It’s the dog days of summer right now – it’s hot, we want something refreshing, and we don’t want to have to put a lot of effort into making ourselves a treat. So we found a way to make our own ice cream treat easily, not from scratch but with our own customized tastes added to it to create something unique and delicious. Here we take a carton of store bought ice cream, add some mix-ins to it, and them whip up a simple sauce to tie it all together. It’s a pretty quick process, and the result is your own flavor of ice cream that hits all your cravings and favorite flavors.
To make this, you’ll need:
- A 48-ounce carton of ice cream in any flavor – we used vanilla
- A 4-ounce chocolate bar
- Chunky peanut butter
- 3 or 4 toppings to layer in – we chose pretzels, roasted salted peanuts, and mini Reese’s cups
You’ll first want to soften your ice cream by leaving it out at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Then take a square baking pan and scoop half your ice cream into it, using a spatula to spread it around so it forms a fairly even layer.
Scatter some toppings over the ice cream – for the pretzels, we gently crushed them in our hands before sprinkling them on top.
Now break your chocolate bar into pieces and place it in a microwave-safe bowl, along with 3/4 cup of chunky peanut butter. Microwave for 30 seconds at a time until you’ve got a mixture that resembles the inside of a Reese’s cup.
Spread this over your toppings …
… then scoop the rest of your ice cream on top and add more toppings.
Place this pan in your freezer for 1 1/2 hours to let the ice cream solidify again, then you can scoop up your creation and have yourself some ice cream!
This was something we made on a very lazy Friday evening, when we had no plans beyond chilling on the couch and watching a movie. It was a great way to get creative and design our own ice cream flavor, and we didn’t have to put in much effort aside from choosing the mix-ins we wanted. We especially liked what we settled on because the pretzels and peanuts added some nice, contrasting saltiness, and the mini Reese’s cups were perfectly bite-sized and froze nicely into chunks of chocolate peanut butter goodness. And adding more chocolate and peanut butter in the form of an easy sauce tied everything together into a unique flavor. You’ve got less than a month left of summer, so you can make the most of these remaining days with some not-quite-homemade ice cream.