Coffee Heath Bar ice cream recipe

Coffee Heath Bar Ice Cream

Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is my kryptonite.  The women in my family have a thing for coffee ice cream and when toffee is added in, well that’s just heaven on earth.  Every time my sister and I go to an ice cream shop, we try and recreate the taste of the original, but it’s never the same; that is until I decided to experiment.  

Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is all about the coffee ice cream.  You cannot have a perfect replica if you don’t have good ice cream to start with.  The first time I made coffee ice cream it was a complete failure.  While it was tasty, the coffee flavor was overpowering.  I vividly remember cleaning my house at 3 in the morning in a caffeine induced coma - never again.  After coming down from my caffeine high (4 months later), I tried to give it another go.  Sitting with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, watching TV, pondering the mystery that is Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, I decided to look at the ingredients.  It was like spotlight from above magically shown down upon me…yes!  Coffee extract!  Why in the heck didn’t I think about this before?!  

While I wasn’t sure where I could find real coffee extract, I knew I could find coffee syrup (think Autocrat, Coffeetime, Eclipse).  Coffee syrup is a very New England product.  It’s made from coffee extract and sugar.  We would always keep a bottle of it around for coffee milk or coffee milkshakes when I was a kid.  Sure enough, that’s what put my ice cream over the top.  It’s the perfect blend of sweetness and coffee.  If you’re a lover of coffee ice cream, I promise this is better than any premium brand you can buy.

Coffee Heath Bar Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
6 egg yolks at room temperature
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup coffee syrup
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
1 bag or about 30 pieces Hershey’s Heath Bar snack size, lightly crushed

Prepare an ice water bath to cool the ice cream custard.  

In a heavy bottomed pot, combine whole milk, cream, ½ cup sugar and coffee.  Heat over medium heat until just simmering.  

Meanwhile, whisk egg yolks with remaining sugar until light in color; about 1 minute.  

Carefully, pour a light stream of the milk mixture into the egg yolks while continuously whisking.  If you pour all of the hot milk in at once, you’ll get scrambled eggs.  Yuck.  Once they are combined, pour the whole mixture back into the pot.  Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a wooden spoon.  When the custard is finished, it will coat the back of the wooden spoon and when you run your finger down the back of the utensil, the custard will not run.  If you have a thermometer, the mixture will be around 175 to 180 degrees.  This process could take about 10 minutes to complete.  

Pour the custard through a fine sieve or strainer into a large bowl.  Place the bowl in the already prepared ice bath and stir to cool.  Once the ice cream is cool, place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the custard and refrigerate overnight.  Prepare the ice cream in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions, adding the crushed Heath Bar during the last 5 minutes.  Enjoy!