Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking Butter Pecan Ice Cream Cake
Hi Bold Bakers!
Because Butter Pecan is such a lovely fall flavor, this week I wanted to share with you
a recipe for Butter Pecan Ice Cream Cake using my fan favorite, No Machine Ice Cream recipe.
So let's get started!
This time last year, I made a Holiday Ice Cream video so after this video I strongly
recommend you go over there and check that out if you haven't already seen it because
it was full of great ice cream flavors.
One of those flavors was a Butter Pecan Ice Cream and it was so good so this week I'm
going to take that ice cream and make it into a whole big pie.
So let's start out with the base for our ice cream cake.
And that is cookies!
I'm going to use gingersnap cookies for this ice cream cake because they're mollassessy,
they're a little bit spicy, it will work really well with the butter pecan.
However if you want to use graham crackers, OREO, whatever you like feel free to use them.
To get fine crumbs for your cookie crust, you can bash your cookies with pestle and
mortar or you can put it into a food processor as well and just get them nice and fine.There
you go, you want to have nice fine cookie crumbs.
Some lumps are totally ok, they'll add a nice texture to your cookie crust.
To our cookie crumbs, we're going to add some melted butter.
What this will do is bind it all together and give it a nice crispy crust.
Mix in your butter until all of your cookie crumbs are wet.
And this is what you'll end up with.
If you push it together between your fingers, it will stick together and that's what you
want.
Now we're ready to put our cookies into our springform tin.
The tin that I'm using is a 9" springform tin.
If you don't have one, don't worry about it.
But whatever tin you do use I suggest you line it with cling wrap so you can easily
pull out your cake.
Before we put our cookies in, I want to show you a really good little trick.
Take the base and turn it upside down, the opposite way you normally would use it.
By building your cookie crust on this, it means that once it's set it will come off
much easier than the other way around.
Now we're going to add in all of our cookies in here.
Now this is kind of a messy job but we're going to go in with our hand and push down
your crust into the base and then also bring it up the sides of the tin.
Perfect.
This guy looks great!
We're going to pop it into the fridge, let it set and get started on the rest of the
filling.
Our next step for our ice cream cake is to make the butter pecan.
Now this could not be easier because all you have to do is caramelize pecans.
In a wide bottomed sauce pan, add in your butter, sugar, toasted pecans and a pinch
of salt.
And then mix all of these ingredients together.
What we're trying to do here is create a nice caramel around the pecans so it will take
around 4 minutes or so on medium heat to get a nice caramel color.
You'll see the color change and also you'll get a really nice nutty caramel smell.
I see my pecans turning a lovely golden brown color.
They smell really good.
So I'm going to take them from here and put them on a tray lined with parchment paper.
Press your pecans down in an even layer and let them set and go cold.
Now that my pecans have hardened, I'm going to go in and give them a good bash because
all the nice little bits and pieces going into the ice cream will give it really good
flavor.
So leave some big bits and some small bits.
This is so good.
Okie dokie.
I'm going to set the pecan aside and we're going to get started on our ice cream.
This ice cream base is so easy to make and for you seasoned Bold Bakers out there, you're
old hats at it.
I'm going to use an electric hand mixer and I'm going to whip the cream until it forms
soft peaks.
Great, these are lovely soft peaks.
Now to this, I'm going to add in my condensed milk.
When buying condensed milk for the ice cream, I recommend using fat free or sugar free because
it's a lot less sweet.
Ok, lovely.
Now we're going to turn our beaters back on high and whip it up again until it's nice
and thick.
And that's it.
That's our ice cream base.
As you can see, it's lovely and thick.
On high speed, it took me around 3 minutes to get to this stage.
Now that we have the star of the show made, into our ice cream we're going to add in our
chopped butter pecans and a little bit of vanilla extract.
And then mix them all together.
You can see the really finely ground butter pecan changing the color of your ice cream
and making it a lovely light brown.
All these little bits of nuts and caramel.
This is just one of my favorite ice creams for the fall.
Oh my gosh, this ice cream tastes amazing.
Our next step is to pour all of this lovely butter pecan ice cream into our tin.
Pour half of your ice cream base into your tin.
Then spread it out with a spatula.
And then just before we add in the rest, I'm going to add in a secret layer of crushed
gingersnap cookies.
It's like a little hidden surprise in the middle.
And then follow that with the rest of your ice cream base all the way to the top.
Once all of your ice cream is in there, take a spatula and smooth out the top.
Gorgeous.
This looks fantastic.
Look at this beautiful ice cream cake that we created.
For right now, I'm going to pop this guy into the freezer and leave him overnight and let
him get nice and firm so then tomorrow we can decorate it and eat it.
I made this one yesterday.
That is a behemoth of an ice cream cake.
Look at that!
I'm really glad I brought the cookies up the side.
It looks SO good.
When you're ready to serve your ice cream cake, get some whipped cream and pipe some
lovely big rosettes all along the top of your cake.
Gorgeous.
I love cream and ice cream.
The two different textures.
It's just so good.
Then I'm going to take my signature salted caramel sauce and pour a pool of it in the
middle of the cake.
The saltiness of this and the ice cream is going to work really well together.
Put enough so with each slice everybody gets some.
Then put some crushed butter pecans in the middle.
A nice big pile.
Lovely.
And then take a little bit and dot some on the rosettes to make them stand out even more.
Gorgeous.
Look at that beautiful Ice Cream Cake.
When you cut into your ice cream cake, you can see the lovely layer of gingersnaps in
the middle, the caramel, all of the butter pecan ice cream, and our lovely thick crust.
This ice cream cake is absolutely fantastic.
It's a great dessert for the fall, all of the lovely spicy flavors.
Or, even a great dessert for the holidays.
You just make it, pop it into the freezer and eat it when you're ready to go.
Thank you so much for subscribing to my channel and I'll see you back here every Thursday
for more Bigger Bolder Baking.