Egg-less No-churn Butterscotch ice cream with Almond praline

What's your favourite ice cream flavour? With some many flavours available the odds are that you would have trouble pointing out one. But if you grew up in the early 1980s in India like me, the ice cream flavours known to me then, could be counted on my fingers. There was chocolate, vanilla, strawberry(no idea if it really had strawberry, but it was pink though), pistachio, mango and butterscotch. That's it. I particularly remember one brand of ice cream called `Yummy ice cream` which produced ice cream in tiny plastic boxes which my mum reused to store bits and bobs.







I spent quite some of my childhood years in Goa and ice cream was limited to certain family outings. A trip to the beach mostly or a restaurant. The choice of ice cream was fixed. I always stuck to vanilla, my sister was fascinated by the pink `strawberry ice cream` , Mum never ordered ice cream and dad had butterscotch. Always. He never had sweets. But could never resist butterscotch ice cream (and Mysore paak). The butterscotch ice cream had a lovely pale yellow hue and was topped with crunchy nuts..almost like praline.

Its been years I ve heard of Yummy ice cream now. I have no idea what happened to it. I wanted to try and recreate the butterscotch ice cream..with the crunchy topping of course. A google search lead me to this butterscotch sauce recipe from David Lebovitz. I incorporated the same method as I used in my earlier Vanilla ice cream recipe.

The result was great. The salty, sweet flavours of butterscotch embedded in creamy ice cream combined with the crunchy praline took me back to the Goan beaches.
Its such a co-incidence that I made this on fathers day. A perfect dessert loved by Papa for fathers day.

 

Egg-less Butterscotch ice-cream with Almond praline

Yield – about 1 litre

Things you need -

For the ice cream
50 gms salted Butter ( or use unsalted butter and add 1 tsp of salt )
1 cup or 180 gms Brown sugar
100 ml single cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
250 ml single cream
250 ml heavy cream or double cream
250 ml milk
3 tbsp cornstarch or custard powder
a pinch of salt

For the almond praline -
handful Almonds
1 cup Sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup water
half tsp salt

How its done -

Prepare the Butterscotch sauce – Makes about 200 ml
1. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine butter, sugar and quarter of the single cream and place it on medium high heat. Stir continuously until the butter has melted and a smooth mixture forms.
2. Now stop stirring and reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for 2-3 minutes.
3. Switch off heat and stir in the rest of the single cream.
4. The sauce can be stored in a jar. Once refrigerated, it needs to be reheated on low heat for a few minutes before using to loosen the consistency.

Prepare the ice cream -
5. Whisk together the cornstarch, salt and milk ensuring no lumps are formed and place it on low-medium heat stirring frequently until the mixture thickens and starts to coat the back of a spoon. Switch off heat, stir in the vanilla extract and allow it to cool completely.
6. Add the heavy cream, single cream and about 150 ml of the butterscotch sauce to the custard mixture and mix well.
7. Fold in 2-3 tbps of almond praline(recipe below) and freeze for a an hour or two. Then top the ice cream with a few more tablespoons of praline and freeze again overnight.
8. Serve with butterscotch sauce and more praline if you like it.

Prepare the Almond Praline-
Adapted from here.

1. Place sugar in a saucepan and add some water just enough to wet the sugar evenly.
2. Place on medium-high heat and do not stir.
3. As the mixture starts to caramelise, swirl the pan to ensure even caramelistaion.
4. Reduce heat and once the mixture turns amber in colour or dark orange, remove from heat, stir in the almonds, vanilla and salt. Pour the mixture evenly like  a sheet over a tray lined with parchment paper. Allow it to cool and harden. This takes just a few minutes.
5. Break the praline sheet coarsely. Place it in a yip lock bag and crush it with a rolling pin. Alternatively use a blender or food processor to powder the praline. Stor in an air tight jar for up to 3-4 weeks. Do not refrigerate.

Notes -

The butterscotch sauce and heavy cream form a silky texture and eliminate the need to churn this ice cream. Hence no ice cream machine required!
The praline and butterscotch ice cream can be used as garnish over other ice cream flavours like vanilla, chocolate or over cakes or yoghurt too.

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