Palmer House Ice Cream

Welcome back to Mimi's Organic Eats. Today we're making Palmer House ice cream. This rich, creamy, and buttery ice cream is a vanilla base with fresh cherries and toasted walnuts. It's quick and easy and you don't need an ice cream maker. Let me show you guys how to make it. So you may not have ever heard of Palmer House ice cream unless you grew up in the Chicago area like I did. This ice cream flavor was originally created for the historic Palmer House Hotel, but many Chicagoans, including myself, probably only know it from the iconic rainbow cone as it's one of the five flavors. Rainbow cone was actually my local ice cream shop and we could walk to the original location in Beverly growing up and it was even only open in the summertime. But since then they have franchised and they even have a ton of locations outside of the Chicago area. The rainbow cone is known for their iconic five flavor ice cream cone and it's scooped with spades not with scoops so when it fills up the cone it looks like a rainbow. The order goes chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and then orange sherbet. So I've made it my mission this summer to make the iconic rainbow cone at home using organic ingredients. And so I just got a bunch of fresh cherries from my friend's tree and so it's the perfect day to make this Palmer House ice cream. We're gonna make a no-churn ice cream today so it's quick, easy, and you don't need an ice cream maker. You will need a stand mixer or a hand mixer, either one will work. So these are the ingredients that we're gonna need to make this ice cream. So first we have some fresh cherries, then we have some toasted walnuts. If you guys only have raw walnuts you can use those, but I would recommend toasting them for the best flavor. So to toast them just bake them at 350 degrees on a baking sheet for about 5 to 10 minutes, that's all you need to do. Then we're gonna need some heavy whipping cream and sweetened condensed milk because that's going to be at the base of our ice cream. And of course some vanilla extract. And then we're going to add in my secret ingredient for this recipe which is my homemade caramel sauce. And so while the traditional Palmer House ice cream doesn't have any caramel in it, we're going to use caramel sauce to give it a buttery kind of rich and vanilla flavor. Trust me you guys do not want to skip this step. So I'm using my homemade true caramel sauce that I use for everything, store-bought also works, but I highly recommend making your own if you can. And you guys want to make that the day before. I'll link my recipe for that in the description. So first we're going to chop our walnuts. Then we're going to pit and dice our cherries. Add in two cups of heavy whipping cream into your stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Then add in one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whisk starting on low to avoid splattering. Then continue to gradually increase the speed as the mixture begins to thicken until you're at full speed. Whisk until stiff peaks form. So now we're going to add in our sweetened condensed milk. And then we're going to add in our caramel sauce. So now you're just going to fold everything together until you have a smooth consistency. The sweetened condensed milk is what is going to make this no-churn ice cream work. When combined with the whipped cream it lowers the freezing point to create an airy but creamy ice cream that's easy to scoop. So once our ice cream base is smooth and creamy we're just going to grab a container to put it in. So I like to do this in like a loaf pan or like a cake pan because it's easy to layer and get like a good amount of stuff in every layer. And then I like to transfer it to ice cream containers afterwards. But you guys could also layer this in a Tupperware or you could also layer it right into your ice cream container as well. So I like to do about three layers of ice cream base and cherries and walnuts. This is going to make sure we have a good mixture and we're getting mix-ins in every bite. But if you guys are using a smaller container you may have to do a little bit more. So I'm going to add in about a third of the ice cream mixture. So now all we have to do is place this in the freezer and let it chill overnight. So once your ice cream has set overnight then it's ready to scoop and enjoy. Make sure to store extra ice cream in an airtight container in the freezer. If you guys enjoyed this video be sure to drop a like and leave a comment below. And if you want more easy summer recipes just like this be sure to hit that subscribe button and join me next time in the kitchen. And make sure to stay tuned for my other ice cream flavors that I'm making for the iconic rainbow cone.