Before we start, I’d really appreciate it if you took the time to vote for my blog in the Saveur Magazine’s Food Blog Awards. Hummingbird High is a finalist in the Best Baking & Desserts Blog category!!! I am beyond floored that my blog was even re-nominated in the first place; it’s honestly because of all YOUR support. So thank you to everybody who took the time to nominate me, is taking the time to vote for me, or, honestly, is even just reading this at all. And a HUGE congrats to all the other nominees, of course — I can’t wait to meet everybody in June!
To vote for me, head on over to SAVEUR Blog Awards.
There’s an ice cream shop in my neighborhood that’s famous for their crazy ice cream flavors. You’ll frequently find flavors like Pear and Blue Cheese or Tomato Water and Olive Oil on the menu. On Thanksgiving, Salt & Straw rolls out a salted caramel ice cream that’s flavored with turkey juice and caramelized onions. One summer, there was a flavor that combined berries, barbecue sauce, and baked beans.
As a dessert enthusiast, I dive right in. I’ll try a scoop of everything, including the ice creams with the pig’s blood (Blood Pudding flavor, usually shows up around Halloween, yup), the meat juices, and even sea urchin. Do I enjoy it all?
Er… no, not really.
I know that makes me a bad Portlander, and I’m sure as I write this, the locals are gearing up to throw me some sticks and stones like they did in the comments section of this article. But maybe I’m just a simpleton at heart because the flavors I like best are their “classic” ones: chocolate gooey brownie, coconut with caramel bars, and Stumptown coffee with bourbon.
Every so often, however, I’ll try one of their seasonal flavors and be blown right out of the water. Last month, it was a flavor called “Pots of Gold & Rainbows”, a cereal milk based ice cream that was studded with all the marshmallows from pounds and pounds of Lucky Charms cereal but without any of their whole grain companions (because let’s be honest, the only people who eat Lucky Charms cereal do it for the marshmallows, AMIRITE). It was perfect. There’s no other word for it — the ice cream hit the perfect mix of creativity and deliciousness, balancing somewhere between a timeless classic and a more disruptive future demanding change amongst tried and true flavors. I found myself craving the ice cream again and again, lining up in Salt & Straw’s obscenely long lines twice a week to buy myself a rather pricey scoop of the stuff.
But since I’ve never been the most patient person, I figured it was time to learn how to make it at home:
To reverse engineer the ice cream at home, I started by flipping through the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook. Cereal milk dessert isn’t a Salt & Straw invention; instead, it was popularized a few years ago by famed pastry chef Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar fame. Her New York bakeries actually sell cereal milk by the bottle, and she has pretty solid recipe for cereal milk that I’ve used in previous recipes (like these cupcakes!). But honestly, it’s something that you could easily make without one, AND, if you eat cereal for breakfast every day, you probably already even do. Because here’s the secret: cereal milk is nothing but cereal-infused milk. Like you know how when you eat a bowl of cereal, the leftover milk in the bowl once you’ve eaten all the cereal will have all these tiny cereal crumbs and will taste a little bit like the cereal you just ate? THAT’S CEREAL MILK. That’s it. That’s all! Seriously.
And so after sorting out the marshmallows (more on that later, grumble), I used the leftover whole grain cereal to make the cereal milk, which I then used in my favorite vanilla ice cream recipe (from Humphry Slocombe, a San Francisco-based ice cream parlor also known for its crazy flavors), churned it all into my ice cream maker, and hand-stirred in the remaining Lucky Charms marshmallows. Oh! And let’s not forget — because I am a hedonist, I also bought some waffle cones, dipped them in some melted chocolate and marshmallows and BOOM! Chocolate and Lucky Charms marshmallow-lined waffle cones. Thank you, and good night.
Some baker’s notes:
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- To make this ice cream, I used the cereal and marshmallows from one family size (20.5 ounces) box of Lucky Charms cereal. I hand sorted out the marshmallows, which gave me around 1 1/2 to 2 cups worth of marshmallows (sorry, I’m not exactly sure since I ate a lot of them while I was doing the sorting, lol) that I needed for this recipe. HOWEVER, thanks to comments from my trusty Instagram followers, I found out that you can actually just BUY straight-up marshmallows from Amazon! So do yourself a favor and make your life easier and buy that instead.
