A Scrumptious Weekend!

Hey all!  I hope everyone had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!  I know that I did!  It was jam-packed full of walking, warm weather, great family, friends and food!  I shared with you on Friday that my brother and sister-in-law came into town for the weekend and we were all over the city doing fun things!  On Sunday we got to use our ice cream maker for the first time and let me tell you that it was SCRUMPTIOUS!  I am going to share with you the recipe that we used to make our peanut butter cup ice cream.  This recipe was straight out of the recipe booklet that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker, so it's nothing fancy :)

Here's what you need: 

1 1/8 cup of peanut butter (creamy), 2/3 cup of granulated sugar, 1 1/4 cups of whole milk, 2 cups of heavy cream, 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract and 1 cup chopped peanut butter cup candies

(***I told you this ice cream was scrumptious, not fat free!)

Here's what you do:

1. Mix the sugar and the peanut butter together with a hand mixer until smooth.

2. Add the whole milk until the sugar has dissolved; on low speed for about 1-2 min.

3. Stir in the whipping cream and vanilla extract.

4. Pour into your machine and let it go at it for about 25-30 minutes.

While you're waiting those 25-30 minutes, that's when you start chopping up your Reese's peanut butter cups (I stuck mine in the freezer so that they were easier to chop up):

After you've cut them up, at around the 25-30 min time has come that your ice cream maker has been working, you add the Reese's peanut butter cups into the mix and let your maker keep working for another 5-10 minutes.

After about 30-35 minutes, it's done!  Now you have a choice: You can enjoy it as is (straight from the machine it will have a soft, creamy texture) or you can put it in a container and stick it into the freezer for 2-3 hours  for a firmer consistency.  We tried it both ways (do you hear the pig oinking in the background?) and we personally (we being Stephen and myself) enjoyed it after being frozen for a few hours.

Let me tell you, this was some dang good ice cream!  Cuisinart knew what they were doing when they included this little recipe book in with the machine.  Some other recipes that I can't wait to try with this machine are: pumpkin pie and strawberry ice cream, red raspberry and mango gelato... Can I get a YUM!?!