Speculoos cookie butter custard base ice cream with swirls of dark chocolate and more cookie butter, mixed with crushed Oreos. OMG. This. Is. So. Addicting. I have to really warn y’all: if you’re going to try this recipe, be prepared to eat the whole thing in one sitting. Honestly, my husband and I needed to have so much self-control to make this batch last us more than one day.
Last week, Andrew and I went to Trader Joe’s and I saw this Speculoos Cookie Butter and thought we’d try it. It’s soooo freaking good, and I knew I had to make something out of it. Funnily enough, Andrew was actually the one who suggested making ice cream and my brain gears immediately started turning.
// WHAT IS SPECULOOS?
Speculoos (or speculaas) is a spiced shortcrust biscuit traditionally baked for St. Nicholas Day in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The spices commonly used in speculoos are: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, and white pepper.
The Inspiration
If you’ve been in the Bay Area, and if you’re familiar with this ice cream shop named Marianne’s in Santa Cruz, you’ll know that one of their core flavors is 1020. 1020 is a caramel ice cream with fudge and Oreo, and is named after their address (which is pretty cute). Naturally, this became one of my favorite flavors from them, so I’d thought I’d do my own spin on it with this cookie butter.
So, I made cookie butter as the base flavor for the custard, and made sure to add cookie butter and dark chocolate sauce (I use this Torani one) for the swirling so you get some nice ribbons of additional flavor. Then, I crushed some Oreos–making sure I have a good balance of chunks and smaller pieces–and added them towards the end of the churning.
A Bit of Warning
Since this is a custard-based ice cream, the process is a bit longer than just dumping ingredients in an ice cream machine. However, I promise that it’s worth it! In any case, making a custard is actually not as hard as I initially thought. Once I got more into ice cream-making, it’s gotten easier and less intimidating to make.
Tools you’ll need
Ingredients
- 137 g cookie butter (~ 1/2 cup) + 1/4 cup more for the swirling
- 225 g cold whole milk (~ 1 cup)
- 106 g white sugar (~ 1/2 cup)
- 432 g cold heavy cream (~ 2 cups, separate into two; 216 g each)
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
- a pinch of salt
- 3 tbsp dark chocolate sauce
- 1/2 cup Oreo chunks (~ 6-7 Oreo pieces)
Instructions
- Microwave your cookie butter for a few seconds (just about 10 seconds) enough to just soften it a bit. Mix it with half (216 g or about 1 cup) of the heavy cream using a hand mixer. Set aside in the fridge.
- Heat the milk and the other half (216 g or about 1 cup) of the heavy cream in a small pot.
- While your milk is warming up, whisk the eggs with the sugar and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl.
- Temper the eggs by slowly pouring the hot milk. Be careful with this part! I'm always paranoid that I might accidentally make scrambled eggs. So, you have to keep whisking the eggs while you slowly pour the hot milk. I would also highly recommend adding the hot milk in batches (maybe about 1/4 cup at a time).
- Put the egg-milk mixture back into the pot and keep whisking it. Let it simmer until it coats the back of a spoon. Congratulations! You just made custard!
- Combine the custard base with the cookie butter-cream mixture. Add the vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Chill in the fridge for about an hour.
- Take your chilled custard and churn for about 20-25 minutes (or until soft serve consistency) in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.
- While it's churning, crush your Oreos. To make it easier, I just put them in a Ziploc bag and used a rolling pin to pound them. Add the Oreo chunks into the churning ice cream about 5 minutes before the churn ends.
- Now comes the fun part: swirling! Once your ice cream finishes churning, put half of it into a freezer-safe container. Then, drizzle half of the dark chocolate sauce and half of the remaining 1/4 cup of cookie butter on top of the ice cream and use a knife (or something similar) to swirl it around to your heart's content. It might help to loosen up your cookie butter by microwaving it for 5 seconds. Be warned, your cookie butter will stiffen up as soon as it hits the cold ice cream, so just keep that in mind. Pour the rest of the ice cream on it, and swirl the rest of the dark chocolate sauce and cookie butter on top of that. And if you'd like, top if off with more Oreo chunks.
- Freeze for at least 6 hours.
- Let it sit on the counter for at least 10 minutes prior to serving. Alternatively, you can microwave it for 15 seconds. Enjoy!
// ON THE SCENE
- Back backdrop: Replica Surfaces — Cement
- Bottom backdrop: Replica Surfaces — Biscotti Linen
1 comment
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