This is what happens when a Skor Bar meets salted caramel ice cream. Yum! I had Skor Bars leftover from last week's ice cream sandwich cake and used them in my favorite salted caramel ice cream recipe. The ice cream is so good. It requires a little more skill than ice cream sandwich cake because you have to make the caramel. But if I can do it, so can you. I got a little overly detailed with this post, but maybe some of the info will be helpful.
How to Make Salted Caramel Ice Cream
This is a basic custard based ice cream flavored with homemade caramel, which means the first step is making caramel. More on that below. You then make a custard base by mixing hot milk & cream with eggs & sugar. The caramel goes into the ice cream base (along with a little vanilla and salt), then you chill it for a few hours. Once cold, you'll add a splash of booze and churn it into a rich and creamy ice cream. The fun happens next. Pack it in cartons with as much chopped toffee, caramel sauce and nuts as you like.
How to Make Caramel by Someone Who Barely Knows How to Make Caramel
Just kidding. I've made it several times now, but it's always been a little intimidating, so here are some tips that have helped me. You can always ignore all this and use melted Kraft caramel bits in place of the homemade caramel. However, the ice cream has more depth of flavor with homemade caramel. Besides, you have all the ingredients you need right there with the cream and sugar, so it's worth mastering the caramel. But caramel making takes practice, so here are some tips for making the caramel base.
- Use a heavy saute pan. The high sides help contain the cream. I use a T-Fal lidded pan. A high quality stainless steel metal pan such as an All-Clad will cook the sugar quicker. However, anodized pans like the T-Fal are easy to lift and tilt and conduct heat evenly making the sugar less likely to burn. A lid is handy as well because you can put the lid on for a minute if needed to condense steam and wash down sugar crystals.
- I use the dry method, which means no water is added to the sugar. Some people find adding water (the wet method) works better for them. It might be different from kitchen to kitchen based on the dryness of your sugar, the pan material and your range. I recommend trying it without water first.
- Do not scrape the sides of the pan, as this can cause graininess. However, when making this caramel, t's okay to scrape the bottom as needed with a heat resistant silicone scraper to keep the caramel moving and help dissolve the sugar clumps.
- Be ready to stand and tilt. This is a hands on step like blowing glass.
- Make sure your cream is slightly warm when you add it to the melted sugar.
- It's alarming when the cream bubbles up and you see your beautiful melted sugar turn to hard gobs, but don't worry. Just lower the heat and keep stirring. The sugar will dissolve into the cream.
Weight of Cooked Caramel for Ice cream
Total yield of the caramel should be between 11 and 13 oz by weight, so if you want to make half a batch of salted caramel ice cream, you can make the full amount of caramel, half of the custard mixture, and scrape 6 oz of caramel into the base. This will leave you with extra caramel for sauce. To make sauce with the other half of the caramel, just throw 1 ½ tablespoons of butter, a pinch of salt plus a little vanilla into the remaining 6 oz of caramel. Use what you need to swirl through the ice cream if desired.
Optional Caramel Sauce
The original version of this recipe did not call for a caramel swirl, but I've always felt like salted caramel ice cream needs swirls of caramel running through it. I use this caramel sauce recipe for the swirl. The technique is similar to the technique used for this recipe, but on a smaller scale and done in a saucepan. You could also make the sauce just by repeating the skillet method in the recipe, but adding 3 tablespoons of butter, a dash of salt and a little vanilla after removing from the heat.
Skor Bars, Toffee and Nuts
Skor Bars can be found at Walgreens, but if you can't find them just use Heath or any other good English toffee bars. Any nuts work, but salted honey roasted peanuts are particularly good as are salted cashews Roasted Brazil nuts also work.
This post got a little long, so if you have any questions feel free to message me through the comment section.
Recipe
Salted Caramel Skor Ice Cream
Ingredients
Caramel for Base
- 1 ¼ cups heavy cream (280 grams)
- 1 cup pure can sugar (200 grams)
Custard Base
- 1 cup heavy cream (220 grams)
- 1 cup whole milk (240 grams)
- ¼ cup sugar (50 grams)
- 3 large whole eggs
- ¼ teaspoon salt, kosher (Morton)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 tablespoon vodka
- 2 regular Skor Bars or any other toffee
- ⅓ cup salted cashews, almonds or mixed nuts
- ⅓ cup homemade or store bought caramel sauce
Instructions
Caramel For Base
- Gently warm 1 ¼ cup of cream in a saucepan. Turn off heat and keep nearby.
- In a heavy 10-inch saute pan, heat 1 cup of the pure cane sugar, spreading it evenly over the dry skillet, until it starts to melt. It will look like it's drying out at first. As it warms and changes, stir it a little to break it up, but don't scrape the sides of the pan. Control heat to keep it from burning. If you need to speed things up, put the lid on the pan for a minute. Once you see that sugar melting you're good. If it refused to melt at all (could be brand of sugar or beet sugar issue), start over and use 2 tablespoons of water with the sugar.
- Once the sugar has melted, stop and allow it to start turning amber, watching carefully, and tilting the pan, raising from the heat as necessary, so that the sugar doesn't burn. Do not scrape the sides of the pan. Just continue tilting the pan and lifting up off the burner if you need to until amber and all of the sugar has melted.
- Once the sugar is a deep amber, remove from heat briefly, stand back and add the 1 ¼ cup of warmed cream. It's going to bubble up. The sugar will seize and clump and the cream will boil. Return pan to a low heat and push any sugar clumps under the cream so they'll get hot and melt faster. Use the lid if you need to build wet heat. Stir low and slow until hard sugar lumps dissolve. Set aside to cool while you make the custard.
Custard Base
- In the same saucepan you used to warm the cream, combine another 1 cup of cream, 1 cup of milk and ¼ cup sugar. Begin heating until it reaches a simmer.
- Meanwhile, whisk the eggs together in a medium size bowl. Have ready a second bowl with a sieve set over it to strain your custard. You could use the same bowl you used for the eggs, but then you're risking food safety because the bowl had raw eggs in it. So be safe and use a second bowl for the custard.
- Gradually whisk the hot cream mixture into the eggs, then pour it all back into the saucepan. Whisk over low to medium low heat for about 3-4 minutes or until mixture is about 175 degrees F. Remove from heat and pour through the sieve into the clean bowl.
- Pour the (still warm) caramel into the warm custard and stir in the salt and vanilla. Let cool somewhat at room temperature (about 30 minutes), then cover bowl loosely and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for several hours or until very cold. An overnight chill is optimal, but as long as the custard is cold you should be able to churn it.
- Before you churn, whisk 1 tablespoon of vodka into the custard. This will help keep it soft.
- Pour into your ice cream maker and churn as the manufacturer directs.
- As you pack the ice cream into containers, drizzle in your favorite caramel sauce, salted mixed nuts and a chopped up Skor bars.
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