So Long, Summer: Almond Butter Ice Cream Bread

 

Do you have leftover ice cream in your freezer that you don’t know what to do with now that summer is ending? Do you have five gallons of custom-made almond butter ice cream that your significant other gifted you?  Well, have I got the recipe for you. 

You can make bread out of ice cream!

I first learned about this from Rasa Malaysia’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough bread.  The recipe calls for two ingredients: ice cream and self-raising flour, so I was a little skeptical at first.  Wouldn’t it just out to just become a puddle of warm melted ice cream? How would this work?  But since I had tons of almond butter ice cream left, I didn’t have much to lose.  I didn’t have self-rising flour, so I followed the tips from the recipe and used a mixture of all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt. 

Turns out ice cream makes great bread!  This bread was so moist and rich, you could never tell that it was made out of ice cream. I sliced up the bread and brought it to book club, where it was a hit.  (Here’s a tip, when bringing a loaf of bread or cake, or other dessert that involves slicing, to a party, slice it up at home and arrange it aesthetically on a plate, preferably a disposable one, cover it in foil, and bring it to the party.  This way, no one will notice that the slice you ate to “test” it, is gone!) Next time, I’m going to make these into muffins – who says you can’t have ice cream for breakfast?

Almond Butter Ice Cream Bread

Adapted from Rasa Malaysia

Ingredients:

• 2 to 3 cups almond butter ice cream (or any flavor), softened* See note
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• Cooking spray

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix softened ice cream and flour mixture until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.  Pour batter into an 8” x 4” loaf pan.  Bake for about 60 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Note:

I did not wait long enough to soften the ice cream.  (What can I say, I’m impatient.)  So when I mixed the 2 cups of ice cream  the recipe called for, I found the batter was dry and crumbly.  So I kept adding more and more ice cream.  Then the ice cream melted a little, and the batter was probably too wet, which might be why it took so long to bake.  So I recommend starting with two cups of softened ice cream, and adding more bit by bit until you get the sticky bread batter consistency.