Carrot Cake Ice Cream

This creation happened by accident. A few days prior I had whipped up a sheet of this. Overall it turned out to have a nice texture, but even after adding more spices (along with the 2 t of cinnamon I added 1 t nutmeg, a pinch of ginger, and a pinch of cardamom), it still turned out a little bland. When I make something, especially something involving such potent spices, I want the flavor to jump out of the pan and smack me in the face. But hey, I like spice! Perhaps a bit too much.

To top the cake I made this cream cheese frosting recipe instead of the one provided with the cake recipe. This is the absolute best cream cheese frosting I have ever made and will be the only cream cheese frosting I will continue to make until something better comes along, and I highly doubt something will. The flavor was so subtle yet at the same time incredibly rich. The texture was beyond smooth and silky, and at the same time heavy as you would expect from cream cheese, yet it wasn't dense. Instead of vanilla extract I scraped half a vanilla bean pod, a move I suggest you do should you make it in the future. I also very much appreciate the amount of sugar in it. Only one cup of regular sugar! Normally frosting calls for multiple cups of confectioner's sugar, something I really hate.

Because I ended up with more cake and frosting in my kitchen than I knew what to do with, I ended up tossing some into the ice cream batter! I figured what the hell - now is when the real experimenting begins!


Carrot Cake Ice Cream


Ingredients


2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
carrot cake bits
a few dollops of cream cheese frosting

Instructions

This time I started a little differently. I poured the two cups of whole milk into a small saucepan and stirred in the sugar while it cooked on medium heat. (Please ignore my ghetto stove. It was old when I moved in and it's dirty from a stew I made the night before :/ )

After stirring for about 3 minutes, I turned off the stove and poured the milk into the KitchenAid,

added the cream,

and left them to mix on low for about 5 minutes.

While the dairy was going, I chopped off a block of cake and set to work cutting it into little chunks.

I actually only ended up using half of those chunks, something I sorely regret. Should've used all of them!

And this cream cheese frosting! I really can't stress enough how much I love it. Never again shall I mix cream cheese and butter. Never again shall I use 3+ cups of confectioner's sugar. What a waste of calories and sugar! Not to mention that all the butter and extra sugar do is mask the wonderful flavor of the cream cheese. 

This stuff is so good I sit down with it and a spoon just like I would with ice cream. I should have added more than the 3 dollops that I did. I just didn't know how it would turn out so I erred on the safe side of not overloading it. Learned this one the hard way!

Added the goodies!

Churned the goodies for about 20 minutes. 

And it's done! Look at those chunks :D I'm a huge fan of chunks. 

Unfortunately most of the chunks did not survive. Not sure how! Maybe next time I should try freezing whatever goodies I'm adding so they can stand up to the churning process. Anywho, still turned out super tasty! There was a nice hint of a cream cheese flavor and the cake chunks added yummy flavor. I thought about adding carrot cake spices to the sweet cream ice cream, but it probably didn't need it. Not saying it wouldn't have been a good addition though. 

:D