Mix Leftover Cornbread Into Your Ice Cream For A Buttery Sweet Treat

Leftover cornbread isn't just a great topping for squash casserole or filler for your Thanksgiving turkey dressing. It's also a buttery, sweet and savory textural ingredient to upgrade your homemade ice cream. You can use up homemade cornbread or the remnants of the store-bought pan you had for dinner the other night. Leftover cornbread will have dried out enough to absorb the sweet cream you stir it into while still providing a buttery density of its own to contrast the smooth consistency of the ice cream.

Just as chunks of cake brownies, and cookie dough are common ingredients in both commercial ice cream brands and ice cream shop flavors, cornbread chunks are the latest add-ins that'll give your ice cream a sophisticated, artisanal vibe. They're ready-made ingredients that require little more than cutting up leftover cornbread into bite-sized chunks or cubes. You can stir a cup of crumbs into the liquid ice cream batter, reserving a second cup for layering and topping so that you get an even dispersal of cornbread throughout the final product.

Add a layer of batter to the bottom of your freezer-safe container, followed by a layer of bread crumbs, the rest of the batter, and the rest of the cornbread crumbs will create the topping. Then, cover the top and place it in the freezer to set overnight.

Cornbread is a flavorful add-in, especially if you pair it with the right flavor of ice cream. Since you're making ice cream from scratch, you can create the flavors that will benefit from cornbread and vice versa. You can draw inspiration from popular spreads and garnishes that commonly accompany cornbread. Butter flavored ice cream with sweetened condensed milk would be a great cornbread pairing. Honey or maple are rich, floral flavors to complement the earthy sweetness of cornbread. Sweet cream and vanilla are more conventional and versatile flavors that would make delicious ice cream foundations for cornbread crumbs. If you wanted a double dose, you could use creamed corn and sugar for sweet corn ice cream studded with chunks of cornbread.

Tasting Table has a wealth of cornbread recipes to inspire even more flavor pairing for your ice cream. For example, you could chunks of this recipe for honey-sage skillet cornbread to honey flavored ice cream, or this recipe for sweet potato cornbread to maple flavored ice cream. This recipe for cast iron fig cornbread will pair perfectly with a ricotta or mascarpone ice cream base.

The sweet earthiness of corn also works well with other fruits, so you could add a swirl of blackberry or dark cherry compote along with cornbread to a vanilla or sweet cream ice cream base for a veritable cobbler a la mode.