Apple Streusel Ice Cream

I have a confession. I have never made homemade ice cream before. I have seen it done several times but have never paid attention to the details. I probably should have. Especially since my sister-in-law, Abi, and I chose a rather impressive recipe to begin our ice cream making skills with:

Apple Streusel Ice Cream

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 tablespoons plus 4-1/2 teaspoons cold butter, divided

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup chopped peeled Golden Delicious apple

2 teaspoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

ICE CREAM:

1-1/4 cups milk

3/4 cup sugar

1-3/4 cups heavy whipping cream

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 jar (12 ounces) caramel ice cream topping

For streusel, combine the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl; cut in 3 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in pecans. Press into a 9-in. pie plate. Bake at 350°for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are browned. Cool slightly; break into small pieces. Cool completely.

In a skillet, melt remaining butter. Stir in the apple, sugar and cinnamon. Cook for 8-10 minutes or until apple is tender; cool.

In a large saucepan, heat the milk to 175°; stir in sugar until dissolved. Cool. In a large bowl, combine the milk mixture, cream and vanilla. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full; freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions. Refrigerate remaining mixture until ready to freeze. Add apple mixture to each batch of ice cream; freeze 5 minutes longer.

Spoon a third of the ice cream into a freezer container. Top with a third of the streusel mixture. Drizzle with a third of the caramel topping. Repeat layers once. Top with remaining ice cream. With a spatula, cut through ice cream in several places to gently swirl layers. Cover; freeze overnight. Garnish with the remaining streusel and caramel topping.

Yield: 1-1/2 quarts

Abi and I started the ice cream on Thursday night. We baked up the streusel and sauteed the chopped apples in a butter, cinnamon and sugar mixture. Last but not least, we mixed up the vanilla ice cream ingredients and popped them in the fridge to chill overnight. Friday night we got together to freeze the vanilla ice cream. We read the ice cream maker instructions and decided it wouldn't be too bad. Put the ice cream mixture into the cylinder, place the cylinder into the bucket, fill bucket with layers of cold water, ice and rock salt per instructions and turn on for 50 minutes. Plain and simple, right?

Forty-five minutes later I began to get concerned. The ice cream maker instructions said that it usually will turn itself off once the ice cream is done. And since the mixture we put in only filled up half the cylinder I thought that it would get done in about 30 minutes. So I turned off the ice cream maker and lifted the top to find.... soup. The mixture hadn't frozen at all! Abi and I (both being ice cream-making virgins) were unsure what our next plan of attack was going to be. We finally decided that maybe we put too much cold water and not enough ice and rock salt around the cylinder so we dumped and started over again.... and after a few more set-backs we finally got it up and churning again. Fifteen minutes later we checked again and.... we had partially frozen ice cream!!! We put the apple mixture in and let it run some more. About fifteen more minutes went by and the ice cream maker shut off. We had our ice cream!!!

Final steps - took out the apple ice cream, layered the streusel and some caramel filling through it, swirled it with a knife and popped it into the freezer to freeze overnight. And now for the big debut....

Gorgeous, right? Looks like it was scooped out of a Edy's carton. I'm sure that it will taste way better though since it is homemade! Abi and I sampled a tiny bit last night and I think I can safely say from the taste test that it is pretty amazing. Sort of a apple crumble a la mode. Will definitely be making some more ice cream recipes before the summer is out!