Cooking With No-One: Butter Pecan Ice Cream

I got my Ice Cream Maker! Yay!

I'm not really a fan of the colour pink, but Myer was having a sale on these. They were going out for $104, and by the time I got to the store they only had 6 left. 5 in pink, and 1 in a shade of yellow I disliked even more. So I got the pink one.

As the butter-pecan ice cream was the reason I first wanted to make my own ice cream, I made that first.

I am following the suggestion of a friend who already has an ice cream maker, and just storing the freezer bowl part in the freezer so it's always ready for use.

Prepare the pecans.

Melt about 4 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan.

Add a pinch of salt, and chopped pecans. I could only find either whole pecans, or pecan halves, and they were all tucked away, practically hidden by the seventeen thousand different types of almonds the store stocked. Poor pecans. I chopped them myself.

Cook over a low heat for around 8 minutes. Drain butter. Taste one of the pecan pieces. It tasted a little like buttered popcorn.

Start preparing ice cream mix.

In a medium size mixing bowl, combine a pinch of salt, 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1 cup of milk.

Whisk until sugar is disolved. It will look kind of like the milk that's left over after a bowl of cocoa pops.

Add two cups of thickened cream and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Whisk until smooth. It will look like a milkshake.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Make the ice cream in the ice cream maker.
Assemble the machine.

Turn machine on, then pour ice cream mix through the hole in the top of the lid.

Let it mix for around 15-20 minutes. It will look like this:

Add pecans through the hole in the lid.

Mix for a further 5 minutes.

When done, put ice cream in freezer proof container. Yum.

Or eat it right away, whatever works for you.