Each summer, my family goes on a canoe trip near Van Buren, Mo., along the Current River. One of our camp site traditions is to make homemade Butterfinger ice cream the first night by the camp fire. It requires lugging a cooler full of heavy ingredients and an ice cream maker, but at first bite, we know it’s worth it!
Homemade Butterfinger Ice Cream
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups peanut butter, melted
1 cup raw sugar
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
3 to 4 regular sized Butterfinger candy bars, frozen
1/8 tsp real vanilla extract
1 pint heavy whipping cream or half-and-half (if desired, for richer ice cream)
1 gallon milk (whole or 2 percent)
Crush candy bars in a plastic bag (a rolling pin does a great job). Mix all ingredients except whole milk in a bowl. Reserve some crushed candy for ice cream topping. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and add whole milk to the container’s fill line.
Place the container into your ice cream bucket, adding layers of ice and rock salt around it. Prepare according to your ice cream freezer’s instructions.
Yields about 1 1/2 gallons.
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MORE ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS:
In the recipe above, we used whole milk from the Jersey cows at Emrich Family Creamery in Wheaton, Kan. (785-396-4347). It’s the richest, creamiest, most delicious milk we’ve ever tasted! If you have access to milk this good, you can definitely forgo the extra cream in the recipe.
We also used freshly ground peanut butter and raw sugar from the bulk department at People’s Grocery Co-op in Manhattan, Kan. (785-539-4811).
Our farm-fresh eggs come from the freely roaming birds at Janulis Farmstead in Zeandale, Kan. You can find them at the Manhattan, Kan. farmers market in summertime. These eggs were tested by an independent nutrition lab, and were found to be nutrionally superior to conventional supermarket eggs. Learn more at the Mother Earth News Chicken & Egg Page.
We always use certified fair trade vanilla extract. The production of vanilla is extremely labor-intensive, and its industry has been notoriously hard on farm workers and fragile environments. Learn more about fairly traded vanilla.
To find superior dairy products in your area, search by ZIP code or city and state at Local Harvest or Eat Wild.
Though none were available at our local grocery co-op at the time of making this recipe, a Google search reveals that there are now organic brands of evaporated and sweetened condensed milk on the market. If you’ve tried these products and want to report on your experience with them, please use the comments section below.
