I’m a nut for nuts. I’m so happy I’m not allergic to nuts. I think Mr.Peanut is hilarious, I can eat peanut butter with a spoon. And walnuts are the healthy brainfood nut. I also love maple syrup – so maple ice cream with candied walnuts = cool cool idea.
I’ve decided to start a new project: Ice Cream Love. Makin’ my favourite peoples’ favourite ice cream flavours! I decided to start with my dear pal Amber, who is nuts for maple walnut ice cream. Whenever I meet someone I like, I can’t help but ask them what their favourite food is. I feel like it can help define my relationship to that person, or how well I know them. For instance, I know my husband’s favourite ice cream is mint chocolate chip, and he likes anything chocolate hazelnut, and he dislikes very much mushrooms, tomatoes and mustard (three things I love!). Amber’s favourite ice cream is maple walnut. My friend Toni loves the combination of chocolate orange just as much as my friend Heather despises it.
Me, I try to like or at least attempt to like all flavours, or, rather, understand why other people like them. I like most things actually. One flavour I think that is super grody to the max though is black licorice. Even so, I will still occasionally try it (the allure of the shiny black salted licorice studded with tiny candies) to make sure I still don’t like it. Who knows? Maybe my palette suddenly has changed and I’ve become a black licorice maniac!
Okay. So onto the recipe. I figured those walnuts had to have something goin’ on besides just being thrown in all plainsies style. Pralined? Candied? Sugared? I flipped through The Perfect Scoop and saw a recipe for “Crouquant.” Essentially, nut brittle. So I decided to make that! (Only after I made the croquant did I look at a few recipes for maple walnut ice cream and it called for walnuts that had been bathed, per se, in maple syrup at a high temperature, which I will try next time.)
Maple Ice Cream with Candied Walnuts
ingredients
- 1 ½ cups walnuts
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup whole milk, 10% milk fat
- ¾ cup maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- pinch salt
instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On baking sheet, lay a piece of parchment paper and sprinkle walnuts evenly. Toast walnuts in oven, 6-8 minutes, watching carefully so they don’t burn.
- Remove walnuts, let cool.
- Place 1 cup of sugar in a heavy bottomed pan. Heat on medium high until golden, beginning to bubble and liquefying. Stir gently to ensure all sugar melts and liquifies!
- Once liquified, add in toasted walnuts into melted sugar and coat walnuts completely. Mix ‘er up. Pour mixture back onto same piece of parchment paper, spread out with spatula and let cool.
- Once cool, place in food processor and pulse until pieces become smaller, or you can place brittle in a ziploc bag and beat it with a rolling pin…
- In medium sized pot, heat 1 cup of heavy cream and maple syrup on low until combined. Add the rest of the heavy cream, milk, vanilla and salt and mix until combined.
- Cover and chill mixture, 1 hour in freezer or 3-4 hours in fridge.
- Pour into ice cream maker and churn it up according to ice cream maker’s instructions. I churned it for 25 minutes. At the last minute, pour in candied walnut pieces and churn for 30 seconds or so until combined.
- Scoop out and enjoy!
Charlotte Hupfield Ceramics
This looks delicious! great photos of the process, thanks for sharing.
triplescoopdesserts
Look delicious!
lyndsay
thanks charlotte! glad you stopped by!
thanks triplescoop!! :)
jan
yum that looks good! i want an ice cream blog.
lyndsay
jan!! you should start one!! because you *totally* have time for such a thing… ;)
or you could guest post on this one!!
jdavissquared
Thanks for stopping by my blog Lydsay! I love vintage postcards! We had vintage reproduction postcards as our guestbook at our wedding, and yes, I believe the picture was hand tinted. It is so beautiful in real life!
I was so excited to find your blog earlier. I just kept thinking, this is awesome…a whole blog devoted to ice cream! ;)
{your cake blog looks amazing as well}
RosaMaría
ohhh i need to try this!! looks delicious!!
Jayne
oohhh, Yum!
Thanks for Sharing!
lyndsay
aw thanks j!!
thanks for the comment rosa!
thanks jayne! my pleasure!
Mona
hi Lyndsay,
i’m wondering where do u find HEAVY CREAM in vancouver???
i absolutely love all cupcakes btw….so beautiful !
lyndsay
Hi Mona! heavy cream is 30-33% fat, essentially “whipping cream”.
thanks so much for your comment! :)
Paula
Hey! don’t show me that – I’m on a diet :(
Anonymous
I hv only vanilla beans, how do I add that into the custard? Mh
lyndsay
hi Mh, split your vanilla beans and scrape out the inside mini bean bits into the custard! ^_^