Sunday, April 10, 2011

My Award-Winning Lucky Charms Ice Cream


My friends Brittany and Bryan invited me to a BYOIC party. BYOIC as in bring-your-own-ice-cream party. It was Bryan's 31st birthday, and that calls for an ice cream-themed party! Duh! They mentioned in the invite that there'd be prizes for the best flavors. Well, I had no idea what others were bringing. What if they brought the same flavor I brought! (Gosh, have I always been this competitive?) So I decided to invent a flavor to make from scratch, and the weirder the better.

Presenting: Lucky Charms Ice Cream. Because why not? The cereal is sugary and delicious. And you know how when you eat a bowl of cereal, there's typically a little bit of milk at the bottom of the bowl after you've already eaten the last of the cereal bits? And that milk takes on the flavor of the cereal? That flavored milk is what I wanted for this ice cream!


So next up was figuring out how to recreate that flavor. What I decided to do was steep two cups of Lucky Charms in a hot mixture of cream, milk, sugar, and salt, then strain out the soggy cereal (because who likes soggy cereal?), and then when the ice cream was churning in the ice cream maker and almost done, toss in fresh Lucky Charms marshmallows, which I had handpicked out of the cereal box.


It worked! I can't believe it! It worked! The ice cream really does taste like Lucky Charms! And it's not gross at all! It's quite delicious! And it's light green in color because during the steeping process, the colors from the marshmallows sort of melted into the mixture and green was the prominent color.

The amazing, exhaustive toppings bar
prepared by Brittany and Bryan


I brought the ice cream to the party Saturday night, having only churned it a few hours earlier. It could have used a day to firm up in the freezer, but I ran out of time. So when people tasted the ice cream, it was VERY soft serve. Still, they got the idea. And at voting time, it won second place! Out of what must have been 20 flavors! It lost only to a homemade chocolate strawberry ice cream my friends Alison and Dan brought. Can't complain there. :-) And my prize? Baskin Robbins gift certificates. How apropos.

Lucky Charms Ice Cream, my award-winning invention. Who would have thought?


Lucky Charms Ice Cream
Recipe by Happy Go Marni
Makes about 1 1/2 quarts

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk (whole milk is preferable but I used 1% because it's all I had and it worked fine)
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups Lucky Charms cereal (cereal bits and marshmallows combined)
1 1/2 cups Lucky Charms marshmallows (separate them out of the box)

In a saucepan, heat 1 cup cream and the milk, sugar, and salt until very hot. Remove from heat, add the 2 cups of Lucky Charms cereal, cover with a lid, and allow the cereal to steep and flavor the mixture for at least 25 minutes, up to an hour.

Place a strainer over a heat-proof bowl and pour the mixture through to strain out the soggy cereal. Remove the strainer. Add the remaining 1 cup cream and the vanilla. Stir. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in fridge to chill overnight.

Churn ice cream in your ice cream maker. When the mixture has thickened significantly and is almost done (about 3 minutes before done), toss in the 1 1/2 cups Lucky Charms marshmallows. As soon as they appear incorporated into the ice cream, turn off the machine and transfer to a container to freeze so the ice cream can firm up a bit. Serve and enjoy!


Step-by-Step in Pictures
Heat 1 cup cream, the milk, sugar, and salt in a saucepan...

Once the milk mixture is hot, remove from the stove, pour in two cups of Lucky Charms, and cover to steep for 25 minutes to an hour...

When the Lucky Charms are done steeping, they'll look like this...

Strain the Lucky Charms out of the mixture over a heat-proof bowl...

Add the remaining cup of cream and the vanilla...

Stir, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight...

Handpick marshmallows out of the cereal box to prepare for folding into the ice cream at the end...

Pour the ice cream mixture into the ice cream maker...

Let the ice cream get pretty thick, about 20 minutes...

Toss in the marshmallows when the thickness of the ice cream is just about ready...

Continue churning with the marshmallows until they are fully incorporated, 2-3 minutes...

Transfer to a container to store in the freezer...

Scoop up and enjoy!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it was sooo good!!!

Unknown said...

This is so creative!

Carolyn Jung said...

Man, Momofuku Milk Bar and Humphry Slocombe have nothing on you. Lucky Charms ice cream is crazy fun. OK, so what did you do with the leftover cereal after you picked out all the colorful marshmallows? LOL

Marni said...

Erica - you are so sweet! And brave to try it! :)

Crystal - You should make this for Jonathan!!

Carolyn - So funny. When I was separating the marshmallows from the grain cereal pieces, I was putting the cereal pieces in a glass measuring cup because it would be easy to pour them back into the box afterward. Of course, my next few bowls of cereal are going to be very disproportionate in favor of grain. Oh well! I'll still eat it. :)

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