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- Toasting the Lucky Charms in the oven before steeping them deepens the flavor of the milk. I didn’t add any additional sugar to my steeped milk since I was going to be adding plenty in the ice cream custard base, but if you want your ice cream a little bit sweeter, add up to 2 tablespoons tightly packed light brown sugar. The recipe for Lucky Charms cereal milk below makes more than is needed for the ice cream custard, so you can drink the rest (and it definitely tastes better with a dash or two of sugar). It’ll keep in a clean pitcher, refrigerated, for up to 1 week.
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- The ice cream recipe I use is a custard base containing cream, milk, and eggs. Before starting the cooking process, make sure you have the bowl and ice bath ready to cool down your base as soon as its finished cooking. This is essential, since the hot custard will continue to cook for a while, and if you overcook the custard you’ll end up with sugary scrambled eggs for ice cream. Which… no thank you.
- To make the chocolate and marshmallow dipped waffle cones, I used about 1 ounce of melted dark chocolate and 1 tablespoon of Lucky Charms marshmallows per cone.
Lucky Charms Marshmallow Ice Cream
Special Equipment
- a fine-mesh sieve
- a large bowl or pan filled with ice and water
- a large metal bowl that can fit inside the bowl/pan of ice and water
- an ice cream maker
Ingredients
For the Lucky Charms Cereal Milk
(makes around 2 1/2 cups)
- 2 3/4 cups Lucky Charms cereal (whole grain only, no marshmallows!)
- 3 3/4 cups whole milk
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
For the Lucky Charms Marshmallow Ice Cream
(makes 1 pint)
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 cup Lucky Charms cereal milk (from recipe above)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 vanilla bean
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tablespoons malt powder
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups Lucky Charms marshmallows (marshmallows only, no whole grain pieces!)
Instructions
For the Lucky Charms Cereal Milk
- Preheat the oven to 300 (F) and prepare a jelly roll pan or cookie sheet by lining with parchment paper.
- Spread 2 3/4 cups Lucky Charms cereal on the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly toasted, before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Transfer the cereal to a large pitcher or mason jar. Pour 3 3/4 cups whole milk into the pitcher or jar and stir or shake vigorously for a few seconds. Let steep for 20 minutes at room temperature.
- Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl, collecting the milk in the bowl. The milk will drain off quickly at first, then become thicker and starchy towards the end of the straining process. Use the back of a ladle or a spatula to press the mushy cereal to wring more milk out of them, but be careful not to force any of the mushy cereal through the sieve.
- Whisk 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt into the strained milk until fully dissolved. Refrigerate until ready to use for the ice cream custard.
For the Lucky Charms Marshmallow Ice Cream
- Fill a large bowl or pan with a generous amount of ice and cold water to create an ice bath. Place a large, clean metal bowl in the ice bath and fit the bowl with a fine-mesh sieve. Set aside.
- In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, combine 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup Lucky Charms cereal milk (from recipe above), and 2 teaspoons kosher salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until hot and jusssttt about to boil, but not boiling.
- Meanwhile, spilt the vanilla bean length wise and use the tip of your knife to scrape out the insides into a medium bowl. Don’t throw out the pod though, because you’ll need that for later! Add 1 cup granulated sugar and 3 tablespoons malt powder and use your fingers to rub all of it together to incorporate and evenly distribute the vanilla seeds throughout the sugar. Whisk in 3 large egg yolks and 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract until a uniform color, and return to your cream and milk mixture from the previous step.
- Remove the cream mixture from heat, and slowly, slowly pour about half of the hot cream mixture into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Transfer the yolk mixture back to the saucepan with the remaining cream mixture and return it to medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly with a heatproof rubber spatula, occasionally scraping the bottom of the saucepan to prevent any scorching, until the liquid begins to steam, about 2 to 3 minutes.
- Remove the custard from heat and IMMEDIATELY pour it through the sieve and into the bowl in the ice bath. Tuck the vanilla bean pod back into the custard. Allow the mixture to cool completely, stirring every 5 minutes or so to release heat.
- When the custard has completely cooled, cover the bowl and transfer to the refrigerator to steep and chill for at least 1 hour, but preferably overnight. When you are ready to freeze the custard, fish out the vanilla bean pod, and transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and spin according to the manufacturer's instructions.
- When the ice cream has finished churning and has the consistency of soft serve, transfer to a medium bowl. Use a rubber spatula to stir in 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups of Lucky Charms marshmallows until they are fully incorporated throughout the ice cream. Eat immediately, or transfer to an airtight container to freeze and eat later at your leisure.
