{Trophy Cupcake} Red Velvet Ice Cream

This cupcake shop near us has started offering a line of Cupcakes 'N' Cream Ice Cream where they blend their cupcakes with freshly churned ice cream. Can you say delicious? This takes cake flavored ice cream to a whole new level. Obviously I am obsessed with this idea. I sampled some of the flavors at the bake shop and ended up going with a simple vanilla/vanilla combo for my treat that day, but I also sampled the red velvet cake ice cream and knew I wanted to recreate it at home.

I decided to buy the cupcakes instead of making my own. First, Trophy Cupcakes (not the cupcake shop offering the ice cream) makes a delicious red velvet cupcake. Second, I really didn't need a whole batch of cupcakes plus ice cream tempting me to binge on desserts. I decided I only need two cupcakes, so buying seemed the more economical (and healthy) choice.

I wanted to incorporate some cream cheese flavor into the vanilla custard ice cream base to represent the frosting on the cupcake.

I creamed together two egg yolks with 1/3 cup of granulated sugar then added in four ounces of softened cream cheese until smooth. I then heated a cup of heavy cream with half a cup of 2% milk over medium heat until the cream mixture was barely simmering. I slowly added about 2/3 of a cup of the cream mixture to the bowl with the egg mixture to temper the eggs, before adding the egg mixture to the cream mixture on the stove, cooking until thickened and the mixture can coat the back of a wooden spoon. Then I transferred the custard to a large bowl, added in 1 1 /2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and let it cool to room temperature. Let the custard chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight. Finally churn the ice cream in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions for 20 minutes before slowly adding in two red velvet cupcakes that have been mashed up so that the cake crumbs mix with the frosting.

It took me two attempts to make this ice cream. The first time around I used more egg yolk and the custard didn't taste right, and I overcooked the custard so it was slightly chunky and not very appealing to serve to anyone. I really need to purchase a strainer, which might have been able to salvage the custard and would smooth out the ice cream even further if the custard is strained before churning. Totally worth having to start over.

Yes, we served it on a plate. Don't judge.

Eating ice cream is hard work!