Pear & Caramel Toffee Ice Cream

I had some vanilla soy milk and overripe pears on hand wondering what I could do to prevent throwing them out. Since I’ve been on an ice cream kick lately, I decided to make another ice cream!

I flipped through my Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert book for some inspiration and soon remembered awhile back, Haagen Daz featured a Caramelized Pear & Toasted Pecan flavor. With this in mind, I made Ben & Jerry’s sweet cream ice cream base and mixed in mashed pears and swirled in caramel sprinkles which includes bits of toffee.

I made some adaptations to the original sweet cream base recipe by using vanilla soy milk (instead of whole milk) in hopes to save a few calories and fat… but the rich, creamy texture came through. You wouldn’t have thought that this even used vanilla soy milk!

Sweet Cream Base:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup vanilla soy milk

Fresh fruit flavoring:
2 overripe d’anjou pears, peeled, seeded & mashed
2 overripe bartlett pears, peeled, seeded & mashed
1/4 cup caramel sprinkles

Sweet cream base:

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minuutes.

Whisk in the 3/4 cup sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more.

Pour in the cream and milk; whisk to blend and set aside.

Adding the fresh fruit:

In a large bowl, mash both kinds of pears.

Add the mashed pears and caramel sprinkles to the sweet cream base.

Whisk mixture to fully incorporate.

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Transfer your ice cream into a freezeable container and freeze for a few hours to allow flavors to blend.