Growing up, each of my grandmothers had some signature desserts that my siblings and I always saved a little extra room for. I am lucky to have had two amazing grandmothers who also happened to be wonderful cooks and bakers too! My Grandma Joan is turning 80 this weekend so today I am sharing one of my favorite desserts that she makes.

It's easy to put together which is a nice contrast to a lot of other desserts that I like making (looking at you ice cream and cupcakes.) You can have this prepped, baked, and dishes done in under an hour. I am a huge fan of frozen desserts because not only are they delicious but they are also incredibly refreshing after a meal. This dessert is the perfect way to end a warm summer day and a great dessert to bring to parties.

Ingredients

- 2 tubes of Ritz Crackers

- 2 sticks melted butter/margarine

- 2 packages of instant pistachio pudding mix

- 1 quart vanilla ice cream, softened

- 16 ounces cool whip, divided in half

- 1.5 cups milk

- 1 cup crushed heath bars, or enough to cover top of dessert

Directions

Crust:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Crush crackers via your method of choice. I used a food processor. 

- Combine cracker crumbs and melted butter. Spread mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 glass pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Filling:

- Mix pudding, milk, one half of cool whip, and ice cream together

- Pour over cooled crust

- Freeze for 30 minutes

Topping:

- Remove pan from freezer and top with remaining half of cool whip

- Sprinkle the crushed Heath over the top

- Return to freezer until ready to eat

Remove from freezer 10-20 minutes before serving to make cutting easier.

Source: Family Recipe

I had high hopes to purge through my Pinterest boards this summer. While I have been able to clear many irrelevant, no longer useful, and "What was I thinking when I pinned this?" pins, I still have many more to delete-mainly recipes. I would like to try them though before they are removed. Hence ice cream all the time. 

This blueberry muffin ice cream was fairly simple to make and tasted pretty good. It wouldn't be one I would die to have again but if I did I would change a few things. 

For the Ice Cream:

3 cups half and half
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 egg yolks
3/4 tsp kosher salt
4 oz butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup blueberry compote or jam
3 tablespoons cinnamon streusel

Simmer the butter on medium heat until takes on a nice golden brown color then let it cool to room temperature. In a large pot, bring the half and half, sugar, and salt* up to an almost boil over medium high heat.

Whisk together the yolks.
 To temper the eggs, carefully whisk in about 1 cup of the hot liquid into the egg mixture until smooth. Then whisk the egg mixture into the remaining amount of half and half in the pot. Return to medium low heat, and cook up to 170 degrees F, constantly stirring along the bottom of the pot to ensure even cooking.
Once it has reached the 170, remove from heat and whisk in the vanilla and brown butter.

Strain through a wire mesh strainer to catch any egg chunks if some had cooked.

Allow to cool to about room temperature and place in the fridge.

Mix it in your ice cream maker. Once firm, pour the ice cream into a bowl and fold in the blueberry compote and then the streusel so it ribbons through it. Put in a container and freeze until firm. Enjoy!

*The original recipe said to mix the sugar and salt with the eggs but I found this to be somewhat gritty. If I were to make it again, I would definitely mix them with the half and half over heat so they can dissolve.




For the Compote:
4 cups blueberries
3 limes- juiced
2 cups sugar

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then heat over a medium flame until the blueberries liquify and the mixture appears like a syrup. Pour into the jars, tighten the lids, and flip upside-down until room temp. Keep refrigerated.

This is what happens when you use 2 time the amount of blueberries that you should.

For the Streusel:
1/2 cup flour
2 oz butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Using your fingers or a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon and then mix in the butter until crumbly. Place on a baking sheet with a silicone mat and bake at 350 F for 10 minutes. Break apart and mix the streusel up, and bake for another 10 minutes or until golden brown. Crumble and cool.

I could eat ice cream all the time, but it is definitely the most refreshing in the warm summer months. I chose this recipe off my Pinterest board, Ice Creams, Sorbets, and Popsicles mainly because I had everything on hand and it is hard to find time to go to the store when you work 40+ hours a week. I had to modify the recipe slightly because I used some of the heavy cream when I made buttercream icing. I also substituted the dark cocoa powder for regular cocoa powder but I still used Hershey's. I used dark chocolate chips instead of cutting up chunks of chocolate and finally I failed to put any other goodies in the ice cream but sprinkled chopped cashews and strawberries on top.

I made the mixture early Friday morning, let it chill and then threw it in the ice cream maker Friday afternoon. 

Side note: the woman who I linked the recipe to has the same ice cream maker. She linked it to Amazon and turns out it was originally a $110 dollar machine. I got mine for free from my boyfriend who got it in a box full of other kitchen appliances at an auction for $3 because they already had an identical machine from a different auction. So that's a win. By the way, the machine works great and it's so nice that you don't actually need ice to make the ice cream!

Result? OH MY WORD! D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Seriously some of the best chocolate ice cream I've ever had in my completely biased opinion. It was rich and creamy and refreshing and all things perfect about chocolate and ice cream. Now honestly, it's chocolate ice cream which is something you can find at basically any place that has food. So while I would get more ice cream faster and cheaper from a store, I still enjoyed the process of trying the recipe and would probably do it again. I also think this ice cream tasted much richer than store bought...but this would depend on the brand you buy.