For My Boy

Saturday or today, depending on when you're reading, is my son's 3rd birthday. If you'll remember he was stillborn so he's not with us, but I still celebrate and honor his life. Sam this is for you, my love.

When I was pregnant with Sam I craved chocolate covered peanuts. Like seriously craved them. If I was driving around and the mood struck, I'd make an emergency stop at Walgreen's for a bag if Brach's Double Dippers. Sometimes it was life or death, or so it felt like :-)

I wanted to make him ice cream cone cupcakes, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. Well I'm still intrigued with the idea and I will make them, but I kept imagining my husband and FIL getting frosting up their noses, and having a difficult time eating the cupcake while biting through the cone. I saw some pretty irritated men in my future so I decided to make something else for his birthday.

I made this ice cream a couple weeks ago. It's called Tin Roof and is a very vanilla base speckled with chocolate covered peanuts and swirled with fudge ripple. It's heaven. Instead of making the chocolate covered peanuts, I used Brach's. I've included the recipe below, so you can decide if you're going to make them or not. This ice cream was delicious and creamy, sweet, chunky and rich. One scoop (or two) is all you need. I would definitely make this again, only next time I'd cut back on the fudge ripple, which was very good, just a little too much for my taste.

Tin Roof Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop

• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup Chocolate-Covered Peanuts (recipe below)
• Fudge Ripple (recipe below)

Warm the milk, sugar, salt and ½ cup of the cream in a medium saucepan. With a sharp paring knife, scrape the flavorful seeds from the vanilla bean and add them, along with the pod, to the hot milk mixture. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Rewarm the vanilla-infused mixture. Pour the remaining 1 cup cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream to cool. Remove the vanilla bean, wipe it clean of any egg bits, and add it back to the custard. Stir in the vanilla and stir until cool over an ice bath. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.

When ready to churn the ice cream, remove the vanilla bean (it can be rinsed and reused). Freeze the ice cream in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. While the ice cream is freezing, chop the peanuts into bite-sized peanuts.

Fold the peanut pieces into the frozen ice cream as you remove it from the machine, and layer it with Fudge Ripple.

Chocolate Covered Peanuts

• 4 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts

Put the pieces of chocolate in an absolutely dry heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. In the meantime, stretch a piece of plastic wrap over a dinner plate.

Once the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the peanuts, coating them with the chocolate. Spread the mixture on the plastic-lined plate and chill.

Mixing them in: Use a chef’s knife to chop the chocolate-covered block of peanuts into bite-sized pieces, then mix them into 1 quart of ice cream as you remove it from the machine.

Storage: Chocolate-Covered Peanuts can be stored for several months in an air-tight container, refrigerated at room temperature.

Fudge Ripple

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup water
• 6 Tbsp. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to bubble at the edges.

Continue to whisk until it just comes to a low boil. Cook for 1 minute, whisking frequently. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla, and let cool. Chill in the refrigerator before using.

Mixing it in: The Fudge Ripple should be thoroughly chilled, as it’s easiest to use when very cold. Just before you remove the ice cream from the machine, spoon some of the Fudge Ripple onto the bottom of the storage container. As you remove the ice cream from the machine, layer generous spoonfuls of the sauce between layers of ice cream. Avoid stirring the Fudge Ripple, as it will make the ice cream muddy looking.

Storage: Fudge Ripple can be stored for up to 2 weeks, covered, in the refrigerator.

Happy Birthday my sweet boy. I love and miss you always.