Macheesmo

Peaches and cream!  One of the most classic combinations that I can think of.  Well, it’s at least a classic R&B song (sound) if nothing else.

When it comes to ice cream, I’m usually a traditionalist.  I like really good vanilla ice cream.  Just plain with maybe a bit of cinnamon on it.  Don’t mess with it too much, ya know?

But for peach week, I had to change it up a bit and my huge box of peaches was practically yelling at me: “CHURN US, DUDE!”

So churn I did.  The fun part about this recipe is that there isn’t any custard base so it’s a really simple ice cream recipe.  Perfect for the beginner ice cream maker.

Buttermilk Peach Ice Cream

by Nick

Serves:

About 6 cups

Prep Time:

20 mins

Total Time:

50 mins

Print Recipe

Rate This Recipe

Just a moment please...

Helpful Equipment:

Did you make this?

Snap a photo and tag @macheesmo so I can see your work.

No eggs needed for this quick and simple peach ice cream recipe!

Adapted from a Homesick Texan Recipe.

Ingredients

2 pounds whole peaches (5-6), peeled and diced

1 Cup sugar

1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon

1 Teaspoon vanilla

2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 Tablespoon bourbon (opt.)

Pinch of salt

2 Cups heavy cream

1 Cup buttermilk

Instructions

1) To peel peaches, cut a “X” on the bottom of each peach and dip them in boiling water for 30 seconds.  Let them cool and then the skins should just peel right off.

2) Dice peaches and add them to a bowl with other ingredients except cream and buttermilk.  Let macerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to one day.

3) Puree 2 cups of peach mixture and stir in with cream and buttermilk.

4) Churn cream mixture with ice cream maker.

5) Once ice cream is a soft serve consistency, stir in other peach pieces.  Mix well.

6) Freeze ice cream, stirring every 30 minutes to break up ice crystals and  make sure ice cream is freezing slowly.  After stirring a few times, you can let it freeze solid.

Dealing with Peaches

We’ve dealt with a lot of peaches this week and we aren’t done yet.  What’s always fun about doing a week of recipes around one ingredient is that I completely learn that ingredient by the end of the week.  I know its oddities and flavor profiles.

As far as peaches go, I can peel them, dice them, pit them, and pair them without any problem these days.  Besides the fresh peaches, this recipe has some other great flavors going on as well.

When it comes to peeling peaches, the easiest way to do it is to cut an “X” on the bottom of each peach and then dunk them in boiling water for 30 seconds.  When you pull the peaches out and let them cool off, you should be able to just rub off the skin.  They literally just slide right off.

Pretty cool stuff.

Last minute I decided to put some bourbon in this ice cream because, hey, why not right?

Once your peaches are peeled, just cut off as much flesh as you can and dice up the peaches.  Then add the peaches to a bowl with the bourbon, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.  Let the peaches sit and macerate in this liquid for at least 30 minutes, but you could make this part of the recipe hours before you want ice cream.

Churning the Cream

If you’ve ever made ice cream before, you’ll know that it usually involves making a custard with eggs and milk.  This recipe has none of that business.  It’s just cream, buttermilk, and our peaches.  I was worried that the consistency would be a bit off, but it was completely fine.  Maybe not quite as smooth as a custard based ice cream, but I liked it all the same.

Take about two cups of your peach mixture and add it to food processor.  Process it until it’s a puree.  You don’t want any chunks at all at this point.  You’re going for a really nice puree.

Stir this puree in with the cream and buttermilk and get it all churning in your ice cream maker.  Personally, I’ve used the Kitchenaid attachment a few times now with pretty solid results.

Follow the instructions for your ice cream maker to make sure you let it churn long enough.  Mine needed to churn for about 20 minutes before it was set up enough.

Finishing the Ice Cream

Once your ice cream base is a nice soft serve consistency, pour it into a large dish and stir in the other peaches and all the liquid.

This is when this recipe gets awesome!

To be honest, I thought this recipe tasted the best as a soft serve ice cream.  It was perfect like this if you ask me.

But, assuming you aren’t a weirdo, you’ll want to freeze your ice cream solid.  While it’s not completely necessary, I recommend taking the ice cream out of the freezer ever thirty minutes and giving it a good stir.  This will just make sure that you don’t have any huge ice crystals in your ice cream.  Stirring it up will help it freeze slowly and your final ice cream will have a better consistency.

After you stir it two or three times then you can just let it freeze solid.

This recipe makes a lot of ice cream, but that definitely wasn’t a problem for me.

I eat it three scoops at a time.

This is the perfect ice cream for someone who wants to start making their own.  There’s no custard to make or anything too tricky about it.  Just mix some stuff together, churn it up, and you’ll be well-rewarded.

Has anyone tried buttermilk ice cream before?  I thought it was really good!