Olive Oil Cake a la Sweet Basil & Honeyed Pine Nut Ice Cream

Our 2nd choice from the Jeni's Ice Cream book was a dandy! You all need to try this, I was surprised at how much we both loved it. It almost seems like a butter brickle, in the way that you have a lot of creaminess with small little sweet bits every now and then, but with a totally unique taste.  Interestingly though, both of us thought we could use even more basil flavor and Ashley's brother and mom didn't like it that much at all and wanted less. The olive oil cake was good but to be honest, we made it more than a day ahead of time and that dried it out more than I would've liked. I would make it again though, at it's freshest I'm sure it's better. It was a great summer treat all in all.


2C Whole Milk
1T + 1t cornstarch
1.5oz (3T) cream cheese, softened
1/4t fine sea salt
1.25C Heavy Cream
2/3C sugar
2T light corn syrup
A large handful of fresh basil leaves roughly torn into small pieces
1/3C Honey Pine Nuts (see below)



Honey Pine Nuts: (makes about 1 cup)
1C Pine Nuts (or other nut if you like)
2T light brown sugar
2T honey
1T unsalted butter, melted
1/4t fine sea salt

Preheat oven to 350. Combine nuts with the remaining ingredients in a bowl, tossing to coat. Spread out on a baking sheet and bake for 8 mins. Stir and bake for another 5-6 mins, stirring twice; the nuts should look bubbly and somewhat dry. Remove from the oven and let cool completely, stirring the nuts every couple mins to break them up.

Ice Cream 
PREP: Mix 2T of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

COOK: Combine remaining milk, the cream, sugar and corn syrup in a 4 qt saucepan, bring to a rolling boil over med-high heat and boil for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil over med-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened about 1 minute. Remove from heat.

CHILL: Gradually whisk the hot milk into the cream cheese until smooth. Add the basil. Pour the mixture into a 1 gallon freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 mins.

FREEZE: Strain out the basil. Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and spin until thick and creamy. Pack the ice cream into a storage container, folding in the honey pine nut pralines as you go. Press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, at least 4 hrs.

Opah!!