Maple Bacon Ice-cream

Call me the Dairy Queen

Maple syrup, milk, bacon, cream cheese; this ingredient list would make anyone think your cooking up breakfast. But you’re all the way at the other end of the spectrum making a deliciously sweet and salty dessert.

 All this needs is a waffle and we can officially have breakfast.  There isn’t a recipe on earth that some bacon can’t improve. Why is it so good? Especially the thick cut hickory smoked ones?  Jeni’s maple ice-cream is undoubtedly delicious, but what I have done here takes it to a whole other level. The added smokiness from the liquid smoke and the crispy bacon strips steeped in the milk almost gives it a coffee like essence on my palette (maybe it’s just me).  The home run for me however is serving it with candied bacon. Crunching into the sweet salty bacon with each bite of the ice-cream is just pure bliss. 

Since this creation I have been searching on google and surprised at the amounts of maple bacon ice-cream recipes there are. Leave it to google to kill all your self-esteem and make you realize you are not a super human genius as you previously believed. What I did notice was that several ice-creams were made with the bacon bits churned inside the actual ice-cream. I was not too keen on that method.  I was worried that the moisture from the ice-cream would destroy the crispiness of the bacon. So I left my candied bacon as an optional add on to enhance the (already delicious on its own) maple bacon ice-cream. And let’s just say you rather not chew bacon with your ice-cream at all, just sprinkle some hickory smoked sea salt on each serving to still impart a salty Smokey essence with each bite. 

Ingredients (printable recipe)

Jeni’s Maple ice-cream base (with tweaks)

2 cup Milk

1 ¼ cup Cream

2/3 cup Sugar
 2 tablespoon Corn syrup

3 table spoon Cream cheese

1 table spoon plus 1 teaspoon Corn starch

2 tablespoon milk

1 ½ cup Maple syrup

½ teaspoon Liquid smoke

4 smoked Bacon strips

Candied bacon

Smoked Bacon strips

Brown sugar

Instructions

• In a 400 degree oven bake the bacon strips until just crisp, drain on a paper towel and set aside to cool
• In deep pot bring the maple syrup to boil then reduce to medium/high heat and cook for 8 minutes to reduce its volume by half
• In a cup combine the cream and corn syrup
• Separately make the corn starch slurry using 2 tablespoon of milk and the corn starch
• In a dish add the cream cheese, liquid smoke and crispy bacon crumbled
• Remove the maple syrup from the heat and add the cream and syrup mixture allowing it to completely incorporate
• Then add the milk completely incorporate then return to he heat for a 4 minute boil
• After four minutes remove from the heat and add the corn starch slurry stir
• Place back on the heat to thicken for another minute
• Pour the contents into the dish with the bacon and the cream cheese and mix until the cream cheese has dissolved
• Pour the contents into a zip lock bag and allow this to completely cool in an ice bath
• Store in the refrigerator over night to allow the ice-cream base to absorb as much bacon flavor as possible
• When ready to churn strain the liquid (discard the soggy bacon) and churn in an ice-cream maker
• Pour the churned soft serve contents into a freezer safe dish
• Press down parchment paper on the top surface of the ice-cream and allow it to harden for at least 4 hours in the freezer.

For candied bacon

• Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper
• In a dish pour some brown sugar
• Dip the bacon strips on both sides in the brown sugar and place on the baking tray
• In a 400 degree oven bake the bacon until the sugar has melted and the bacon is crisp
• Immediately remove from the baking sheet and place on a cooling rack to firm up
• Serve with the maple bacon ice-cream

Greedy Tips

• Make sure to keep an eye on the candied bacon as the sugar can burn very easily.
• Do not allow the candied bacon to cool on the baking sheet as it will stick to the parchment or foil as the sugar cools
• Jeni suggest using grade B or C maple syrup for the recipe, but I could only find grade A. And with the way specialty ingredients are hard to find and or expensive in Jamaica, I count it as a blessing :)

Xoxo Greedygirl