Graham Canyon Ice Cream
If you ever find yourself in Utah, make an extra trip down to Provo and go to the BYU Creamery on Ninth. It’s an institution with it’s legendary ice cream flavors that are served in generous portions. Not only did I do my undergraduate education at BYU, but I stayed for three more years of law school and loved every minute of it. The BYU Creamery on Ninth just happened to be right across from the law building, so we made plenty of visits to grab a treat when studying got to be too much. Their Graham Canyon Ice Cream is my (and many other Cougars’) favorite flavor there, hands down. When we took the girls to visit in January, I decided while eating my scoop of graham cracker and honeycomb ice cream that I was going to go home and recreate it so I could have it whenever I wanted. It’s so fun coming up with homemade ice cream recipes to recreate some of my favorite ice cream flavors that I can’t always get at the store! Some of my other favorites are Toasted Almond Ice Cream, Old-Fashioned Fresh Peach Ice Cream, Rainbow Sherbet, Nutella Swirl, and Caramel Oreo Fudge Ripple. Instead of waiting for a bunch of Crunchie bars to ship, I decided to take things into my own hands and make a batch of homemade honeycomb candy, which was actually super easy and delicious! After that, it’s easy to make a graham cracker ice cream base. Just crush a bunch of graham crackers and mix it into your favorite vanilla ice cream base. I’ve been playing working with a wonderfully creamy version based off of Jeni’s Ice Cream recipe after trying it a year ago in Atlanta while visiting friends. It uses a little bit of cream cheese and cornstarch to create the smooth, creamy mouthfeel you typically only get in homemade ice cream by tempering egg yolks. You don’t actually taste the cream cheese, but it makes the ice cream perfectly scoopable. Once the ice cream is churned in an ice cream maker, you will mix in some extra chunks of graham crackers, your crushed honeycomb candy, and mini chocolate chips (not part of the original BYU version, but I couldn’t resist).
Ingredients in Graham Cracker Ice Cream
Heavy cream: It really takes heavy whipping cream to get the creamiest scoops of homemade ice cream. Totally worth it. Milk: Any kind of milk will work, although when making ice cream I tend to stick with whole milk. But I’ve made it with skim before and it still turns out great. Sugar: Granulated sugar is added for sweetness, but I’ll bet brown sugar would work well in this recipe too. Corn syrup: A little corn syrup helps with the texture once this ice cream is frozen. Cornstarch: Egg yolks typically do the job of helping to thicken an ice cream base, but in this case we are using a little cornstarch to do the trick. Cream cheese: It’s a small amount and you won’t taste it in this particular ice cream with all the other flavors going on, but it makes the ice cream scoopable, especially the next day after it has had time to really harden overnight in the freezer. Vanilla extract: Jeni’s splendid vanilla ice cream, which I based my base off of, calls for a vanilla bean, but vanilla extract works just fine here where vanilla isn’t the predominant flavor. Salt: Ice cream always needs a little salt to balance out the sweet. Graham crackers: We go all out with the classic graham flavor here using both crushed graham crackers and chunks of broken up graham cracker as well. The crushed graham crackers soak up liquid and are absorbed into the ice cream while the chunks of graham cracker soften up to create a sort of graham swirl to the ice cream that scoops out really well! Honeycomb candy: You can make it yourself (it’s like 10 minutes of actual work), order it online, or maybe you are lucky enough to know a place nearby where you can buy it! Mini chocolate chips: The little chocolate chunks of mini chocolate chips aren’t in the original version, but I felt like with my homemade honeycomb the ice cream could use a little extra chocolate so I added just a few chips. I thought it was wonderful, but you could easily leave these out, especially if your honeycomb candy is the real deal and you are trying to perfectly replicate BYU’s graham canyon ice cream to a “T”.
How to make Graham Canyon Ice Cream
More ice cream recipes you’ll love!
Blackberry Swirl Ice Cream Coconut Macadamia Nut Ice Cream Nutella Swirl Ice Cream Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream Burnt Almond Fudge Ice Cream Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Ice Cream
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