Salted Caramel Ice Cream

While most homemade ice cream does best when it’s only been frozen a few hours, the caramel in the ice cream will keep it soft, so this needs several hours to freeze and harden, so I recommend making it in the morning before you plan on eating it for dessert, or you can even make it the day before you plan on eating it. The caramel can be made 2-3 days ahead of time and the custard can be made the day before you plan on churning and freezing it.

Makes about 1¼ quarts.
Special Equipment:  Ice Cream Maker

INGREDIENTS

For Salted Caramel:

• 6 Tbsp butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 cup cream
• 1tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• For ice cream:
• 2½ cup cream
• ⅔ cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla

INSTRUCTIONS

For the salted caramel:
Melt butter in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Stir in sugar and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring regularly until golden brown (it should be a little darker than peanut butter). Remove from heat.

Stir in half of the cream (be careful--this can cause the caramel to bubble and sputter). Stir in the remaining cream, salt, and vanilla. Your caramel may have seized (mine did) and clumped up. Don't panic, it's still okay. If you have any lumps remaining, return pan to very low heat and stir until smooth. If there are any remaining small clumps, you can sieve them out.

You should have about 1¼ cup caramel.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

For the ice cream:
In a large saucepan, combine cream and sugar. Heat to a simmer over medium heat.

In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and salt. Whisk about ½c of the cream mixture into the egg mixture to temper the eggs. Continue whisking, and pour in the remaining cream mixture in small increments.

Pour the custard back into the large saucepan and heat over medium-low heat until thickened slightly. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely cooled.

When custard is chilled, pour into an ice cream mixer and process according to manufacturer's directions (for my Cuisinart, I churned the ice cream for 30 minutes). Pour ice cream into a freezer-safe container and pour salted caramel over all. Swirl caramel into the ice cream with a butter knife. Cover and freeze at least 3 hours, or until firm.

NOTES
The salted caramel can be made up to 3 days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. When ready to use, heat in the microwave about 30 seconds, just to make it easy to stir. It's okay if it's a little stiff.

Source: Adapted from One Lovely Life