Yeah, I know; I should’ve posted this during summer when you were thinking about ice cream. Well here’s the thing: I always think about ice cream. I should fess up right away on this one and say that this isn’t my recipe, but Donald’s. He’s been wanging on about making an ultimate cookie dough ice cream recipe for ages and I’ll admit, I was kinda ‘meh’ about the idea. Then he made it and I had to eat my words which was tough going when my mouth was so rammed full of ice cream.

The real trick here is to infuse the milk with cookies overnight, in the same way as you’d make the cereal milk ice cream everyone went mad for a few years back. The result is that the whole thing tastes like cookies rather than just the chunks. It’s SO RICH. As rich as JK Rowling, or Snoop. He’s prob very rich, and I’m sure he likes ice cream, mainly because of this picture…

Anyway if you’re looking for an ultimate cookie dough ice cream recipe, this is it. I’m sure Snoop would say it’s the shiznit.

Ultimate Cookie Dough Ice Cream Recipe

For the brown butter cookies

255g unsalted butter
250g all-purpose flour
3g bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons good sea salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
140 g brown sugar
140g caster sugar
1 chocolate bar, smashed (I have nailed him down to 60% cocoa solids dark choc, prob standard Green & Blacks size)

Begin by browning the butter. Melt it in a pan with a light coloured base (so you can see the colour of the butter), giving it a swirl every now and then. It will turn a darker golden colour, and eventually a toasty brown. When it turns toasty brown and smells nutty, it is done. Remove from the heat and fridge it for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Mix the flour and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl. Add the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla to an electric mixer and mix. Add the brown sugar and butter, mix again. Add the flour and bicarbonate of soda mixture and mix again for no longer than 10 seconds.

Add the broken up chocolate, mix for another 10 seconds.

Blob cookies onto a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 mins.

For the ice cream

1 litre whole milk
3 egg yolks
250ml double cream

When the cookies are cool, break them up (reserving a few for chunks) and pour over 1 L of whole milk, cover and leave in the fridge overnight.

Strain off the milk, saving 500ml.

Put the milk into a pan and heat until just boiling. Whisk the egg yolks and slowly pour over the milk, whisking constantly. Add to a clean pan and stir until thickened. Set aside in a bowl with clingfilm touching the top until completely cool. Stir in the double cream.

Churn in an ice cream maker, adding the leftover cookies in chunks towards the end of churning.

I say this every year so I may as well say it again: it’s never too cold for ice cream. If you disagree with that statement, may I suggest that you turn up your central heating.

I’m always on the look out for new flavours and the inspiration for this one came from a bag of mini Daim that I picked up for my colleagues at Gothenburg airport. I’d forgotten how good they are and as always when I find myself enjoying something sweet, I immediately thought, ‘this could be good mixed into a shitload of frozen custard’.

It was very good indeed; a smooth ice cream with lots of crunchy, burnt-butter-caramel and chocolate pieces. It’s basically a posh McFlurry. Phwoar.

Daim Bar Ice Cream

600ml single cream
6 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
4 x full size Daim Bars

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy (this is easiest in an electric mixer). Heat the cream until almost boiling (watch for little bubbles forming around the sides) then pour the cream over the egg mixture in a thin, steady stream, whisking all the time.

Pour the custard into a clean saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly until it thickens slightly to coat the back of a wooden spoon. It is important to do this gently – if you overheat it, the eggs will start to cook and you’ll get little blobs of egg floating about in the mixture. Heat to 80C.

Decant into a bowl and cover with a piece of greaseproof paper, pushing the paper right down to cover the surface of the custard (this it to stop it forming a skin). When cool, chill for half an hour in the fridge.

Pour into an ice cream maker and churn. While this is happening, take a rolling pin and bash the (unopened) Daim Bars into pieces. Set some pieces aside for serving and add the rest to the ice cream towards the end of churning.