Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter Ice Cream

Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter Ice Cream

So here in the mid-Atlantic there has been a buzz about Sweet Baby Jesus for the past few months. Duclaw Brewing Co., released this delectable brew a while back, but until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't gotten around to trying it. But recently Mitsy and I went out to lunch at the local taphouse and I gave it a go. It's rich with nice roasty chocolate notes. I don't think I could drink a sixer of it in an afternoon, but one or two on a cold winters today will do just fine. After tasting it, I started thinking about ice cream. And then I started researching ways to make beer ice cream. I have never tried beer ice cream, and actually I've never made it before either. But last summer, Mitsy and I got an ice cream maker as a wedding gift, and after reading various rave reviews on beer ice cream recipes, I decided to try one of my own. The result is a combination of a couple of different recipes I looked at. I still plan on making some tweaks and updates, but here is the maiden voyage as it were. This is a super rich and chocolaty ice cream, that you might just enjoy. 

Ingredients

2 cups of whole milk

1 1/4 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 1/4 cups Sweet Baby Jesus Porter

4 egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

1/4 tsp. smoked paprika

Directions

Use a double boiler (I used a heat resistant glass bowl on top of a large sauce pan filled with water), and add the milk and the chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate has melted into a nice chocolaty milk and then remove from  heat and allow it to cool down for a bit. 

While your chocolate milk mixture cools, take a large bowl and combine the SBJ porter, sugar, heavy whipping cream, paprika, vanilla and egg yolks and then whisk all together until fully combined. 

While continuing to whisk, start to add a couple ladles of the hot chocolate mixture. This will allow it to temper and bring it up to temperature so that you don't end up scrambling the eggs. Continue to add the hot chocolate mixture until everything is combined. Stick this bowl on top of some ice/ice bath to allow it cool down a bit. Then add it to an airtight container and put it in the fridge for at least 6 hours. I put mine in over night.

Once your mixture has cooled in the fridge, get out your ice cream maker and churn it to the manufacturers directions. I used a Cuisinart (had to freeze the mixing bowl overnight as well) and it took about 20 minutes to get to almost a soft serve consistency (it still wasn't quite that thick though). Transfer this to an airtight container and put it in the freezer for at least 2 hours, or until it gets to your desired hardness. Serve with some shaved chocolate or dark chocolate bits as garnish. 

Boom. Beer ice cream.