Peanut Butter Coffee Ice Cream

I know many of you read the title of this post, and wondered if I had gone mad with this combination of ingredients in an ice cream. 

But seriously it is amazing.  Kind of like, you can't judge a book by its cover, or a girl simply by her pretty face.  You must read further into things.  I always say I will try any food once as long as it is vegetarian.  Today at my work, a woman asked me to sample the sesame kale, telling me she needed to eat more healthy greens but didn't care for them.  She kind of had this look of disgust as she held them up to her mouth, but that quickly changed when she took a bite then said "Wow!  These are really good!"  Just goes to show that things aren't always as they appear or what we perceive them as.  So back to the ice cream, all I can say is it was damn delicious! 

So how did I come up with this combination?  Well, I have known that peanut butter and sweet coffee are delicious together for a long time.  One day a couple years back I was drinking some english toffee coffee and I had taken a bite of peanut butter before I took a sip and I was amazed at how good it was!  I thought, I have something here, this needs to be made into a dessert.  So last year I had made some cupcakes with those flavors and they turned out wonderfully.  Last week I was reminded of the combination, and I decided it needed to become ice cream. 

I made infused my vegan ice cream base with coffee and added peanut butter for silkyness as well of a bit of vanilla for a sweet quality.  It was delicious once churned, so smooth and a rich flavor of coffee and vanilla with the nutty peanut butter. 

I decided though that I needed to make it over the top and add something crunchy and salty as a garnish, so I made some salted coffee peanut brittle.  Altogether it was amazing!  If you don't believe me here is the recipe for you to try it yourself!

Peanut Butter Coffee Ice Cream

Makes about 4+ cups

1 cup lite organic coconut milk

2 Tbsp freshly ground coffee

2 cups organic full fat coconut milk, chilled

3/4 cup peanut butter

3/4 cup agave nectar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp coffee extract

1/8 tsp sea salt

salted coffee peanut brittle to serve (recipe follows)

Place lite coconut milk and coffee grounds in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and chill until very cold to allow coffee to steep, then strain to remove grounds.  Pour strained milk into a blender and combine with all ingredients except brittle, and process until well blended.  Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and process according to package directions (mine takes about an hour, and is still a little soupy like the consistency of a malt, but firms up in the freezer later). Once processed, pour into a freezable container with a lid and place in the freezer for at least a few hours, or overnight to firm up for best results.  Serve with salted coffee peanut brittle.

Salted Coffee Peanut Brittle:

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp sea salt

1 Tbsp freshly ground good quality coffee

1 1/2 cups roasted peanuts

Fleur de sel

Lay out a piece of foil and spray with non-stick spray.  Heat sugar over high heat in a non-stick skillet with 2 tsp sea salt, until sugar begins to melt.  Stir with a rubber spatula to evenly melt sugar and add coffee and peanuts.  Stir to coat, and pour onto foil, spreading into a thin layer.  Sprinkle with fleur de sel and let cool completely.  Break into pieces (about a cup broken into very small pieces to be stirred into ice cream), you will have extra for serving and snacking.