Sustainable Sweets: Make MELT’s “Peachy Keen” Ice Cream at Home

Ice cream is a sweet treat that can be enjoyed in a variety of ways: on a cone, in a bowl or even between two cookies. For all the dessert lovers, it’s especially delicious alongside a warm slice of cake or pie. Whichever way you prefer, you can always grab a pint at your nearest grocery or convenience store. But if you decide to make it yourself, you can take advantage of fresh, seasonal ingredients to create sustainably sourced scoops in your own home.

Dairy MAX and MELT Ice Creams of Fort Worth, Texas, teamed up in 2020 to showcase an ice cream recipe using delicious summer peaches in an Instagram Live event called “Sustainable Sweets”.

Using fresh peaches grown locally at Hutton Peach Farm in Weatherford, Texas, MELT founder Kari Crowe-Seher and her chef Brooke Pimentel detailed how you can use natural resources ­– fruits that are in season, dairy and other items you might already have in your kitchen – to make the popular MELT ice cream flavor “Peachy Keen” topped with a sweet blackberry sauce and candied, roasted pecans.

Commitment to Buying Local

Since 2014, MELT has been serving up their special blend of ice cream with seasonal flavors to take advantage of fresh, locally sourced ingredients. “As a business owner here in Fort Worth, it’s important to me to support the other local businesses around me,” Kari explained. “We make it a priority to buy our fruits and nuts from local farms as much as possible. And we also love supporting our dairy farmers who literally work 365 days a year to help us keep up with the demands of our ice cream business.”

Farm-to-Table Dairy

With locations in Fort Worth and Dallas, and an ice cream truck that visits local neighborhoods throughout North Texas, MELT uses a lot of dairy to make enough ice cream to serve their loyal fans. In the demo, Kari shared that she orders as much as 10,000 gallons of milk and cream in a year!

Want to enjoy MELT-style ice cream in the comfort of your own home? Try making it yourself! And don’t forget to explore using fruits in season to get the freshest flavor! It’s a smart way to use up your ripe fruits so they don’t go to waste – a definite perk in creating your own sustainable sweets.

“Peachy Keen” Ice Cream With Blackberry Sauce and Candied Pecans

Ingredients

Peach Jam

• 2 cups peaches
• ⅓ cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Peach Ice Cream

• 1 ¾ cups heavy cream, divided
• 1 ¼ cups whole milk
• ¾ cup sugar
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup peach jam (ingredients listed above; recipe below)
• 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Blackberry Sauce

• 1 pint blackberries
• ⅔ cup - ¾ cup sugar, depending on how sweet the berries are
• pinch salt
• ¼ cup water

Candied Pecans

• 2 tablespoons egg white
• 1 tablespoon water
• 4 ounces raw pecans
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons light brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• ½ teaspoon salt

Preparation

Peach Jam

1. Get the ripest peaches you can (do not peel them).
2. Slice the peaches and put into a pot with the sugar and salt.
3. Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes until the peaches break down and the consistency gets jammy.
4. Pour mixture into a blender and pulse until smooth.
5. Cool before adding to the ice cream.

Peach Ice Cream

1. Make the ice cream base: Pour 1 cup of heavy cream into a pot and add the sugar and salt.
2. Cook over medium-low heat until steaming or 170-180 F on a thermometer.
3. Remove from heat and add the other ¾ cup of cream and all the milk.
4. Chill well before freezing.
5. Freeze the ice cream: Pour chilled ice cream base, peach jam and vanilla extract into the ice cream machine. Freeze per machine directions.

Blackberry Sauce

1. Place blackberries, sugar and salt into a pot.
2. Add the water and cook on medium-low heat for 20 minutes until the blackberries are broken down and have the consistency of jam.
3. Strain through a sieve to remove the seeds.
4. Chill sauce or serve at room temperature.

 Candied Pecans

1. Measure the egg white into a bowl. Add the water and whisk until foamy.
2. Roughly chop the nuts into bite-sized pieces. Add them to the egg white.
3. In a separate container, measure all the dry ingredients and blend together well.
4. Toss the nuts with the dry ingredients until coated.
5. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet, then spread the nuts out in a single layer. Bake at 300 F for 10-12 minutes, stirring occasionally halfway through the bake.
6. Cool nuts before serving.

After completing all the recipe components, grab yourself a bowl and scoop a nice helping of the Peach Ice Cream. Top it with a drizzle of your sauce and a handful of nuts.