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Carrot Cake Ice Cream

  • Makes
    1 quart
Author Notes

Growing up in the Inland Empire, summers were hot and looking for ways to cool down in my grandmother’s very old Spanish style house in the heritage part of town, was all my cousins and I were occupied with. We made a version of this ice cream as children with left over carrot cake, fresh dairy cream from our grandfather’s ranch and nuts from Hadley farms. No one every wrote it down to my dismay but I came across this similar recipe from David Lebovitz recently and much to my delight, its very similar to what I remembered was an ambrosia treat as a child. —marcella_missirian

Ingredients
  • Spiced Pecans, Candied Carrots, Soaked Currants

  • 1 cup

    Pecan Halves


  • 1 tablespoon

    Butter, melted


  • 1 teaspoon

    cinnamon


  • 1/4 teaspoon

    Ground Cloves


  • 2 tablespoons

    Dark Brown Sugar


  • 1/8 teaspoon

    salt


  • 1/4 cup

    Dried Currants


  • 2 tablespoons

    Maker’s Mark Bourbon or Bourbon of your choice


  • 2 cups

    Finely Diced Carrots


  • 2/3 cup

    Sugar


  • 2 tablespoons

    Light Corn Syrup


  • 2 cups

    Water

  • Ice Cream Base

  • 8 ounces

    Cream Cheese


  • 1 1/2 cups

    Low Fat Sour Cream (or full fat)


  • 2/3 cup

    Sugar


  • 1 tablespoon

    Chopped Lemon Zest (micro plane works)

Directions
  1. Spiced Pecans, first 6 ingredients of part 1 ingredients –

    Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the pecans with the butter. In a small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar and salt. Pour the mixture over the pecans and toss to coat completely.

    Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and cook for 12 minutes, gently stirring halfway during baking to
    candy the nuts.

    Remove the tray to a rack and cool the nuts completely. Once cool, coarsely chop the pecans. Set aside.

  2. Maker’s-Soaked Currants, ingredients 7 and 8 of part 1 ingredients –

    In a small saucepan, heat the currants and bourbon until boiling. Simmer until the currants have absorbed almost all of the liquid. Remove from heat and cover the pan. Set aside to cool completely.

  3. Candied Carrots, last 4 ingredients of part 1 ingredients –

    In a medium saucepan, combine the carrots, sugar, corn syrup and water. Bring to a low boil and cook until
    the syrup is reduced to about 2 tablespoons and the carrots are translucent and candied, 20 to 30 minutes.
    Keep an eye on the carrots during the last few minutes so they do not burn. Drain the carrots and set aside to
    cool.

  4. Ice Cream Base –

    In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, blend together the cream cheese, sour
    cream, sugar and lemon zest until smooth. Chill thoroughly.

    Freeze the base in an ice cream maker – use ice cream maker’s directions (I use Cuisinart).

    After churning, gently fold in the spiced pecans, soaked currants and candied carrot cubes. Freeze until firm.

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