Jeni’s Spinalong #5 – November Feels

Our November spinalong was a little bit different from the rest of this series in that we had no rules or themes to follow – Just all of our November feels all wrapped up (or should I say, “churned up”?) into one delicious ice cream.

So, for November, with thoughts of fall and Thanksgiving and #PSL all over the place… I went to Pumpkin’s sweet sister… or maybe more like a cousin? Or like a distant ancestor… I mean, they’re both plants so they must be related in some way, right? Anyway, I seem to have gotten off track somewhere…

What I chose is orange inside, like a pumpkin. And sweet, like a pumpkin. And plentiful during fall, also like a pumpkin. But it is not a pumpkin.

Can you guess what it is?

jenis sweet potato ice cream 1

Sweet potato!

Even though Mr. Eats curled his nose at the idea of me “ruining” perfectly good ice cream by putting sweet potatoes inside of it, I forged ahead anyway. I can’t think of a better way to use sweet potatoes than to put them into this amazing ice cream.

Shannon, over at A Periodic Table, stuffed all her feels into Blackstrap Praline Ice Cream with Black Walnut Praline and Singed Marshmallows. So, even though we had no rules, because we are kindred spirits we both made barely-altered recipes from the “Autumn” section of Jeni’s first book. At least we didn’t plan the same exact ice cream, which almost happened with September 😉 haha! If you paired my ice cream with some toasted nuts and Shannon’s praline sauce you would end up your very own sweet potato casserole sundae – Think of how impressed your Thanksgiving guests would be!

Unlike the other Jeni’s recipes I have made for the blog, I made this one with very little tampering. I followed the recipe pretty much 100% with the exception of one thing: I roasted the sweet potatoes real good. I baked the sweet potatoes for over an hour in the oven, until they were oozing out their sugary juices, and allowed them to cool before putting them in a cream-filled hot tub to simmer away.

I did attempt (and fail) to make Jeni’s Vanilla Bean Marshmallows, but I’m pretty sure that was a user error. Or possibly a thermometer calibration error (where one said 230F, the other said 250F) so I will have to try those again on another day. For this, store-bought made a fine stand-in.

The result is an amazingly smooth and creamy sweet potato ice cream filled with torched marshmallows and one bite will make your knees buckle.

jenis sweet potato ice cream 2

Jeni's Sweet Potato Ice Cream with Torched Marshmallows

Ingredients

  • 2 sweet potatoes, roasted and scooped out of the skins (about 1 1/2 cups)
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons molasses
  • 1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows, toasted

Instructions

    Bake the potatoes
  1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
  2. Prick potatoes with a knife and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
  3. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until they start to ooze a bit of caramelized goodness.
  4. Remove from oven and set aside until they are cool enough to handle (may be done one day in advance).
  5. Make the ice cream base
  6. Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl; set aside.
  7. Place softened cream cheese and salt in a large bowl and set aside.
  8. Peel potatoes from skins and cut into cubes (if they are too soft, just scoop them into a bowl). You should have about 1 1/2 cups total.
  9. Combine sweet potatoes and milk in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
  10. Reduce heat to low and simmer, mashing up the potatoes, until they are heated through, about 5 minutes.
  11. Puree the potatoes with an immersion blender (or puree in batches in a regular blender).
  12. Return puree to the pan and add the heavy cream, sugars, and molasses.
  13. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil for 4 minutes. Be careful because it WILL splatter. A lot. (You can cover the top of the pan with a parchment paper circle with a hole in the middle to cut down on splatter).
  14. Pour about 1/4 cup of the cream mixture into the cream cheese and whisk until combined. Pour remaining cream mixture into the bowl and whisk in the cinnamon until the mixture is fairly homogeneous.
  15. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and immerse in an ice bath for at least 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, you can dry off the bag and place it in your fridge until you are ready to spin the ice cream. (This can be done 1 day in advance).
  16. Torch your marshmallows
  17. Using a kitchen torch, line a baking sheet with parchment and spread about 1 1/2 cups of mini marshmallows on it. Carefully toast the marshmallows until golden and slightly blackened. Set aside.
  18. Spin the ice cream
  19. Spin ice cream according to your ice cream machine's directions.
  20. Pour ice cream into a storage container, layering marshmallows in between ice cream layers and saving some marshmallows to sprinkle on top.
  21. Cover the top with a sheet of parchment, then seal the container and place it in your freezer for at least four hours, or until firm.

Notes

* Pro Tip: If you end up only having regular-sized marshmallows, you can cut them into smaller ones by dusting a cutting board with powdered sugar and cutting them on the bed of powdered sugar. It took me a while to figure this out and I was super excited once I did.

https://wee-eats.com/2015/11/01/jenis-spinalong-5-november-feels-jenis-sweet-potato-torched-marshmallow-ice-cream/

[ Recipes adapted from Jeni’s Splendid Desserts ]

2 thoughts on “Jeni’s Spinalong #5 – November Feels

  1. YOUR NOVEMBER FEELS ARE SO ON-POINT THIS YEAR!! that ice cream is just vividly orange and enticing…it’s like sweet potatoes get even more magical when it’s cold out, don’t you agree? and those marshmallows…i can’t. i have to make this, because it’s like the happy yin to my very angry molasses ice cream yang. 🙂 i wonder if they’d be good TOGETHER…ohhhhh

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