Butter Pecan

Butter pecan is one of my favorite ice creams! This one is based on the Ben & Jerry's recipe from their book: Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book. I'm still on an eggless base kick, so I didn't follow B&J's recipe exactly. Kerfuffle happened whilst making this ice cream, so I had to adapt to that, too. The ingredients list is what ended up in the ice cream, not the recipe I started with.

Beautiful Butter Pecan

• 121 g pecan halves
• 1 stick Kerry Gold butter
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1¼ cup half-and-half
• ⅞ cup of granulated sugar

1. Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over low heat
2. Add the pecans and salt and sauté, stirring constantly until the pecans start to turn brown (I ended up with pretty dark, but still crispy pecans. Don't overcook them because they could get mushy.)
3. Drain the butter into a bowl and cool the pecans on a parchment-lined cookie sheet
4. Whisk the sugar in the half-and-half until desolved. (I started with 1 cup of half-and-half. I added more when the butter refused to combine. I also started with ¾ cup sugar. I added more when I added more half-and-half.)
5. Add the cream and whisk to combine
6. Add the melted butter and blend . . . This is where I ran into the Kerfuffle Monster.
   • The butter would not, under threat of serious consequences, combine into the mixture. It formed a bunch of little fat beads. At first, I thought it might be solids from the pecans, but I discovered that the beads would melt on my fingers. Now what?
     • I added ¼ cup of half-and-half with the idea of diluting the base, so the butter could dissolve. This seemed like a rational idea at the time. I also added ¼ cup of sugar to keep the ratios close. Unsurprisingly, this didn't work!
     • My son then had the idea of heating the mixture just enough to melt the butter fat. We heated the base over very low heat to 104°F, stirring constantly. We then cooled the mixture by gently stirring it in a metal bowl sitting in an ice bath. This worked!!! The butter fat went into solution and stayed that way.
   • There was some very dark butter in the bottom of the bowl that I did not scrape into the ice cream. I definitely had enough fat, but I think I left some good flavor on the table. I'm adding this part next time. I'll probably also use milk instead of half-and-half to account for the added butter fat from, you know, the butter.
7. Churn per the manufacturer's directions
8. With about 2 minutes left, add the cooled pecans

This was good ice cream, but I want a second attempt at making it.

• The texture was good, but I think there was too much fat. This could be informed by the fact that I had to heat the stuff up just to get all the fat to mix together. Next time, I'll use whole milk instead of half-and-half.
• The flavor was good, but the butter flavor was a little weak. I think this is because I left some of it out.
• The well-done, salty, buttered pecans were quite good. They'd be a tasty treat on their own.

🄼🅃🄻