Peppermint Candy Cane Ice Cream with Hot Fudge

During the holidays, you're required to cook, bake and roast more than any other time of the year.  There's the large family meals, the gifts for neighbors, the cookies for the kids, the obligatory office snacks so you can appease that annoying person in the next cubicle, etc.  The kitchen can feel like it's reaching 100 degrees, so let's do one last holiday snack that's nice and cool.

Sure, this time of year, you can find tubs of Peppermint Ice Cream from almost every brand.  I've found that Dreyer's isn't too bad at all, but you can make it at home rather easily.  And I really like the extra creaminess of the homemade ice creams, since this recipe uses fresh whipping cream and whole milk. 

It's a great thing to make with the kids as well.  Short of the cooking stage, they can do almost everything else.  Let them add the flavoring.  Let them crush the candy canes and add them to the ice cream at the end.  Let them work the ice cream machine as well and help them share the beater when the mixing is all done.

And above all else, make sure you add some hot fudge before serving it.  The heavy chocolate flavor mixed with the fresh and cool mint is a perfect combination.

Peppermint Candy Cane Ice Cream

1 cup whole milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup sugar
Red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla extracts
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
4 candy canes, crushed

Pour the milk, cream and sugar into a sauce pan and cook to a simmer.  Add enough red food coloring to turn it a candy cane shade of pink.  Remove from the heat, pour into a tupperware bowl and chill in the refrigerator until it's completely cooled.  Crank up the ice cream maker, pour in the cream mixture and add the extracts.

Let the ice cream churn for the recommended time in your ice cream maker's instructions (usually 20-35 minutes or until the mixture thickens.  While waiting, place the candy canes in a large ziploc bag.  Using a rolling pin, tenderizer, nutcracker, or your favorite blunt object, take your grinchiness out on the canes until they are broken into very small pieces.  When the ice cream is almost done, pour in the candy cane bits and let it mix for about one minute.  Pour the ice cream into a tupperware bowl and freeze for another 2 hours.

Serve with hot fudge poured over the top and any other Christmas garnish you want.

So make a batch of this and snack on it when the heat in the kitchen gets too high.