Homegrown Peanut Butter Style

It's Homegrown Gourmet time and Katie at KBK Bakery is hosting this month's round. Little did she know~ her choice of Peanut Butter was actually an homage to St. Louis... Goodness knows, you can't appreciate a food if you don't know its history. I'm starting to think that the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis is the Bermuda Triangle of Food~


"C.H. Sumner was the first to introduce peanut butter to the world at the Universal Exposition of 1904 in St. Louis. He sold $705.11 of the treat at his concession stand and peanut butter was on its way to becoming an American favorite!" And to keep things in perspective, in 1904 the average U.S. salary was 22 cents an hour; the average annual salary was $200-400 per year. So that's a lot of peanut butter. It was obviously a hit.

I figured the only way to best honor Peanut Butter for Homegrown Gourmet was to incorporate it with some other well known World's Fair food folklore. Everyone has heard the story about ice cream and the ice cream cone, right? Supposedly, ice cream was the big hit of the fair (there were over 50 ice cream vendors selling a total of 5000 gallons of ice cream per day) and a vendor ran out of dishes to serve it in. So he teamed up with a waffle vendor nearby who rolled his waffles into cones. No one knows exactly what happened for sure, but much like peanut butter, it wasn't until the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair that the treat gained widespread popularity.



Confession: I don't have a waffle maker. I'll have to put it on my food toys wish list. I actually made ice cream bowls instead. I thought chocolate would be the perfect pairing for peanut butter so I used our own MO Hometown Chocolate Hero Askinosie Cocoa powder. I also wanted the ice cream to be as rich as possible so I used the most local milk I could get my hands on- Oberweiss who uses glass bottles, low temperature pasteurization and does not to treat their cows with rBGH. I actually prefer Oberweiss to Organic- you can read why at the link. I also used eggs from a local free-range farm. I honestly think quality milk, cream and eggs are the key to great ice cream. And I made my own peanut butter so it doesn't get any more local than that...



Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in Chocolate Bowls
Ice Cream:
makes 1 Quart/ 2 Pints

3/4 cup Brown Sugar
3 large Eggs
1 cup Whole Milk
3/4 cup Peanut Butter* (I used Alton Brown's recipe but definitely use a local fave if you have one!)
1 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
2 t Vanilla
20 miniature Peanut Butter Cups, frozen and quartered (I froze them to make it easier to quarter them and then put them back in the freezer until I was ready to add them to the ice cream)

Whisk together (I used a handheld mixer) sugar and eggs in a bowl until well incorporated and frothy, 3 minutes. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, bring milk to a simmer over low heat. You will just begin to see heat/ steam and should be able to smell the milk cooking. Be careful NOT to boil the milk or overcook, you just want it at simmer. Gently drizzle a small amount of the warm milk into the egg/ sugar mixture while whisking vigorously. You are tempering the eggs without cooking them. It's important to be patient here and just drizzle in small amounts of milk while constantly whisking to bring up the temperature of the eggs. Once the milk is completely incorporated into the eggs, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and continue to simmer over lowest heat setting. Stirring constantly the mixture will thicken slightly, 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and whisk in peanut butter. Allow to cool for a few minutes so that mixture is closer to room temp. Whisk in cream and then vanilla. Mixture should be well incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Can sit overnight if you want to make ahead.

Remove mixture from the refrigerator and pour into prepared ice cream maker. I'm using the Cuisinart which has a bowl you freeze ahead. I let the ice cream churn for 30 minutes. Fold in chopped peanut butter cups. The ice cream was ready to eat but I put it into containers to harden a little more in the freezer.

Chocolate Bowls:
makes 8 bowls

1/3 cup AP Flour
2 T Cocoa Powder
1/4 t Salt
2 large Eggs
1/2 cup Sugar
4 T unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
3 T Milk
1/2 t Vanilla

Preheat oven for 400 degrees. Place a sheet of wax paper on the counter and have small bowls (I used ramekins) turned upside down on it, ready to place the cooked chocolate crepes on. Prepare a sheet pan with a silicone pad/ Silpat.

Sift together flour, cocoa and salt in separate bowl. In mixer bowl, whisk together eggs and sugar until well incorporated and frothy, 3 minutes. Add melted butter, milk and vanilla until just incorporated. Gently add in flour mixture, careful not to overmix. The final batter will resemble a thin pancake batter, very similar to crepes. Scoop a conservative 1/4 cup of batter onto the silpat and gently spread out into an approx. 6 inch circle. You want the batter to be very thin but enough to coat so that it isn't translucent anywhere. Bake for 7 to 10 minutes, depending upon how crispy you want your bowl. I baked mine until the edges started to noticeably turn brown. Using a large flat metal spatula, pick up the crepes and place them on the upturned bowls. Gently push them down to form around the sides of the bowl. I put another ramekin on top of the crepe to keep the sides down while they cooled. Think ramekin sandwich. Bowls are best used the same day. If not- place in the refrigerator until ready to use. Reheat at 400 degrees for just 3 minutes.



Coming Clean
I really wanted to make this ice cream for the holiday weekend as the hubby was going to be home to visit. TOBAC, who is considered the authority on all things peanut butter in this household, declared this the best peanut butter ice cream he has ever eaten. Which is actually saying a lot because he is also an ice cream freak. He is always completely honest when it comes to my creations, love it or hate it. I try to love him anyway. He wasn't as big of a fan of the chocolate bowls for the ice cream, but Monkey liked them so I win some, I lose some. I think he would have liked them more if they had the waffle texture and had been fried versus baked. So I may have no-so-subtly hinted at what a great birthday present a waffle maker would make. Ya know, to go with my new ice cream maker. Hint. Hint. And yes, my new obsession is ice cream. Tis the season. Consider yourself warned. This may become an ice cream blog. Yes, I am actually not packing my ice cream maker so I can keep it with me until we move. Obsess much? That's me.

Be sure to check out the final Homegrown Gourmet round-up which will be posted at KBK Bakery!