Bit-O-Honey Ice Cream

On New Year's Day, my friend Kyle showed up to my pizza party with bottles of wine and bags of Bit-O-Honey. "I got a whole case of these for Christmas," he explained. "You should make something with them."

While we briefly considered putting a few on a dessert pizza, I knew I could rise to the BOH challenge. My initial idea was ice cream, but I had to figure out how to incorporate the candy. Chopped & mixed in to almost-frozen, churning ice cream would create little hard chunks...not good.  I didn't think they would melt very well, either. But then, after browsing around online, I had a BRILLIANT idea...freeze several candies for about 10 minutes, just until they are hard enough to blitz to a powder in the Vitamix, then slowly melt the powder into the hot custard as it thickened.

AND IT WORKED.

Damn, I love that VEETAmix.

Bit-O-Honey Ice Cream

makes about 1 quart

6 Bit-O-Honey candies

(unwrapped, frozen, blitzed to a powder & kept cold)

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons honey

pinch of Kosher salt

5 large egg yolks

1 1/2 cups heavy cream, cold

• Stir together the milk, sugar, honey, and salt in a medium saucepan and heat just until the honey & sugar dissolve and you see little bubbles forming around the edge.
• Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the pan.
• Stirring constantly, heat the custard over medium heat until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon. As you do this, slowing add in the Bit-O-Honey powder so that it melts into the custard.
• Strain the mixture into a small bowl. Stir in the heavy cream. Chill until cold, then churn in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.