Homemade Crème Brûlée Ice Cream Recipe

4.93 from 13 votes

Homemade Crème Brûlée Ice Cream Recipe

With a vanilla custard gelato base, this creamy ice cream is filled with caramel brittle creating a flavour to match the iconic French Dessert. Up your Summer Ice Cream Game with this beauty!

Prep Time1

Cook Time10

Total Time1 10

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings: servings

Calories: 231kcal

Author: Emma Duckworth

Equipment

Ingredients

480 ml whole milk
300 ml double cream (heavy cream)
5 large egg yolks
300 g granulated sugar divided into 100g/½ cup for the custard and 200g/1 cup for the brittle
1 vanilla bean pod

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Heat the milk and cream gently. Split the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds with a paring knife's dull (non-cutting) side. In a medium saucepan, Add the vanilla beans, pod, milk and cream. Cook over low heat until it begins to simmer and bubbles appear around the edge of the saucepan. Whatever you do- don't boil the milk. Turn the heat off.
Whisk eggs and sugar. Place the yolks and 100g/½ cup sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl and whisk until thickened and pale.
Combine the two mixtures & temper the egg yolks. Remove the vanilla pod from the milk mixture and discard. While whisking the yolks continuously, pour a cupful of the milk mixture in a thin stream. Then slowly pour in the remainder. TIP: place the bowl on a tea towel to stop it from sliding around. Whisk until thoroughly combined.
Thicken the custard. Pour the mixture straight back into the saucepan and return to low heat on the stovetop.
Whilst continuously whisking, heat the custard until it thickens. Test it has thickened by coating the back of a spoon and running your finger through it- if the pass stays- the custard is sufficiently thickened. If it joins then carry on heating on the stovetop.
Sieve, cool and refrigerate. Pour the custard through a sieve set over a bowl, cover with plastic wrap touching the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Place in the fridge and leave to cool down for at least two hours - or until cool and thickened. I like to leave it overnight for super creamy ice cream.
Make the caramel brittle. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Add the sugar to a heavy-based saucepan and heat on medium to low heat until the sugar has dissolved and turned golden brown. During this process, swirl the sugar around the pan to help the sugar dissolve evenly.
Working quickly but carefully, pour the caramel onto the prepared baking sheet and smooth out with an offset spatular. It goes hard quickly, so you need to be pretty speedy smoothing it out. Leave to cool and set for ten minutes, then chop into various sized pieces.
Churn the ice cream. Once the custard is sufficiently chilled, pour it into the ice cream machine and churn, following the manufacturer's operating instructions. The ice cream will become a soft-serve consistency.
Add the caramel brittle and freeze. Once churned, pour the frozen custard into a freezer-safe ice cream dish and mix in ¾ of the caramel brittle. Freeze for a minimum of 6 hours. When ready to serve, sprinkle the top of the Crème Brûlée Ice Cream with the remaining chopped caramel. Scoop, serve and enjoy!

Notes

Step-by-Step Photos: My blog post includes helpful step-by-step photos to help guide you through making this recipe.

Storage: Store Crème Brûlée Ice Cream in an airtight container for a maximum of 6 weeks.

TIP 1: Room temperature eggs. When you add them together, too much difference in temperature between the eggs and the milk mixture will cause the eggs to cook as soon as they come into contact.

TIP 2: Be patient. The key to success when making custard is to take your time. Heat the milk and cream gently so as not to scald it. Once the egg yolks are added, keep the heat low to prevent the custard from catching and eggs scrambling. When making the caramel brittle, don't rush the sugar caramelising otherwise, it will melt evenly, and you'll result in burnt sugar with unmelted sugar granules.

TIP 3: Chill the custard before churning. I recommend chilling it for no less than two hours. The longer you chill it, the creamier the texture of the ice cream. In truth, when making this for the photoshoot, I was impatient to get the custard into the ice cream machine. I didn't chill it as long as I should have and noticed a difference with the frozen texture compared to during my recipe testing. It wasn't nearly as creamy! Lesson learnt- don't rush the process!

Nutrition