Peanut butter and raspberry jam ice cream

The nostalgic pairing from a childhood sandwich: a thick peanut butter base with a tart raspberry ripple.

Nostalgic flavours are the second wave ice cream makers reported in the 2025 and 2026 seasons, right behind pistachio — popcorn, caramel and exactly this, peanut butter and jam. The American peanut butter and jelly is a fixed pairing from a single sandwich, and in ice cream it works for the same reason it works on bread: peanut butter is fatty, salty and claggy, the jam is sharp and loud, and each is only half a thing without the other. The peanuts bring so much fat to the mix that the recipe needs neither yolks nor a stabiliser.

Type: Classic cream ice cream · Servings: 8 · Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 470 g whole milk 3.5 %
  • 230 g whipping cream 33 %
  • 30 g skimmed milk powder
  • 105 g peanut butter 100 % (100 % peanuts, no added sugar or palm fat)
  • 105 g granulated sugar (sucrose)
  • 40 g dextrose (glucose powder)
  • 1 g salt (if the peanut butter is unsalted)
  • 130 g raspberries (for topping or folding in at the end)
  • 40 g granulated sugar (sucrose) (for topping or folding in at the end)

Making the mix

  1. Put the raspberries and sugar in a small pan and cook for 6–8 minutes, stirring now and then, until the mixture thickens into a loose jam. Pass it through a sieve and let it cool completely; a stiff jam will not spread through cold ice cream.
  2. Mix the milk powder and dextrose with the granulated sugar.
  3. Heat the milk and cream in a pan to 60 °C, add the sugar and milk powder mixture and stir until dissolved.
  4. Take the pan off the heat, add the peanut butter and salt and blend smooth with a stick blender.
  5. Cool the mix quickly in a bowl set in iced water.
  6. Cover and age in the fridge for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.

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 27–37 minutes, until it has the consistency of thick whipped cream.
  3. Layer the finished ice cream into the tub in thirds, spooning raspberry jam between the layers. Stir just once or twice with a spatula — the ripples should stay visible.
  4. Transfer to a chilled container, press cling film onto the surface and leave to harden in the freezer for 2 hours.

Total time: 7 h 37 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. Layer the ice cream into the tub, spooning raspberry jam between the layers.
  5. Transfer to a chilled container and leave to harden in the freezer for 3 hours.

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: 8 h 30 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 Ice Cream program.
  4. Use a spoon to dig a well about 4 cm wide in the centre, all the way to the bottom, add the raspberry jam 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: Ice Cream

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 13 min

Stages

Preparation
20 min
Cooking
15 min
Cooling
30 min
Ageing in the fridge
4 h
Churning
32 min
Hardening in the freezer
2 h
Total time
7 h 37 min

Plan: what to do and when

The whole recipe takes 7 h 37 min, of which 35 min is hands-on — the rest is waiting you can spend elsewhere.

The making itself fits into a single day — start at least 7 h 37 min before serving.

  • Prepare the mix (weigh and stir the ingredients) — 20 min
  • Cook the mix — 15 min
  • Cool the mix down — 30 min
  • Let the mix age in the fridge — 4 h
  • Churn in the machine — 32 min
  • Let it harden in the freezer — 2 h

Serving and storage

It is excellent with chopped roasted peanuts, or sandwiched between two biscuits. Take it out of the freezer (−18 °C) and let it stand for 5–10 minutes until it scoops easily. It tastes best at −12 to −14 °C.

In a sealed container with cling film pressed onto the surface it’s best within a week; after that, ice crystals start to build up. Never refreeze ice cream that has melted.

Tips

  • The peanut butter must be 100 % peanuts. Spreads with palm fat and sugar throw off both the fat balance and the flavour, and tend to make the ice cream claggy.
  • You can swap the raspberry jam for redcurrant or sour cherry — you need acidic fruit, as a sweet jam disappears into the peanut base.
  • The ripples only stay sharp if the jam is completely cold and the ice cream freshly churned. Warm jam melts in and turns the whole tub pink.
  • Mind allergies: peanuts are one of the 14 allergens that must be declared. If you are serving guests, it is worth asking.

Why it works

A hundred grams of peanut butter adds about 5 % fat to the mix, plus protein and fibre — solids that do not freeze. Total fat comes out around 15 % and total solids around 43 %, which makes for a dense but still scoopable ice cream. The raspberry ripple is not counted in the mix: it goes into the finished ice cream, so it does not change its freezing point. Anti-freezing power (PAC) tells you how much water stays unfrozen at a given temperature — the higher it is, the softer the ice cream. Dextrose has almost twice the anti-freezing power of granulated sugar but is less sweet, which is why the two sugars are combined.

Related recipes

  • Cookies & cream

    Vanilla cream ice cream packed with pieces of cream-filled chocolate biscuits.

  • Raspberry sherbet

    Pink, creamy and full of raspberry flavour — raspberry sorbet softened with milk.

And what to make with it

Once this ice cream is ready, it works in these desserts.

  • Cookie ice cream sandwich

    Ice cream between two cookies, frozen firm. The trick is that the cookie has to stay soft — a hard one snaps when you bite and the ice cream shoots out.

How we calculate the composition · What PAC and POD mean · Balance this mix in the calculator

Sources