Buttered Baguette Ice Cream + Gianduja, Peach Sauce, and Peach Leather

I saw this idea for an add-in for store-bought vanilla ice cream in a great ice cream article by Tara Bench in LHJ and had to develop it from scratch as part of a summer version of fresh baguette with chocolate-hazelnut paste and peaches. It's one of those things you just have to taste to believe. Use some special butter like Plugra for the richest, crunchiest bits of baguette throughout the ice cream. Be amusing and top with what you'd usually put on baguette, like gianduja or a fruit sauce instead of jam.

Buttered Baguette Ice Milk

roughly 3 tablespoons Plugra butter

15 1/4-inch slices of baguette bread

2 tablespoons neufchâtel cheese

1 1/2 cups 2% milk (like Whole Foods 365 brand)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup cane sugar (like Whole Foods 365 brand)

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon Maldon sea salt flakes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter both sides of the baguette slices and set them on a pan. Put it the oven for about 10-15 minutes until all start to lightly brown and become crunchy. Set aside on a plate for a couple of hours or even overnight. When it's completely cooled and crisp, pulse baguette slices in the food processor until you have fine crumbs. Set aside.

Whisk the cheese, milk, whipping cream, sugar, vanilla, and salt together. Put into your ice cream maker and let it spin for about 30 minutes; you'll know when it's ready when you see it start to fluff up and creep up the sides of the container as it goes around. At this point, spoon in the baguette crumbs. Once they're dispersed, immediately spoon ice milk into a container and place it in the freezer for at least 4 hours so it hardens. Top as you wish -- see above for tips -- or serve it plain. (Makes 1 quart.)

I love the ease and expertise in this video about making raspberry tuiles and wondered if the same technique would work with peaches. It does! It seriously tastes like a fresh peach Fruit Roll-Up. You can also cut it up into shapes or roll it into tiny cylinders as a part of this dessert.

Peach Leather

6 peaches (for peach purée)
2 tablespoons cane sugar
pinch of Maldon sea salt flakes

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. To make the purée, peel and pit peaches, and then put the flesh into a blender. Set it on high for a minute until there are no lumps. Into a bowl, strain out the pulp using a fine-mesh sieve. Rinse the blender and then add strained juice, sugar, and salt and blend on high for another minute.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a silpat. Spread peach mixture in a thin layer across it. Bake for 2 hours. Lift it carefully using a knife to loosen the edges. Use scissors to cut sections of it from the pan. We rolled 1/2-inch strips into small, loose rolls as a pastry decoration and placed them on a plate to set.

Peach Jam / Peach Sauce

12 peaches (peeled and pits removed)

2 1-inch strips of lemon zest

juice from half a lemon

pinch of Maldon sea salt flakes

Mash peaches in bowl with a potato masher. Add peaches, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt to a medium saucepan. Cook on a low or simmer setting for an hour. Stir occasionally, about every ten minutes. Let jam cool before you spoon it into containers. For a smooth peach sauce, strain the warm jam through a fine-mesh strainer or put it through a food mill. Store either in a jar in the fridge and use within a week or put up a jar in the freezer to enjoy later.

Gianduja

For my first time making this, I just followed this classic chocolate-hazelnut paste recipe to a T and added a small scoop of it plus toasted, finely chopped hazelnuts on the dessert.

For more fun with peaches, check out some of our other recipes:

Grilled Peach Ice Cream

Peach + Tarragon Pesto Pizza

Oven Roasted Peaches and Cream

Sweet Potato Pancakes with Peaches and Pecans