I can’t believe we’re over halfway through August, and kids are going back to school. Before summer is officially over, I wanted to share a couple recipes I concocted.
When I cook, I am a recipe follower. I have a lot of cookbooks, and I love searching for new recipes on the Food Network website. But when it comes to ice cream, I love creating my own flavors. After several trials and errors, I came up with my go-to ice cream base. From there, I started experimenting with different flavors.
My first summer flavor was inspired by a Trader Joe flavor. I wanted to try it, but they were out of it by the time I made it to the store. I decided to come up with my own version for Southern Peach Crisp Ice Cream. While working on my peach crisp recipe, I thought of another one that might be good for summer.
This was inspired by my friend in Indiana. She had found a picture of her daughter sitting on Jon’s shoulders with a bag of cotton candy. After seeing that picture, I had to try to create a cotton candy flavor ice cream.
For the cotton candy ice cream, I added cotton candy flavoring to the ice cream base. Then, a couple minutes before it finished churning, I added Cotton Candy Pop Rocks. I remember eating them as a kid. I learned quickly to wear protective eye gear because when I first added them to the ice cream, they popped out of the ice cream maker. I got a pop-rock in my eye – not fun. If you eat the ice cream within a day of freezing, you’ll still get some popping rocks. But after a couple days, you just get the cotton candy flavor, which is not bad either. You can always get a couple extra bags of pop rocks and add some before serving.
For the peach crisp flavor, I reduced the amount of sugar and added peach preserves to the ice cream base. Then a couple minutes before it finished churning, I added maple pecan granola and small chunks of peaches.
To make it fun and share some of the ice cream, I had an ice cream tasting. I gave family and friends little cartons of each flavor and had them vote on their favorite.
And the winner was Cotton Candy Ice Cream – it was unanimous. Click here for the recipe.
Special Equipment and ingredients
All the supplies and ingredients for the recipe are linked below. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Click on any of the images below.
Look for a Peach Crisp Ice Cream version 2.0 next summer, or maybe sooner.