Cookies and Cream Ice Cream
This recipe is my adaptation of the Jeni's recipe base with broken cookies mixed in. The yield is somewhere around 4 cups, so you should get 2 pints (1 quart) once the Oreos are added. It might vary a little based on the airiness of your batch.
Servings 4 cups
Cost 5
Ingredients
- 3 ½ tbsp. cream cheese, softened (52 grams)
- 2 cups whole milk (480 grams)
- 4 tsp. cornstarch or 2 teaspoons tapioca starch
- 1 ¼ cups heavy cream (280 grams)
- ⅔ cup sugar (130 grams)
- 1 ½ tbsp. light corn syrup (30 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1-2 teaspoons vanilla (use 1 for cookies & cream and 2 for vanilla)
- 10 count Oreos or other chocolate sandwich cookies, chopped
Instructions
- Put the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. Soften it by letting it sit out for an hour OR put it in the microwave for 10 seconds. Stir until creamy and smooth. It's very important to soften the cream cheese, otherwise the custard will have little lumps of it throughout.
- In a small bowl or custard cup, stir together the cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of the milk to make a slurry. Set aside.
- Add the remaining milk to a 4 quart or larger saucepan. I prefer using an 8 quart pot so there's no chance of boil over. Just don't use anything smaller than 4 quarts. Along with the milk, add the cream, sugar, corn syrup and salt.
- Bring to a boil over medium high. Once it's at a boil, cook for 4 minutes, keeping a close eye on it so that it doesn't boil over. You can give it a stir occasionally if you need to. It should be a steady, rolling boil.
- Remove from heat and whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return to the heat and bring to a boil again, but this time whisking just until thickened, about 2 minutes. It won't be as thick as pudding, but more like a thin gravy or white sauce.
- Remove the pot from the stove. Pour about ¼ cup of the hot milk into the bowl with the softened cream cheese and whisk until smooth. Gradually whisk in the remaining milk mixture. Let cool just slightly and stir in the vanilla.
- Now it's time to quick cool. I used to just cool at room temperature and move to the refrigerator, but I've adopted the quick cool in a bag method. Just pour the warm mixture into a heavy duty freezer bag (gallon size). Close it. Submerge in an ice water bath for 30 minutes. Once cool, refrigerate for a few more hours or until very cold.
- Pour mixture into an ice cream maker. Begin processing as usual. While ice cream maker is going, break up about 3 to 5 of the cookies and let the machine crush them (ice cream will turn grey from the cookies). Process according to manufacturer’s instructions. Towards the very end, add remaining cookies. Transfer ice cream to a storage container and freeze until set.
- Alternatively, if you don't want grey ice cream and would rather have vanilla with big chunks, you can just add the Oreos only while packing into containers.