This salted crack caramel ice cream from Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn has won awards. It also made up 25% of the creamery’s total sales. Yes, it’s THAT good!
In a few months, my family and I are heading to New York to attend a friend’s wedding. We have our flights and hotels are booked. One afternoon, we will be touring the Statue of Liberty. It’s been several decades since I visited, and neither my husband nor my daughter have ever been.
One of the things I hope to do while we’re in the city is to visit Ample Hills Creamery. I had such a wonderful time there last summer that I bought myself their cookbook. Once I had a copy of their cookbook, I was surprised to learn that this salted cracker caramel ice cream won an award from New York magazine. It won for the “Crackiest Crack Food in Town” award. And to think, some of the creamery’s original taste testers said that the ice cream tasted too burnt and bitter. I wonder who’s laughing now?
Anyway – this was one of the flavors I tried when I was in Brooklyn last summer. It was heavenly, of course, and it’s taken me almost a full year to recreate it.
The ice cream alone is awesome, but it gets even better once you add in Deb’ crack cookies. I didn’t want to stop eating this and was tempted to grab a bigger bowl (I refrained). My husband even declared this as his favorite homemade ice cream EVER. Salted caramel fans will LOVE this!
Salted crack caramel ice cream
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups organic cane sugar
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 cups whole milk
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 recipe Deb's crack cookies recipe below
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, melt the sugar. Do not stir. Keep heating until the sugar turns a deep amber color.
- Take the saucepan off the stove and VERY SLOWLY add the butter. You may want to take a step back from the saucepan because the mixture will splatter. Keep mixing until all of the butter has been incorporated. Add the salt and mix well.
- Slowly pour in the heavy cream. It may start to seize up, and if it does, put the saucepan back on the stove and keep stirring until no clumps of caramel remain. Now slowly pour in the milk and keep stirring until the mixture is smooth and there are no caramel clumps.
- Continue heating the mixture until it reaches 110 degrees F on a candy thermometer.
- Put the egg yolks in a medium sized bowl and mix well. Then set a fine mesh strainer over a large bowl and set aside.
- Once the caramel mixture reaches temperature, pour about 1/2 cup of it into the bowl with the egg yolks. Mix well until well blended. Then transfer this back into the saucepan and continue to mix so your eggs don't scramble. Continue heating until the mixture reaches 165 degrees F.
- Pour the custard mixture into the large bowl with the strainer. Throw away anything that remains in the strainer. Cool the custard to room temperature and then place it in the refrigerator to cool, or about 1-2 hours.
- Churn the ice cream in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. Chop up the crack cookies.
- Place some of the churned ice cream into a freezer-safe container. Then add a layer of the cookies. Then add another layer of ice cream and then more cookies. Repeat until there is no ice cream left.
- Chill in your freezer for 8-12 hours before serving.
Hi, Eva–this sounds fabulous! How do you divide the butter between steps 1 & 2? Also, does the mixture really Smoke? Or, like, steam? I’ve made caramel ice cream before and cooked the caramel too long with bleh results. Are you going for some bitterness to balance the cookies? Thanks!
Author
Wynne – thank you for catching some typing errors! I had copied and pasted from a previous recipe and didn’t edit it correctly. The recipe should be correct now. Thank you!
Thanks, Eva! Got it now. I’m a little chicken about making caramel without water but this should be doable, and caramel’s my son’s favorite. 🙂
Author
I hope you enjoy this one! The caramel ice cream base is incredible on its own. But the salted crack cookies make it even better!