Homemade vanilla ice cream studded with chocolate-covered peanuts and streaked with a ribbon of fudge.
March arrives and I always feel ready to make ice cream again. The weather here swings wildly between warm and cold, sunny and snowy, but that just means there’s never a wrong time for a scoop. Ice cream has a way of turning a rough day into something sweeter, if only for a little while.
For a long time I wanted David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop. When my husband gifted it to me for Christmas, I was thrilled. It’s an essential for anyone who loves making ice cream, and the recipes inside inspired me to try flavors I might never have attempted otherwise. The very first recipe I chose to make from the book was Tin Roof, a straightforward but irresistible combination: vanilla ice cream swirled with fudge and studded with chocolate-covered peanuts.
There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about this flavor. It’s not complicated or overly fancy, but it hits all the right notes — creamy vanilla, rich chocolate, and crunchy peanut pieces. For me, it evokes childhood summers when more ice cream melted down my hands and chin than actually made it to the bowl. Tin Roof is a bowl of summery comfort, even when snow is falling outside.
Tin Roof Ice Cream
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup chocolate-covered peanuts, chopped
- Fudge ripple, recipe follows
Fudge ripple:
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup
- 1/4 cup water
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Warm the milk, sugar, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the hot milk mixture. Cover, remove from heat, and let the mixture steep for 30 minutes to infuse the vanilla flavor.
- Rewarm the milk mixture gently. Pour the remaining 1 cup of heavy cream into a large bowl and set a fine mesh strainer over it. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth. Slowly pour some of the hot milk into the yolks while whisking constantly to temper the eggs. Return the combined mixture to the saucepan and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Strain the custard through the mesh strainer into the bowl with the reserved cream to remove the vanilla bean and any bits of cooked egg. Chill the custard thoroughly in the refrigerator before churning.
To make the fudge ripple:
- Whisk together the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium, whisking constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Continue cooking for 1 minute while whisking frequently, then remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Chill the fudge completely in the refrigerator so it is thick enough to ripple through the ice cream.
- Freeze the ice cream base according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. Once churned, gently fold some of the chilled fudge ripple into the ice cream and layer with the chopped chocolate-covered peanuts. Work carefully so you create ribbons of fudge rather than mixing everything into a uniform chocolate flavor. Transfer the ice cream to a container and freeze for at least 2 hours to firm up before serving.
Notes
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop.
Carbohydrates: 36 g,
Protein: 7 g,
Fat: 27 g,
Saturated Fat: 13 g,
Cholesterol: 161 mg,
Sodium: 39 mg,
Potassium: 204 mg,
Fiber: 2 g,
Sugar: 32 g,
Vitamin A: 823 IU,
Vitamin C: 1 mg,
Calcium: 83 mg,
Iron: 1 mg
If you try this recipe, give yourself time to chill the custard well before churning — that helps the texture and flavor develop. When layering the fudge and peanuts, aim for streaks and pockets of texture rather than stirring everything together; those contrasts in each spoonful are what make Tin Roof so satisfying.