apple pie ice cream

Sometimes it really blows my mind that some people prefer smooth ice cream to chunky. I am not one of those people. I am one of those people that will order the ice cream filled with lots of stuff. (I think I've mentioned this before). When at the local ice cream stand I am that person scanning all the hand painted boards depicting all the flavors for the one that blatantly says "LOTS O' STUFF IN THIS FLAVOR" ice cream. My reasoning, (in case you care) is if you're going to have fattening ice cream (still fattening if it's smooth too) then why not go all out and have it with stuff in it. AND, (yes there's a part two), who doesn't love a little bit of extra texture and flavor with their ice cream base? Layers of flavor right? I know I need a little excitement in my 'there's gonna be junk in your trunk if you eat this ice cream so why not go all out'.
Latest creation of ice cream is an apple pie ice cream. Chunks of apple cooked in brown sugar then added to an ice cream base along with giant chunks of buttery cinnamon pie crust. Was it good? Yes, it was really good, really rich and flavorful so one would only need a little bit to satisfy an ice cream craving.

apple pie ice cream
by vanillasugarblog.com
print recipe

vanilla bean ice cream base
by david lebowitz (the ice cream master)

1 cup whole milk
A pinch of salt
3/4 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream
1 ts pure vanilla extract

Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the tip of a paring knife. Add the bean pod to the milk.
Stir together the egg yolks in a bowl and gradually add some of the warmed milk, stirring constantly as you pour. Pour the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.
Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Rinse the vanilla bean and put it back into the custard and cream to continue steeping.

Chill thoroughly, then remove the vanilla bean and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions. If you want to make the apple pie ice cream, this is where you would now add in the cooled sautéed apples and chunks of cinnamon pie crusts.

apple filling:
4-5 large Cortland or any other flavorful apples (I don’t recommend granny smith)
Fresh lemon juice
2 tb of butter
¼ or more of light brown sugar
Couple dashes of cinnamon

Peel and cut up apples into chunks. Toss apples with the fresh lemon juice in a ceramic bowl, set aside.
In a sauté pan melt the butter until bubbly (not brown), add in the brown sugar and let dissolve a bit, then add in the apples and let them cook down a bit—about 5 minutes while occasionally stirring. Recipe by dawn finicane. You don’t want to cook the apples thru, just soften them a bit. Cool completely before adding into ice cream

cinnamon pie crust chunks:
one (or two) pie dough recipe (use as much or as litle as you desire)
cinnamon-sugar

Take your favorite pie crust recipe and you can either bake this one of two ways. What I did was sprinkle the pie crust (generously) with cinnamon-sugar, then roll it up like a cigar. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough roll into ½ thick (or less) chunks. Place on greased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until light brown and crispy. The second way is to not roll the pie dough, but sprinkle the dough with cinnamon-sugar and just bake in a pie plate or cookie sheet as you normally would any pie. Recipe by dawn finicane. Once the pie crust is light golden brown and done, let cool and break apart into chunks. Let the cooked chunks of pie crust cool completely before adding to ice cream base.

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