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Coffee Oreo Cookie Ice Cream

Outrageously good homemade ice cream with a coffee custard base, oreo cookies, and a touch of rum.

Elise Bauer

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

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Elise Bauer
Elise Bauer
Coffee Oreo Cookie Ice Cream
Elise Bauer

Some things, prepared with delightful results in the exuberance of our youth, when made again 10, or 20 years later, don't quite live up to the blissful memory.

This coffee oreo cookie ice cream lives up to the best of memories!

It is as good as my dear friend Heidi H remembers it, when she made it with friends in an old fashioned, hand cranked ice cream maker decades ago.

Heidi and I made a batch of this ice cream together recently with the new ice cream maker I got for her for her birthday. She will tell you that I was slightly skeptical at first. "Are you sure this isn't something that was good just because you all were clearly enjoying the rum you added?"

At first taste I was an instant convert. This is a great ice cream combination. Leave out the rum if you must, but keep it in if you can; its flavor addition is important.

Note that in this recipe the oreo cookies are added before the ice cream is made, so that they almost completely disintegrate into the ice cream. You can fold them in after the ice cream is made if you want.

Coffee Oreo Cookie Ice Cream

Prep Time 0 mins
Cook Time 0 mins
Total Time 0 mins

Ingredients

  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 4 teaspoons instant coffee (get decaf)
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 10 oreo cookies, crushed
  • 1 ounce (2 Tbsp) golden rum

Method

  1. Infuse instant coffee into cream, milk, sugar:

    Heat 1 cup of the cream, 1 cup of milk, sugar, and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan on medium heat until steaming, but not boiling. Stir in the instant coffee until it is dissolved.

  2. Prepare ice water bath with a bowl with cream:

    Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set in an ice water bath in a larger bowl. Set a mesh sieve on top of the bowls. Set aside.

  3. Temper the eggs:

    In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk, cream, coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Pour the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

  4. Heat mixture until thickened:

    Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. Be patient. This step can take 5 to 10 minutes.

  5. Strain into chilled cream, then chill:

    Pour the custard through the sieve and stir it into the chilled cream. Chill mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (several hours).

  6. Process in ice cream maker with rum and crushed Oreos:

    When thoroughly chilled and ready to put into your ice cream maker, add the rum and the crushed Oreo cookies. Process the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the ice cream maker directions.

  7. Store:

    Transfer mixture to a plastic storage container and freezer in your freezer until firm, at least 6 hours.

Links:

Learn how to make perfect ice cream with David Lebovitz' brilliant book, the Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments, the source of the base ice cream recipe used here.