Brown butter pecan custard

American butter pecan: nutty brown butter, cane sugar and pecans toasted in butter.

In the American South, butter pecan is as popular as vanilla is here. The buttery flavour comes from brown butter: as it cooks, the milk proteins in the butter caramelise and smell of hazelnuts. Cane sugar adds caramel notes, and pecans toasted with a little salt stay crunchy in the ice cream. Walnuts make a good stand-in for pecans.

Type: Frozen custard · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 40 g butter 82 % (for the brown butter)
  • 550 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 250 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 25 g skimmed milk powder
  • 120 g egg yolk (6 yolks)
  • 150 g cane sugar (light or dark)
  • 35 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 2 g salt
  • 100 g pecans (for topping or folding in at the end, roughly chopped; stirred in at the end)
  • 10 g butter 82 % (for topping or folding in at the end, for toasting the nuts)

Making the mix

  1. Melt the butter (40 g) in a small pan and cook over a medium heat, stirring now and then, until it stops foaming and nut-brown specks appear on the bottom (about 5 minutes). Pour it straight into a bowl.
  2. Heat the milk, cream, milk powder, dextrose and salt until almost boiling and stir in the brown butter, specks and all.
  3. Whisk the yolks with the cane sugar. Whisking constantly, pour in a third of the hot mixture, then tip everything back into the pan.
  4. Stir over a low heat until the custard reaches 82–84 °C and coats the back of a spoon. Don’t let it boil.
  5. Strain the custard into a bowl set in iced water and blitz briefly with a stick blender so the butter emulsifies well.
  6. Cool the custard, stirring now and then, press cling film directly onto the surface and age in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
  7. Toast the pecans in 10 g of butter with a pinch of salt until golden (5–7 minutes), let them cool and keep them in the freezer until needed.

Method — Compressor ice cream maker

  1. Switch on the ice cream maker 5–10 minutes ahead so the bowl can pre-chill.
  2. Pour in the chilled mix no higher than the fill line (with a smaller bowl, churn in two batches) and churn for 25–35 minutes, until it is thick and glossy and holds its shape like soft-serve.
  3. Add the chilled toasted pecans for the last minute.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for an hour.

Frozen custard should contain very little air. Churn only until it is thick and glossy, no longer — a long churn just beats in unnecessary air.

Total time: 6 h 45 min

Method — Freezer-bowl ice cream maker

  1. Take the frozen bowl out of the freezer just before use, fit the paddle and switch the machine on.
  2. With the machine running, pour in the chilled mix — no more than two-thirds full; freeze the rest as a second batch.
  3. Churn for 20–30 minutes, until the ice cream thickens. There’s no point going longer — by then the bowl has warmed up.
  4. Switch off the machine and fold in the chilled pecans with a spatula.
  5. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for an hour.

Freeze the bowl for at least 24 hours beforehand (until you can no longer hear the coolant sloshing inside). The mix must be thoroughly chilled.

Total time: 6 h 40 min

Method — Ninja CREAMi and similar machines

  1. Divide the chilled mix between CREAMi tubs, filling each no higher than the MAX line (a full batch makes about two standard tubs).
  2. Put the lids on and freeze on a level surface for 24 hours.
  3. Place a tub in the machine and run the Gelato program.
  4. Use a spoon to dig a well about 4 cm wide in the centre, all the way to the bottom, add about 30 g of toasted pecans and run the Mix-in program.
  5. If the ice cream is crumbly or powdery, run Re-spin (many users add 1–2 tablespoons of milk first).

Programme: Gelato

Only some models (such as the Deluxe range) have a Gelato program. If yours doesn’t, use the Ice Cream program. A standard tub holds about 470 ml, a Deluxe tub about 700 ml. Don’t fill above the MAX line, and freeze it level — the machine doesn’t handle an uneven block well.

Total time: 29 h 23 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
25 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
30 min
Hardening in the freezer
1 h
Total time
6 h 45 min

Serving and storage

Serve soft, with caramel sauce, or with warm apple or pumpkin pie.

Within 5 days — the nuts gradually soften in the ice cream and lose their crunch.

Tips

  • Keep an eye on the brown butter — it goes from nutty to burnt in seconds. A light-coloured pan makes the colour easier to judge.
  • Pecans toasted in butter and salt won’t clump together or soften as quickly; add them frozen, right at the end.
  • Use walnuts instead of pecans — they’re easier to find and slightly more bitter, and they go beautifully with the caramel notes of the custard.

Why it works

As butter browns, its water evaporates and the proteins and lactose undergo the Maillard reaction, creating nutty and caramel aromas. The pecans aren’t counted in the mix composition (they are separate pieces that don’t affect the custard’s freezing point); add about 7 g of fat per serving to the nutrition values.

Sources