Just when you think peanut butter and chocolate can't get any better, they go supernova! Among my family and friends, this black bottom peanut butter cup ice cream cake is by far the most requested dessert for any occasion. This week I was asked to make it as a celebration for my son's musical achievement. His school has a karate approach to teaching kids how to play the recorder. My son was the first in his class to receive his black belt. As a result, he won a giant Hershey's bar from his teacher. But still, he needed cake... The boy is his mother all over again.
The deeply rich chocolate flavor of this cake's crust, combined with the pure, creamy heaven that is homemade peanut butter ice cream, will leave you staring at your fork in that dreamy, food-love haze that only comes from eating the best of the best. Personally, I like to call this haze 'The Plane of Bliss.' And there is absoluetly no place I'd rather be.
To enter this plane for yourself, you'll need to start by making enough ice cream to fill a 9-inch round springform pan. If you're a planner, make the ice cream base a day in advance. If not, make an ice water bath to place your bowl of ice cream base in to chill. A well-chilled base is important when it comes to making ice cream.
*OR* you can skip this step entirely by purchasing 7 cups of high quality vanilla ice cream.
We like our ice cream homemade, so I'll continue...
Peanut Butter Ice Cream
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
4 cups heavy or whipping cream
2 cups milk
4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups (320 grams) Adam's natural creamy peanut butter
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk and half of the heavy cream (2 cups). Heat the milk mixture until it begins to foam around the edges, about 140 degrees. With the mixer on low speed, very slowly pour about a cup of the heated mixture into the eggs/sugar to temper the eggs. Wait a few seconds and then pour in about another cup, very slowly.
Pour the entire egg/sugar mixture into the saucepan with the remaining milk and cream. Heat slowly to 160 degrees.
Remove from heat. Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Set the bowl in the prepared ice water bath. Add the remaining cream (2 cups) and vanilla. Stir occasionally to help it cool faster.
Refrigerate until cold.
You'll mix the peanut butter into the ice cream during the last five minutes that the ice cream is churning in your ice cream maker.
But for now, let's make the crust...
Black Bottom Crust
1/2 cup unsalted butter
8 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
13.5 ounces (1 1/2 packages) of Nabisco's Famous Chocolate Wafers (about 61 wafer cookies)
Over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate in a heavy saucepan. In a food processor, finely grind the wafer cookies. Add the warm chocolate mixture. Blend until the crumbs are just moistened. Set aside 1 cup of the crumb mixture.
Press remaining crumb mixture onto the sides and the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with 2 3/4 inch high sides. Freeze.
Back to the Ice Cream:
Now is the time to churn the ice cream. (Or soften your store-bought vanilla ice cream. Once it's soft, using your stand mixer, mix in the peanut butter.)
Pour half of the ice cream base into your ice cream machine and let it churn until it's almost ready. About 20 minutes. Add half of the peanut butter (160 grams) and continue churning for five minutes.
(This cake will come together faster if you have an extra freezer bowl. But if you only have one freezer bowl, you'll have to wait for your bowl to freeze again before you can make the next layer of your cake.)
Assembling the cake:
1 (12 oz) bag of mini Reese's Peanut butter cups
8 regular sized Reese's Peanut butter cups, for garnish (optional)
Chop the mini Reese's cups and place them in a bowl in the freezer.
With a small, heart-shaped, cookie cutter, cut hearts out of the regular sized peanut butter cups. Place them on a plate in the freezer. Give them about five minutes in the freezer.
Remove the springform pan of crust from the freezer and spread the first batch of peanut butter ice cream on top of it.
Working very fast, sprinkle the 1 cup of reserved crust mixture over the top of this layer of ice cream. Then sprinkle the chopped mini peanut butter cups on top of this crust layer. Freeze for about an hour.
Make your second batch of peanut butter ice cream, in the same way as the first. When it is finished, spread it on top of the cake as your second layer. Garnish with your heart-shaped peanut butter cups. Freeze for about four hours, or overnight.
For this cake, I decorated with a border of whipped cream and some lines of chocolate ganache. *Whipped cream does strange things when it's put in the freezer, so if you're serving this to company, decorate it just before serving.*
Whipping cream
1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream
2 heaping tsp of confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
Pour ingredients into a whipped cream dispenser. Stir until sugar dissolves. Attach CO2 cartridge and decorate at will.
Ganache
2 oz of bitttersweet chocolate
1/2 cup of heavy cream (approximately, and you won't use it all)
Heat the cream in a small saucepan over medium heat. When it comes to a light boil, pour a small amount over the chocolate and stir until smooth. Pour more cream as needed to make a smooth, pipeable ganache.
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