Peanut Butter S'mores Ice Cream & THE SANDLOT
“I haven’t had anything yet, so how can I have s’more of nothing?”
I didn’t think a movie about a group of young baseball-loving boys could make me so emotional. The Sandlot (1993) had me in tears by the time the credits rolled. To give you some context, in the summer of 1962, a group of boys take a new kid, Scotty Smalls, under their wing and spend the hot months playing baseball in the local sandlot. Adventures unfold and childhood imagination takes over, and soon enough you’re caught up in the lives of these kids and their cherished summer days. In the same way Stand By Me will make you fall in love with coming of age films, The Sandlot will too.
From start to finish the entire movie is a gem. One scene in particular that remains a classic is when one of the kids, Ham, introduces Scotty to s’mores. At first Scotty has no idea what Ham is talking about, saying “I haven’t had anything yet, so how can I have s’more of nothing?” To this Ham exclaims, “You’re killing me, Smalls!” This is where that iconic line comes from, which I’m sure you’ve heard from time to time (if not, stop reading immediately and go watch this movie). Ham proceeds to tell Scotty what s’mores are: take the graham, place chocolate on the graham, and then roast the ‘mallow.
Instead of just recreating s’mores, I decided to take a cooler approach by turning s’mores into ice cream. I made the graham cracker from scratch (recipe here), as well as the marshmallow ice cream and chocolate drizzle (recipes below). I bought the marshmallows for the ice cream and mix-ins because I’ve made marshmallows twice before and am not a fan of the sticky process. And then of course, to add a little something extra (as if marshmallow on marshmallow weren’t enough), I added peanut butter into the mix.
Make a few extra graham crackers for scooping your ice cream, or to have a couple of s’mores the traditional way. What results is a sweet and delicious ice cream that is perfect for a warm summer night. When it comes to this summer treat, even if you haven’t yet had anything, you can always have s’more.
Peanut Butter S'mores Ice Cream
Serves: 4-6 | Cooking time: 2 hours
Marshmallow Ice Cream
Ingredients
4 cups heavy cream
1 10-oz bag of mini marshmallows
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Method
In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of the heavy cream with 75% of the marshmallows from the bag. Cook over medium heat and stir continuously until the marshmallows have all melted. This mixture will look airy and fluffy. Remove from the heat and let cool. Place in the fridge to cool for 25-30 minutes until the mixture is slightly thickened and completely chilled.
Once the cream and marshmallow mixture has cooled, whip the remaining 2 cups of heavy cream and vanilla extract in a stand mixer bowl until you have soft peaks. (I say to do this once the cream and marshmallow mixture has cooled so your soft peaks don't fall in the cool-down stage.)
Gently fold the whipped heavy cream into the cooled cream and marshmallow mixture. You don't want to mix too aggressively or the soft peaks will break. Once combined, place the mixture into your ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's directions for making ice cream. Allow the ice cream to turn until it gets to a soft ice cream stage (if the ice cream hardens completely, it will be tough to scoop and layer with the mix-ins.) My batch took about 30 minutes to get to the soft ice cream stage.
Prepare the other mix-ins while the ice cream is turning. Once the ice cream is at the soft ice cream stage, you'll want to start layering right away.
Chocolate Drizzle
Ingredients
½ cup sugar
1/3 cup light corn syrup
½ cup water
7 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Method
Combine the sugar, light corn syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a saucepan and cook over low-medium heat.
Stir frequently until the mixture begins to boil.
Once the mixture boils, reduce heat to simmer and continue stirring for 1 minute.
Remove the chocolate mixture from the heat and add vanilla extract. Pour the chocolate drizzle into a bowl and allow the mixture to cool.
Roasted Marshmallows
Ingredients
25% of the remaining marshmallows from the 10oz bag
Method
In a non-stick pan, spread out the remaining marshmallows.
Heat the oven up to 250°F. Once the oven is warmed, set the oven to the broil setting. (I like to warm the oven up so the marshmallows become gooey.)
Place the pan with the marshmallows at the halfway point in the oven and watch closely as the broiler starts roasting the marshmallows.
As soon as the marshmallows are to the roasted point that you prefer, remove them from the oven.
Bringing everything together
Set up your ice cream layering station with the following mix-ins in bowls: crumbled graham crackers, chocolate drizzle, toasted marshmallows, peanut butter, and the marshmallow ice cream.
In a glass loaf dish, drizzle the chocolate syrup on the bottom of the pan. Add crumbled graham crackers on top, followed by dollops of marshmallows and peanut butter. Spread the dollops of the mix-ins around so that when you scoop the ice cream you'll get a little bit of each flavor.
On top of these crumbles, add a first layer of the soft ice cream.
Repeat step #2: drizzle chocolate, add graham cracker crumble, add marshmallow and peanut butter dollops. Add ice cream on top.
Continue layering the ice cream and mix-ins until you reach the top of the dish, and top everything with one final layer of chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallow. Leave the peanut butter off the top.
Place the layered ice cream dish in the freezer for 1-2 hours. Serve with graham crackers and chocolate drizzle. Enjoy!
© A Dash of Cinema
Did you Eat & Watch? How are you eating your s'mores this summer? Share in the comments below or on Instagram with the hashtag #ADashEats.
P.S. Another delicious summer dessert, also related to baseball.