cookie dough ice cream

In 1984, a customer at Ben & Jerry’s first ice-cream shop suggested to an employee that they should mix pieces of raw cookie dough into their vanilla ice cream. Today the flavor still reigns among their all-time most popular concoctions.

Before you start

Recipe cost: €30

Prep time: 4 hours over 2 days

Difficulty: medium

Ingredients

Vanilla ice cream

700 g milk

4 vanilla pods

8 egg yolks

180 g sugar

10 g Vahiné® vanilla flavouring

200 g Central Lechera Asturiana whipping cream (38% fat)

40 g invert sugar

40 g Sosa® Procrema (texturizing powder)

75 g skimmed milk powder

1 kg ice cubes

Raw cookie dough

115 g unsalted butter

100 g sugar

100 g brown sugar

70 g milk

190 g plain flour (≤10% protein)

2 g salt

10 g vanilla flavouring

Equipment

Medium saucepan

kitchen thermometer

Large bowl and a larger bowl for cooling the mixture over ice

Electric whisk

Ice-cream maker

This vanilla ice cream is a homemade version of the one made by Ben & Jerry’s, without the chocolate chips.

Cookie dough is an unbaked biscuit dough specially prepared to be eaten raw. It has a soft, slightly grainy texture and retains the sweet, buttery flavour of the dough before baking.

Vanilla ice cream

Prepare the mixture the day before freezing to allow the flavours to develop.

 

  1. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and add the vanilla pods, split lengthways.
  2. Place the saucepan over a medium heat. When the milk reaches 80°C, remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse for 30 minutes.
  3. Strain the milk. Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pods and add them to the milk.
  4. Prepare a large bowl of ice and water and set aside to allow the water to become thoroughly chilled.
  5. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar with an electric whisk until pale.
  6. Add the vanilla flavouring, cream, invert sugar, Procrema and milk powder to the saucepan and whisk well.
  7. Place over a medium heat until the mixture reaches 50°C.
  8. Using a ladle, pour several spoonfuls of the milk mixture over the egg yolks to temper them.
  9. Return everything to the saucepan.
  10. Blend with a hand blender for 1 minute, then stir continuously.
  11. When the mixture reaches 85°C, remove the saucepan from the heat and strain into a clean bowl.
  12. Place the bowl in the ice-water bath. Stir with a spoon to help it cool more quickly, keeping the mixture moving against the cold sides of the bowl. Leave to cool to complete the pasteurisation process. It is very important that no more than 2 hours elapse between the mixture reaching 85°C and being cooled to 4°C
  13. Once the bowl is cold, refrigerate for at least 12 hours.
  14. Place the ice-cream storage container in the freezer.

Raw cookie dough

  1. Grind the sugar until fine.
  2. Beat the room-temperature butter with both sugars.
  3. Add the vanilla flavouring and half the milk and beat again.
  4. Incorporate the flour.
  5. Add the remaining milk.
  6. Pipe into small balls using a piping bag.
  7. Freeze.

Churning the ice cream

  1. Pour the mixture into the ice-cream maker. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions until the ice cream is ready, approximately 1½ hours.
  2. Fold in the balls of cookie dough.
  3. If the ice cream is to be used to fill the sandwiches, line a tray that will fit in the freezer with baking parchment.
  4. Pour in the ice cream and freeze until completely firm, at least 8 hours.