Crunchy Macadamia and Caramel Ice Cream

This was the very first ice cream I made when I got my ice cream machine (I figured there was no need to start off with something quick ‘n easy) and it turned out great. I absolutely love crunchy bits in my ice cream and I’ve been pondering about ingredients other than nuts to candy coat ever since so definitely more about that later!

Ingredients

For candied macadamias:

100 g unsalted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped

¼ teaspoon baking soda

70 g granulated sugar

30 g unsalted butter 

2 tablespoons water

For caramel sauce:

210 g sugar

85 g butter

120 ml heavy whipping cream

For ice cream:

250 ml heavy whipping cream

250 ml whole milk

pinch of salt

75 g granulated sugar

4 large egg yolks

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Candied macadamias: Spread a piece of parchment paper on a large plate. Mix nuts and baking soda together in a bowl. Heat sugar, water and butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves and butter melts. Increase heat to medium-high and boil until the mixture has a warm amber color while tilting and swirling the pan to make sure that the mixture is evenly heated. Add in the macadamia nuts, stir quickly to incorporate the nuts and immediately pour the mixture onto the parchment paper, spreading it as much as possible. Let cool completely, then chop into pieces of desired size.

Caramel sauce: Measure all ingredients before you start and make sure you have everything on hand. Heat sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium heat and stir with a wooden spoon. Stop stirring as soon as most of the sugar turned liquid (this is essential to prevent your sugar from crystallizing). Gently tilt and swirl the pan to make sure that sugar is evenly heated and wait until all sugar is completely dissolved and the liquid is warm amber in color. Immediately add the butter to the pan and whisk until the butter has melted. Take the pan off the heat, wait a few seconds, slowly add the cream to the pan and whisk to incorporate. Let cool to room temperature in pan, then transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until very cold.

Ice cream: heat cream, milk and salt in a large heavy bottomed saucepan, don’t let it boil. Put the egg yolks and sugar in a medium bowl and whisk for a couple of minutes until fluffy and pale. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture, then return mixture to same saucepan. Heat custard mixture over low-medium heat (be careful not to boil) until custard starts to thicken and leaves path on back of spoon when a finger is drawn across. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Refrigerate until very cold.

Pour cold custard into ice cream maker and process according to manufactures’ instructions. Add caramel sauce during the last 5 minutes of processing (alternatively, if you want caramel swirls in your ice cream, add only half of the caramel sauce at this point). When done processing stir in candied macadamia pieces. Transfer mixture to container and freeze until firm (for caramel swirls: alternate between scoops of ice cream mixture and scoops of caramel sauce when transferring to container). 

Note:  best to be consumed within 1-2 days, as praline around macadamia nuts seems to slowly dissolve over time.