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Who doesn’t love peanut butter combined with chocolate? (I mean, I am sure such mythical people must exist, but I haven’t met any of them yet!). I had never tried peanut butter cups as I am in the UK, and by the time I knew they existed (thanks to my teenager) I was vegan (which they are not). I then simply felt sorry for myself about missing out on them for an extended amount of time before I realised I could probably make them myself. Here, the peanut butter is salted and sweetened and pairs beautifully with the vegan dark chocolate that I use. In regards to the ice cream, I have tried to make it a *bit* healthier by adding inulin (which also helps with mouthfeel) and pea protein isolate. The pea protein I have does have a bit of an aftertaste so it may not be to everyone’s taste. However, I have so far had no complaints from my testers (children)!

When it comes to vegan ice cream that’s creamy, scoopable, and stable, you need to carefully balance of the ingredients, because each plays a specific role. Sugar controls (obviously!) sweetness and melting point. Dextrose lowers the relative sweetness and depresses freezing point more, which helps to keep the ice cream soft. Maltodextrin adds body and a smooth mouthfeel without adding sweetness, and it reduces iciness. The fats give that creamy mouthfeel, and the emulsifiers keep the mix of fats and liquid stable. The gums prevent ice crystals, improve scoopability, extend shelf-life, and help to give the ice cream body, and the silk gel also improves texture and mouthfeel. You can substitute some ingredients out (for instance you could try coconut oil instead of the cocoa butter and sunflower oil), but results wouldn’t be guaranteed.

It does take a bit of organisation, therefore, to get the ingredients together, but it is pretty much foolproof. We have an ice cream maker with a compressor like this one, because we aren’t quite organised to make sure we have a bowl frozen when we need it (there’s lots of ADHD. ADD, and autism going on in this household!). But these recipes would work with a household ice cream maker.

In order to get the measurements correct I recommend using a scientific scale such as this for the gums and emulsifiers. They are inexpensive and avoid you a) wasting money on gums that are used up too quickly, and b) having too much gum in the mix which can impact the mouthfeel of the ice cream by making it, well, gummy! We also recommend storing it in these tubs as they fit one batch of mix in perfectly, and they are long and thin which is good news when you are scooping the ice cream out (by the way, this is our favourite scoop as it is very heavy duty and easy to heat up in a cup of hot water to make scooping that bit easier!). You will also need a thermometer whether it is a candy thermometer, a digital probe thermometer, or an infa-red thermometer such as this one.

We are all in the UK, and get our additives from Amazon or directly from Speciality Ingredients online. UK links are here:

• Guar Gum
• Locust Bean Gum
• Silk Gel (E471)
• Sunflower lecithin
• Sucrose ester

Recipe Steps:

1. Prepare your peanut butter cups by heating the peanut butter and coconut oil very gently in the microwave, until the coconut oil is melted, and add the icing sugar and salt. The heat will help to “melt” the icing sugar so it won’t have a powdery texture. Cool the mixture in the fridge, it will become more solid as it cools. This can be made well ahead of time as it lasts in the fridge for ages and once it is cool it is stiff enough to roll into little balls for each of the cups.
2. For the chocolate casing it is best to use paper cases – I don’t recommend silicone moulds because they are very difficult to work with. You can use polycarbonate moulds or (for a cheaper option), plastic moulds, but these are tricky because you have to fully temper the chocolate, which is time consuming and – considering they will be frozen, not really necessary.
3. If you are using paper cups, put about a teaspoon of chocolate in each, swirl it would to coat the paper sides and then tip out any excess. For chocolate moulds, full them completely, tap them down on the counter to release any air bubbles, and then tip them upside down to tip out the excess. Leave to harden.
4. Add a scoop of the peanut butter mixture into every chocolate cup, top with more melted chocolate/coconut oil, and leave to harden in the fridge.
5. When hardened, remove the paper cases and roughly chop the peanut butter cups. Spread out on a tray and put it in the freezer – this helps to ensure that they don’t get too mushed when added to the churned ice cream.
6. Get all of your wet ingredients (soy milk, cocoa butter, and sunflower oil) in the pan melting at a low heat.
7. Weigh out your sugar, inulin, pea protein, dextrose and maltodextrin on your main kitchen scales. Measure out the guar gum, locust bean gum, sunflower lecithin, sucrose ester, silk gel (if using) and salt. Whisk all the dry ingredients together.
8. Add them to the warmed wet mixture and whisk.
9. Heat up until it reaches 85 degrees celsius (185 fahrenheit). Blend with a stick blender and leave to cool. Whisk in the vanilla essence.
10. Refrigerate to allow the gums to fully hydrate, preferably overnight.
11. Churn the ice cream and, when almost done, add chopped up peanut butter cups until mixed. Or, if you are like me and leave it until it is too late, scoop out some churned ice cream, mix in some peanut butter cups, and repeat until all the mixture and all the peanut butter cups have been used.
12. Freeze for at least a few hours to harden the ice cream.
13. Serve and enjoy!!!

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Please comment if you try the recipe, I would love to connect and see how it went, and if you would like to see other flavours of ice cream then comment below.