On how to make hokey pokey ice cream with toffee bits from scratch.

Summer is on its way out so the need for cool desserts has begun to subside. Alas, it’s time to bid adieu to the ice cream maker attachment for a year. But a challenge was set by my husband two days ago. “Replicate hokey pokey ice cream” was the request. What the heck is hokey pokey ice cream? Well it depends on who you ask. If you ask my husband he will say that it’s vanilla ice cream with chewy toffee bits spread throughout the mixture. If you ask ANYONE ELSE ON THIS PLANET they will tell you it’s vanilla ice cream with hokey pokey aka honeycomb candy spread throughout. I found countless recipes online talking about preparing honeycomb and mixing it throughout vanilla ice cream. Ok, I might not be telling the full story here. There is this one product on the market in Australia that happens to be called hokey pokey ice cream which does reference toffee bits. Streets describes the flavor as “Creamy vanilla and honeycomb swirled with reduced fat ice cream with crunchy toffee bits. Made with wholesome dairy milk and a smile in every spoonful”. Ok, challenge set, no specific recipes with toffee bits around so it was time to get creative.

So here was the general strategy:

Make vanilla ice cream using the Alton Brown custard method.

Make toffee from scratch, not the most flattering of photos…

Make honeycomb from scratch

Break honeycomb and toffee into small bits for addition to ice cream. Toffee already in small bits from photo above but would have gone smaller next time.

Stir through honeycomb and toffee at end of churn process.

It’s going to look better, just you wait! If you go back to the picture of the finished product I find it really interesting the way the amber color of the candy makes its way into the white of the ice cream, making more of a caramel colored ice cream.

Freeze and ENJOY!

More specific steps here:

1. Prepare vanilla custard as per this recipe (I didn’t use vanilla sugar and put the whole mixture through a mesh sieve before cooling)

2. Prepare toffee bits as per this recipe

3. Prepare honeycomb as per my earlier post on the topic.

4. Once toffee and honeycomb are cool, smash into bite size pieces. I usually do this kind of thing by breaking up the candy into largish pieces with my hands, then placing in ziplock bags followed by a good smashing with a glass or rolling pin. Anything you have to hand should suffice.

5. Measure out 5oz of honeycomb bits and 5 oz of toffee bits.

6. Churn the vanilla custard as per recipe instructions.

7. At the end of the churning process, use a spatula to stir through the honeycomb and toffee bits into the ice cream.

8. Put in plastic containers and freeze until firm.

On the topic of firmness, for me this took a little longer than normal. I put the ice cream in the freezer on Saturday morning and it only reached a nice firm ice cream consistency the following morning. I did notice that the custard wasn’t as thick as usual. Perhaps I needed to keep things on the heat a little longer?

That’s all there is to it. Sounds simple enough but bear in mind that some advanced preparation is needed for freezing of ice cream bowl. The whole thing will take about 24 hours to get from prep stage to delicious in your belly stage.

On the topic of ice cream – I think this might be the last ice cream post for a while although keep your eyes peeled for a post where I do a chocolate ice cream showdown between three different recipes. Two out of the three recipes have already been tried. Last one up is David Lebovitz’s recipe from The Perfect Scoop.