NO-CHURN Peppermint Bark Cottage Cheese Ice Cream Recipe

Let me introduce you to my peppermint bar cottage cheese ice cream that you can easily make at home without an ice cream maker. Not only is it creamy and delicious from the cottage cheese but it's also gluten-free with my almond flour brownies. Then it's sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy canes and a few mini chocolate chips. And the best part is it can all be made with natural ingredients with far less sugar than a traditional ice cream. We're going to start by making my really simple gluten-free brownies. I'm just using an 8x8 cake pan and I find it works easiest if I line it with parchment paper. So I'm just going to cut a sheet of parchment paper, place my pan on top, line up the bottom edge, create a little score line on the other side, fold it over on the score line, square it up on the edges, flip it upside down, press it into my pan, score the two inside edges, fold it up and over the top, up and over the top, and then it will be super convenient to lift our brownies out of our pan once they're cooked. And then I'll give it a spray with my non-stick on the exposed edges and I'm just using some coconut oil. And then we can set this aside. To make our brownie batter we're going to start with our wet ingredients which includes three tablespoons of almond butter, three tablespoons of oil, and light olive oil is my favorite, three tablespoons of maple syrup, one teaspoon of vanilla, and two teaspoons of apple cider vinegar which will enhance the chocolate flavor. Now we want to mix these ingredients together before we add our egg to make sure they're really well incorporated and so we don't over mix our egg. I'm just using the whisk attachment on my immersion blender and I'll just blend these until well combined. Now we can add one egg and then I'll give that a quick mix. Now we can add our dry ingredients which includes one third of a cup of almond flour, three tablespoons of coconut sugar, three tablespoons of cocoa powder, and then I'm adding half a teaspoon of cinnamon, a fourth a teaspoon of baking soda, an eighth a teaspoon of baking powder, and a fourth a teaspoon of salt. And then I'll gently mix these until well combined. Now we have this really simple and very good smelling brownie batter. Now this recipe makes basically half the amount of batter that you would normally make to fill an 8x8 pan, but we want to bake these brownies a little more shallow and then a little bit longer than regular brownies so that they can have a little more shape and a little more texture to them which makes it easier to mix them into our ice cream. So I'm just going to pour in my batter and then spread it around in my pan. I'll give it a couple taps, make sure it's nice and even. Now these are ready to go into a 350 degree oven for about 28 minutes. Now typically you would only bake brownies for maybe about 18 to 20, but we want these to be a little more firm since we'll be breaking them up into our ice cream. To make our cottage cheese ice cream I'm just going to use the chopper cup that comes with my immersion blender. Then I'm going to add a cup and a half of cottage cheese and you can use large curd, small curd, low fat, non-fat, whatever your preference. And you could also mix this in a food processor or even use an immersion blender. Next we'll add a fourth a cup of maple syrup, one teaspoon of vanilla, and we'll add an eighth of a teaspoon of peppermint extract. You know I'll be careful not to add too much or it might taste like toothpaste. And a pinch of salt. And I'm going to put on my lid and blend it on high which will remove all of the curdled cottage cheese texture. Well that looks fantastic. It is smooth and creamy. Next we want to get our peppermint candy ready. Now you could either use two candy canes or you could just use these round peppermint candies. They both are going to taste the same and look beautiful in your ice cream. I'm going to go ahead and use 12 peppermint candies. To crush the candy just add them to a sandwich bag and then take a sturdy object, and in my case it's my bamboo rolling pin, and I just want to go through and gently crush your candy. And if your bag becomes a little bit compromised like mine did, we'll go ahead and pour these back into our bowl. To assemble our ice cream I'm going to use a shallow dish and this will help the ice cream freeze faster which means you get to enjoy it sooner. So I'm just going to take a spatula and then pour the ice cream right into the dish. And then I'll just go ahead and quickly spread it around. Now we can add in our brownie bits and I have a batch here that I allow to cool completely and put in my fridge so it is nice and cold. Now we could just cut our brownie into little squares, put those into the ice cream, but then as we gently mix it those brownie bits are going to break apart and become very crumbly. So I found a really good method to kind of condense the brownies into these really delicious little bite-sized pieces is to just take the entire brownie and we're going to fold it in on itself. We're going to basically squish it down into a big giant ball. Now I have to admit this is not something I've ever done before but it's definitely hashtag satisfying. So essentially we're making kind of a giant cake pop out of it. Now once we have our brownie all squished together we can go ahead and break it apart and then we can start breaking off some small little bite-sized pieces and add it to our ice cream. So I'm just gonna start breaking some off and just squish them in my hand to be nice and tight and then drop them into the ice cream. And you can make these chunks as large or as small as you like and your kids would love to help you with this step. Now you are free to determine your ideal brownie to ice cream ratio. I ended up breaking up about two-thirds of the brownie into the ice cream. Before I dump in my peppermint pieces I want to go ahead and pull out just a few that I'm going to sprinkle on top at the end. So I'm just going to pull out a few of the bigger pieces and then we can just sprinkle the rest right into the ice cream. Oh that looks so good! And then to mix it all together we're just going to take our spatula and we'll come in and gently just kind of flip the ice cream so that we get some of our brownies covered. And the gentler you are as you mix the ice cream the more intact your brownie pieces are going to be. Now just go through and very gently smooth it out again being careful not to squish down my brownie bits too far because I love having those nice and chunky in my ice cream. As far as I'm concerned you can never have too much chocolate so I'm going to go ahead and just sprinkle on about two tablespoons of just some little mini chocolate chips because that will just make it more awesome. And since most of the peppermint bits got mixed down into the ice cream I want to sprinkle a few on top just so that I can visually see them and know that this in fact is peppermint brownie ice cream. Well that looks incredible and it's now ready to go into the freezer for about two to three hours or until it's firm enough to scoop. Well I have one here that I made earlier that is ready to scoop. Cottage cheese ice cream is a little bit different than traditional ice cream in that you might need to let it thaw for a few minutes on your counter for it to be soft enough to scoop but it only takes maybe 10 or 15 minutes and then it's perfectly soft and creamy and ready to enjoy. So I'm just going to take my scooper here oh my goodness look how beautiful that scoops up all those chunks of brownie and all those ribbons of red color from the peppermint oh that looks so good yes I'm a little excited Crunchy! That tastes incredible as soon as I bite in I get that delicious peppermint flavor and then you get the crunch that comes in from the peppermint candy and then I get the softness coming in from that brownie with a little bit of crunch coming from the chocolate chips and then that creamy cottage cheese just adds the perfect texture to bring it all together. I love knowing that this is made with clean nutrient-dense ingredients and without any refined white sugar or high fructose corn syrup which means I'm going to feel good even after I enjoy it. Well thank you so much for hanging out with me today to make this delicious ice cream and I've included a link to the full recipe in the video description below which will take you to my website gentletummy.com and I also invite you to like and subscribe to my channel and if you know someone else who you think would love to have this ice cream recipe please share this video with them and I cannot wait to have you hang out with me again in my kitchen