Tin Roof

I was flipping through The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz looking for some ice cream inspiration. The recipe for Tin Roof ice cream caught my eye as I have never heard of this before but there wasn't anything to dislike with the vanilla ice cream mixed with fudge and sprinkled with chocolate covered peanuts. That sounded delicious so I set out to use that combination for my next creation.

Rating: 4 scoops

Overall, this was a pretty good ice cream but I wasn't the biggest fan of the peanuts. They were chunks of peanuts so I was getting big mouthfuls at a time and distracting from the rest of the ice cream. Perhaps if the peanuts were individually coated, that would have helped. My favorite part was the fudge ripple - the blobs of rich fudge are a nice contrast to the smooth vanilla ice cream. I would eat the fudge ripple by the spoonful if it didn't have so much sugar in it!

When I told Mel I was going to make this flavor, she said it reminded her of a Blue Bell flavor. Sure enough, I found some references that it was available in 2017 and 2019 but it is not a current flavor. As for how it got its name - I wasn't able to find much information online. I did see a reference on Wikipedia that it was first created as a sundae in 1916 in Nebraska. The sundae consisted of vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and peanuts. Marshmallow sauce is involved as well but I am out of corn syrup so maybe next weekend! Sadly, I don't have a subscription to the site referenced in the citation to get more details. No matter where it came from, this ice cream is delicious!

Instead of following the recipe in The Perfect Scoop, I used my vanilla custard recipe. This is one of my favorite standalone flavors, so there's no reason to mess with perfection. I boiled some sugars and dairy, infused the vanilla, then added the eggs. Vanilla pods are expensive but well worth the expense in this recipe.

The fudge ripple is the same I've made for other recipes in the past - specifically the s'more. Some cream is boiled and then whisked into some cocoa powder (and other things). This results in a very rich and thick fudge ripple. The thickness makes it difficult to layer into the ice cream but it is a nice contrast to the vanilla custard.

The final component of Tin Roof is the chocolate covered peanuts. Of course, you can buy these in just about any grocery store but I decided to make them myself. While they won't win any awards for prettiness, they taste very similar to store-brought and were quick to prepare. Simply melt some chocolate, mix some peanuts in, cool, and chop.