a Guinness Milk Shake, I had to try it and WOAH it stopped me in my tracks, I clutched my chest to keep my heart still. It was way better than I ever expected.

Chocolate and Stouts are  not an uncommon combination at all. If you follow one of my faves, The Beeroness, You will see stout and chocolate are a "thing", basically mouth magic! The dark maltiness of a stout already had notes of chocolate present often, so to add it to a chocolate recipe further pushes the bounderies.

So I thank Relish in Kings Park, NY for this recipe! It rocks HARD!

Why is this a Foodgasm?

This is pretty easy to answer, chocolate ice cream + stout beer = MAGIC.
But to balance it out there is caramel and chocolate syrup for a little more sweet-ness as stouts sometimes have a bitter edge to them.

Foodie Adventures: My First Ice Cream Recipe

Why is this a Foodgasm?

Plain ole vanilla ice cream, one of life's simple pleasures. Simple, yet sooo delicious, especially since I cut some of the fat and it's homemade and freshly churned. Sometimes even I keep it simple- I didn't even add bourbon (well it was bourbon vanilla extract)!

When I was a baby my mom insisted I not be corrupted by sugar, but my grandmother wanted to spoil me and the first sugary delight to ever touch my lips was vanilla soft serve ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. Oh wow, it was love at first lick! My face was at first confused and them this giant smiled pasted itself on my face in a sort of baby perma-grin.

This is a super simple recipe- I basically took the simple vanilla ice cream recipe that came with my booklet and took away some of the fat while still maintaining the creamy texture we all know and love. 4 ingredients and 25 minutes to some amazing ice cream.

It is only fitting that this be my very first ice cream recipe! I hope you enjoy it too!