Thursday, April 23, 2015

Pure (Delicious) Magic: Ice Cream Bread


Though it was never my strongest subject in school, one thing I do love when I am baking is when it gets science-y. Science was always a pretty neutral subject to me. It wasn't nearly as terrifying as math, as torturous as gym class, as lame as health class, or as tedious as history. It couldn't compare to the awesomeness that was English class, art class, or music class (in my opinion, of course) either, though. It was always just somewhere in the middle - a class I didn't love but didn't hate either.

Which is why it's funny that I am such a big baking fan. Baking is science when you break it down. You'd think science would have been higher on my list. Stranger things have happened, I suppose.

But back to my original statement. When baking and science REALLY come together, I find it fascinating. One example of crazy science-y baking is what I have to share with you today. And that, my friends, is the phenomenon of ice cream bread.


Ice cream what, you ask?

Yes, you heard me.

Ice cream bread.

Perhaps it is not science-y at all, but to me, when you combine just two ingredients (in this case, ice cream and flour) and they create something like bread, it's definitely like a science experiment gone awesome.


I've made this once before just to see what would happen. Mostly because I didn't believe it would actually work. Oh but it did! The last time I made this, I made a black raspberry bread and a strawberry banana bread. The strawberry banana one was okay, the flavors were almost too subtle. The black raspberry, however, was delicious!


So I definitely recommend using an ice cream that is stronger in flavor. But really, you could use your imagination here and try all kinds of flavors - coffee, strawberry cheesecake, chocolate, mint chocolate chip, you name it!

This time around I went with cookies an creme because why not? Then I put a row of Oreos in the middle because why the heck not?

Side note: I did double the recipe below for this one as I wanted to layer Oreos in the middle. I spread half of the dough into the pan, lined up my Oreos two by two, and then spread the second half of the dough on top.

The creme part was subtle, it almost created a simple muffin base kind of taste, but the little bits of cookie chunks throughout the bread added the little burst of chocolate it needed. And the Oreos in the middle? Dreamy, my friends.


Have any of you done this before? If so, tell me about your experience. What flavors did you make? How did it turn out?


Ice Cream Bread

Ingredients
  • 1 pint (2 cups) of your favorite ice cream, softened 
  • 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour (if all you have is all purpose, simply add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt!)
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl (or in your mixer), mix flour and ice cream until combined.
  3. Spread mixture into greased loaf pan.
  4. Bake 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out of loaf clean.