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Aw! Thank you for your support! Seriously so stoked when people vote for me. E-hug!
cynthia | two red bowls says
THIS IS ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE. Alllllll I wanted as a kid was a mountain of Lucky Charms marshmallows (the squeakier and staler the better. LOL.) This ice cream is INCREDIBLE, Michelle!!! I need it in my life ASAP. And of course, YAYAYAY Saveur!!! Congrats again lady!!!
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Well, apparently you can just buy bags of Lucky Charms marshmallows on Amazon! The world has changed from when we were little, lols. Though I kinda liked having to pick them out of the cereal box…. nah
Congrats to you too! Can't wait to hang out IRL 😉
J.S. @ Sun Diego Eats says
Ha when you mentioned sorting out the marshmallows I was like noooo I think they can just send you a box of them! Or at least when Kylie Jenner mentioned on Instagram she wanted the marshmallows picked out of Lucky Charms they sent her a box of just the marshmallows. If they'll do it for a Kardashian they'll do it for Hummingbird High!
Kari Guastella says
I love Lucky Charms! What a fun recipe!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
[email protected] says
Okay first things first. Sea urchin!!!!!! I need to find myself a goooood (inexpensive ideally) sea urchin to make sea urchin-y dishes soon.
And this ice cream is just too amazing! It's so "whimsical" looking first of all, and the custard base makes it that much better. 😀 It really deserves to be on the website of a creamery.
caitlin | back2spain says
Congrats on the nomination! Throwback cereals in ice cream is always a good decision. I recently did a Cinnamon Toast Crunch flavor… off the chainzzzz.
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Hahah, I'm not sure I have the kind of power that a Kardashian has… 🙂
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Thank you Kari!
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Thank you Ellie! And I like sea urchin… just not in ice cream 😉
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Thanks Caitlin! TBH, I've been daydreaming about a Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal ice cream… maybe I'll try and develop a recipe when it finally gets warm over here, lol.
Ingrid - For the Love of Pie says
This is so interesting for a Dutchie like me, lacking a cereal culture haha. But it looks delicious! And as I do love ice cream, I might have to pay a visit to the American Food Store in Utrecht to buy some Lucky Charms Cereal! <3
Anne | Sprinkle with Salt says
Omg MICHELLE!!!! This looks absolutely amazing! I remember when I was little I would always take a package and pick out ALLLL the marshmallows… Now it's mostly my brother doing it and I, stealing the ones he picked out. I guess I will never grow out of it :/
I can't even imagine how delightful this ice cream must be!!!
P.S. heading to Saveur's website to vote for you!!!!!!!! :DDDDD
Elizabeth says
My BF went to Salt and Straw 5 times during the month of March to eat this ice cream. He's going to be thrilled that I now have a recipe to recreate the magic at home. Thanks!
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Oooh, what else do they sell at the American Food Store?! I'm so curious!
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Thanks so much Anne! I really appreciate your support!
Michelle | Hummingbird High says
Yeah — when I found myself lining up for the 2nd time in one week to grab some of this ice cream, I thought it was time to figure out how to make it at home 😉
theviewfromGreatIsland says
I'm heading over to vote, this post is a great example of why you were nominated 🙂 I've got an ice cream recipe coming up this week, my first of the season, yay!!
thenotsocreativecook says
These are called happy ice cream. 😀 They look so delicious. 🙂
Renée Kemps says
Goooosh, those flavours sound amazing (though I agree that I wouldn't like all of them, especially the blood pudding one indeed..)!! Your ice cream looks SO adorable and delicious!! Wish I was there to eat it with you!!
Ingrid - For the Love of Pie says
Haha well lots and lots of M&M's, al those kinds we normally don't have in the supermarkets. So that's fun. Several types of chocolate sauce, milk duds, reese's, and my biggest love: POP TARTS <3. By most loving memory of US food haha! If you're in the Netherlands this summer I could show you the store! 😉
Maria del Mar says
I forgot the jingle of the Lucky Charms commercial! I 'm going to cry! Your recipe brings me back childhood memories.
Elizabeth says
Love the diligence here of making the marshmallow cereal milk *and* the marshmallow studded ice cream. I'm still shivering/salivation at the thought of salted caramel + turkey juice + onions. SO intriguing! There's no doubt how great your creation is, though – just lovely. Your Saveur nomination is incredibly exciting! (Also thrilled that we'll get to meet! I cannot wait for June! )