Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream

By theresaoneil

Ingredients

• To Make the Pumpkin Cheesecake Ice Cream:
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin IMPORTANT! Do not use pumpkin pie filling
• 1 can evaporated milk, well shaken
• 1 (8 oz) brick 1/3 less fat cream cheese (or regular cream cheese), softened to room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups raw sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• Optional:
• Garnish with salted caramel sauce (see ingredients below) and/or Salted Pepita Brittle
• Bonus Salted Caramel Ingredients:
• NOTE: You will need a candy making, deep fry, or instant read thermometer (that goes over 350°F) for this!
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 6 tablespoons UNSALTED butter, still cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes **See Notes
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt

Preparation

Step 1

*See Notes!

Add the pumpkin, evaporated milk, cream cheese, raw sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and clove to the carafe of a blender (or the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade.) Process on high until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed. When it is perfectly smooth and evenly blended, add the heavy cream and pulse until it is evenly mixed into the pumpkin puree but not longer. You don't want to turn the cream to butter!

Pour into your ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. It will be the texture of soft serve when it is done in the ice cream maker. You can either serve as is, or pack into a freezer safe container with a tight fitting lid and put into the freezer until firm, about 3 hours.

Serve as is or garnish with salted caramel sauce and/or Salted Pepita Brittle

To Make the Salted Caramel Sauce:
Pour the sugar into a clean, dry, heavy-bottomed saucepan (of at least 2 quarts capacity) over medium high heat. Use a whisk to keep stirring it as it begins to melt from the heat. Continue whisking slowly until all the sugar has melted and the temperature reaches 350° on an instant read or candy making thermometer. Remove the thermometer and add the butter cubes, whisking until they're fully melted and incorporated. Don't worry if the sugar clumps, it will loosen back up and melt again.

Remove the pan from the heat and slowly drizzle in the heavy cream while still whisking until it's fully mixed in. This will bubble up and look threatening when you do this. This is when you're grateful you didn't use a smaller pan than I specified!

Whisk in the sea salt flakes until even, then pour into a clean jar with a tight fitting lid. Refrigerate until thickened. The Salted Caramel Sauce stores well for up to two weeks.

P.S. Stir this into coffee, lattes, hot tea, over pancakes or waffles or ice cream, or simply on a spoon. Life is hard sometimes Caramel helps.

Notes

*Homemade ice cream, unlike commercially available ice cream, does not have air whipped into it. This makes it a denser product that is best consumed within a couple of days of being made for optimum texture. Beyond that it's best blended into milkshakes. Like that's a sacrifice.

**If you cannot find unsalted butter, salted may be used, but you will have to reduce the sea salt added by half. Unsalted butter gives you much greater control over the finished product, so I highly recommend starting with it!