Dulce de Leche Ice Cream | Toasted Pecans

This picture doesn't do the ice cream any justice. Unfortunately, it was the last bit of ice cream we had left before remembering to take a picture.

It was our first attempt at making ice cream, using a simple and inexpensive ice cream maker my mom had sitting around the house. Of course, her caveat in lending it to me was that I had to make durian ice cream for the family. Luckily, we didn't have any on hand.

We chose dulce de leche ice cream for our first attempt at ice cream making. There are a number of blogs out there that detail the dulce de leche-making process, including heating a can of condensed milk in a hot water bath or throwing it in a slow cooker to get that rich caramel-colored goodness. I opted for a time saving alternative - canned dulce de leche. You can find the Nestle brand in most Mexican supermarkets next to the cans of condensed and evaporated milk. Warning on sweetness of the ice cream - I prefer my ice cream less sweet so I would recommended adding in the dulce de leche in batches until you get to your desired level of sweetness. The full pound of the dulce de leche in the recipe was a bit too sweet for my taste buds. The toasted nuts did wonders to help curb the sweetness.

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen via Gourmet, May 2007

2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1 pound dulce de leche (about 1 2/3 cups) - or to taste
1/8 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup chopped, toasted pecans

Bring milk and cream just to a boil in a heavy saucepan over moderate heat, then remove from heat and whisk in dulce de leche until dissolved. Whisk in vanilla and transfer to a metal bowl. Quick-chill by putting bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stirring occasionally until cold, 15 to 20 minutes.

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker until almost firm, then fold in pecans if using them (we weren't too sure how good the frozen nuts would be so we opted to leave them out of the ice cream and served it as a topping). Transfer ice cream to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 1 hour.