Butterscotch Ice Cream with crushed cashew praline – homemade, eggless and no churn frozen treat. It’s incredibly smooth and delicious! This is my first attempt at making ice creams at home and it had to be butterscotch because it’s always been a favourite in the house, especially for my Mom!

The base of this no churn ice cream is a standard no-cook, no-churn, 2-ingredients ice cream made with heavy cream and condensed milk. It doesn’t need any ice cream maker as well! For every 500ml of cream, you need 1 tin (400g) of condensed milk. Just whip the cream, fold in the condensed milk add your flavours and freeze for few hours! This no-churn method can really be adapted to just about any ice cream flavour or recipe that your heart (and tummy, of course!) fancies.

This is the Indian version of butterscotch – basically, it’s crushed cashew praline that adds flavour & crunch to the ice cream. The term ‘butterscotch’ internationally is used for the sauce made with butter and brown sugar, so let’s not confuse the two here 🙂

Making cashew praline is easy – just heat the sugar till it reaches a caramel golden brown colour, add chopped cashews and cool it on a parchment paper. Once it cools and hardens, pulse it in a food processor slightly to get smaller morsels (you can also do this with a rolling pin and ziplock bag).

Since we are adding the praline which is quite sweet in itself, I’ve reduced the quantity of condensed milk from 400g (1 tin) to 300g. The milk powder is another way to add creaminess to the ice cream, and it also helps in absorbing water, which means there’s less water to freeze into ice as the ice cream sets.

This ice cream contains no artificial additives except some butterscotch essence and a little food colour. I’ve made the cashew praline at home, but it can easily be swapped with butterscotch chips available in the market. 

Ingredients –

Cashew Praline
100g granulated white sugar
2 tbsp water
40g (about 1/2 cup) chopped cashews

Ice Cream
500ml heavy whipping cream, cold
300g condensed milk
3 tbsp milk powder
1 tsp Indian butterscotch essence
1-2 drops of Yellow gel food colour (optional)

Procedure – 

Cashew Praline
1. Prepare a baking tray – either with a silicone baking sheet or parchment paper.
2. Prepare the caramel – in a heavy bottom saucepan, add the sugar and water and heat on a low/medium flame.
3. Once the sugar dissolves, do not stir. The sugar will start turning golden and then turn amber. Switch off the heat. Keep a close eye on the caramel as it can go from amber to burnt in a matter of seconds.
4. Add the cashews and mix until they are coated evenly with caramel.
5. Immediately spread out the caramel on the baking tray as evenly as possible with a silicone spatula to about 1/2 inch thickness. Let it cool for about 15-20 minutes. Break the praline into medium sized pieces and pulse them in a food processor slightly to get smaller morsels (you can also do this with a rolling pin and ziplock bag).

Ice Cream
1. In a large bowl, add condensed milk, milk powder, butterscotch essence and food colour. Mix until combined. Keep it aside.
2. Pour the heavy cream into your stand mixer bowl with a whisk attachment (or use a hand mixer). Whip the cream until stiff peaks (about 3-5 minutes).
3. Fold the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture gently until combined. Do not mix for too long else you’ll deflate the mixture.
4. Add the crushed praline and mix in gently until combined.
5. Pour the base into your freezer container and smoothen out the top. Freeze for 6-8 hours at least. The ice cream can be frozen for up to 2 weeks.