Free Cookbooks! {recipe: ben and jerry’s chocolate peanut butter ice cream}

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a place you could go and just borrow cookbooks? New ones come out all the time, and their crisp pages and glistening pictures lure me in through Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. But at $20+ a hit, cookbooks may be a worse habit than cigarettes. 

Even then, I get a cookbook and make a few recipes, and then it sits on the shelf and collects dust as I become infatuated and adulterous with the next latest book . Flavor of the week, if you will. I eventually go back to my old favorites, but I increasingly think that I could pare down my collection to a few staples. 

Back to the borrowing cookbooks. I found a place where you can just go borrow cookbooks. For free. You can keep them for 3 or 6 weeks and I think you can take up to 20 at a time! 

It’s called the library.

I am pretty sure I have not been to the library since Amelia Bedelia books. Oh, except for that three-year stint in college when I buried myself in the quiet stacks of the Benson studing Spanish poetry or the bustling PCL, coffee in one hand, stack of print Bacon’s books in the other – trying to create (what we thought was a) mock pr/ad campaign for a performing arts center that turned out to be real under a professor who turned out to be in charge of that project. For real. 

Anyhow, I think I heavy college books supressed memories of the endless interesting books I would bring home after trips to the library with my mom. There’s a library by our house and I popped in the other day, and found myself in the cookbook section. Floor to celing cookbooks.

I carefully picked one to start with: Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book. This would surely be a good way to use the whole milk that I accidentally bought.

First I made sweet cream. It was decent, not great. No fault to B&J, I just tried to make a lighter option by using less cream and more milk. 

Then, I made this recipe. It is fantastic. I took no shortcuts and am reaping all of the benefits. It tastes like a creamy, cold reese’s peanut butter cup that melts in your mouth. 

I know, I know, enough with the chocolate, lady. Chocolate’s mainstream, and a usual crowd-pleaser, so try it. Plus, go look in your freezer at your icecream container. It likely lists 30+ ingredients, often artificial, that are putting nothing but fillers and crap in your body. Try out this icecream, 8 fresh ingredients and you can pronounce all of them.

Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream,

from Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book

note: If you don’t have an icecream freezer, buy this one if you have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer already; if you don’t have a stand mixer, save yourself the expense and another kitchen appliance and follow Dave’s instructions.

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 c. milk

2 eggs

1 c. sugar

1 c. heavy whipping cream

1 t. vanilla extract

1 cup peanut buttter

Melt the unsweetened chocolate on top of a double boiler over hot, not boiling, water. Gradually whisk in the cocoa and heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. (The chocolate may “seize” or clump together. Don’t worry, the milk will dissolve it.) Whisk in the milk, a little at a time, and heat until completely blended. Remove from the heat and let cool. 

Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the cream and vanilla and whisk to blend. 

Pour the chocolate mixture into the cream mixture and blend. Blend in the peanut butter until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 1 to 2 hours, depending on your refrigerator. 

Transfer the chocolate mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s instructions (see note, above).

Original Post: https://saltimbocca.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/ben-and-jerrys…butter-iceream/