Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Swirl Ice Cream: If you’re a peanut butter lover, you will flip out over this homemade ice cream flavor! It’s smooth and creamy peanut butter ice cream loaded up with peanut butter cups and a swirl of thick and rich hot fudge sauce. And it’s DIVINE!

Every summer, you can find me standing in front of our local ice cream stand hemming and hawing. I am the worst decision maker, especially when it comes to choosing an ice cream flavor. It’s a good thing it can sometimes take 20 or more minutes to make it to the front of line!

And surprisingly enough, peanut butter cup ice cream isn’t ever a flavor that I choose, despite how much I love all things peanut butter. Like this peanut butter frosting. And these honey roasted peanut butter cookies.

Honestly, I like to make peanut butter ice cream at home. You know, to ensure that I’m going to love it. Because when have I not loved homemade ice cream? Right, never. 

So when this particular recipe crossed my path, I was all over it! For a long time, I’ve wanted to make peanut butter ice cream with a custard base. The addition of egg yolks in an ice cream recipe cooked into a custard ensures the ice cream will be super creamy. This peanut butter ice cream recipe is made with eggs, unlike my usual recipe.

And I had a super fun afternoon teaching my mom how to make ice cream with this recipe to prepare her for her first batch with the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment I gave her for Mother’s Day. 

We added a hot fudge swirl and chopped up peanut butter cups to the churned ice cream to round out my idea of the perfect ice cream and she had a blast making ice cream from scratch. What an awesome feeling to teach my teacher!

Following our pulled pork and bacon ranch potato salad dinner, this family of peanut butter lovers collectively sighed over this ice cream. It’s a good thing I skipped lunch that day! 

The peanut butter is a bold flavor here and the addition of the fudge sauce and peanut butter cups truly put this ice cream over the edge!  I had to beg Kyle before I left for Vermont on Sunday to save some for me to photograph after getting home. And he commented yesterday that it took every ounce of his will power to not finish it. 

Good luck with your own will power after trying this – it won’t be easy!

Inspired to Make More Peanut Butter Ice Cream?

If you’re inspired by all of this peanut butter talk to make more peanut butter ice cream, you may want to try my peanut butter Oreo ice cream, this eggless, no cook peanut butter ice cream, my favorite ice cream cake with peanut butter cookies and cream ice cream, and this amazing no churn chocolate peanut butter cup ice cream. And although this tin roof ice cream isn’t specifically peanut butter ice cream, there are peanuts in it, so you may like that one too!

Any of those ice cream flavors, including this homemade peanut butter cup ice cream, would be outstanding in a homemade waffle cone or bowl!

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Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Swirl Ice Cream

Yield: about 1 ½ quarts

Active Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Chilling Time: 10 hours

Total Time: 10 hours 25 minutes

Peanut butter cup fudge swirl ice cream is for the most serious of peanut butter-chocolate lovers. I'm with you, friends! This decadent dessert is made up of creamy peanut butter ice cream, swirled with homemade hot fudge sauce, and studded with peanut butter cups. Homemade ice cream making doesn't get much better than this! See my Recommended Products list below for the ice cream maker I love to use.

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Ingredients

• 5 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• 12 tbsp granulated sugar, divided (¾ cup in total)
• ⅓ cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 ¾ cups heavy cream
• ¾ cup whole milk
• ½ tsp Kosher salt
• ½ cup hot fudge sauce, just slightly warmed (homemade works great here!)
• 6 oz mini peanut butter cups, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)

Instructions

1. In a medium heatproof bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks and 6 tbsp (¼ cup + 2 tbsp) sugar together, just to incorporate the sugar and break up the yolks; set aside. In a large heatproof bowl, add the peanut butter. Set a mesh strainer over the large bowl and set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat, warm the remaining sugar, cream, milk, and the salt until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture just begins to steam; reduce the heat to medium.
3. Using a ladle, spoon about ¼ cup of the cream mixture in slow stream into the egg mixture, whisking constantly to avoid cooking the eggs. Repeat until the temperature of the egg mixture just about matches the temperature of the cream mixture. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and whisk it into the cream mixture.
4. Cook the mixture, stirring constantly with a rubber heatproof spatula, until it thickens and coats the spatula, about 5 minutes. Carefully pour the custard base through the strainer and whisk it into the peanut butter until it becomes a cohesive mixture (there may be some peanut butter bits remaining, which is ok). Set the bowl in an ice water bath (a larger bowl with ice water in it) and stir the custard occasionally until it cools. Cover the bowl and chill the custard in the refrigerator for 4 hours or up to overnight.
5. Freeze the custard in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. As you pour the ice cream into the storage container, stir in dollops of the hot fudge sauce and handfuls of the chopped peanut butter cups. Freeze the ice cream in the freezer for at least 6 hours before serving.

Notes

adapted from Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones

Recommended Products

As a member of the Amazon Associate affiliate program, I earn a small percentage from your qualifying Amazon purchases when you click the Amazon links on this page. I'm not informed of who purchases what, just of what products are purchased.

• 
  Breville Smart Scoop Ice Cream Maker
• 
  Tovolo Tight-Fitting, Stack-Friendly, Sweet Treat Ice Cream Tub, Pistachio
• 
  Solula 18/8 Stainless Steel Large Ice Cream Scoop - 4 Tablespoons

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