Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Ice Cream

I love ice cream.  Always have and probably always will.  For my birthday in December my parents bought me the ice cream attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer.  I never knew how much I actually loved ice cream until I made it at home.  There is just something about ice cream you make yourself.  You control the ingredients, you know exactly what goes into it, there are no preservatives involved.  It is wonderful!  I have only used it a few times but now that summer is in full swing I am sure I will be using it more.  Along with the ice cream maker I also received a fabulous ice cream cookbook by David Lebovitz called The Perfect Scoop.  All of the ice cream flavors that I have made so far have come out of this book and all of them were wonderful.

In order to make David's concept on Sunday, we needed some ice cream to go with the blondie.  I decided to do a nice and rich chocolate ice cream and throw some peanut butter chips in.  It made the perfect blondie sundae.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Ice Cream
From The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream, divided
3 tbsp. dutch-process cocoa powder
5 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
5 large egg yolks
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup of the cream with the cocoa powder.  Warm over medium-high heat, whisking to dissolve the cocoa.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer for 30 seconds, whisking constantly.  Remove the pan from the heat, mix in the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth.  Stir in the remaining 1 cup of cream.  Transfer the mixture to a medium-large mixing bowl.  Set a fine mesh sieve over the top.

In the same saucepan, combine the milk, sugar and salt and warm the mixture over medium-high heat.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks.  When the milk mixture is warm, gradually whisk into the egg yolks, beating constantly.  Return the egg-milk mixture tot he bottom of the pan with a spatula, until the mixture is slightly thickened.  Remove from the heat, pour through the mesh sieve into the chocolate-cream mixture and stir to blend.  Stir in the vanilla extract.

Place the ice cream mixture over an ice bath and stir to cool.  Refrigerate until well chilled.  Stir to mix.  Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.  Fold in the peanut butter chips at the end of the ice cream maker's cycle.  Store in an airtight container and freeze until ready to serve.