Spudnik Ice Cream

Yes, you are looking at a scoop of sweet and buttery potato ice cream resting on top of some caramelized peaches and garnished with brown sugar candied bacon.

If I had to reconstruct the steps that led me to this one, I would say this came about when I used dehydrated potato flakes to thicken a bean paste for mochi. Ever made a sauce or a puree too thin, and needed to thicken it in a hurry? My go-to thickeners for these applications are coconut flour (though it will very quickly make it all about itself) and, these days, potato flakes. Perhaps because my canister of potato flakes lives near the whey protein, I wondered if this couldn't add body to a cashew milk base.

Acknowledging that there is nothing new under the sun in the culinary world, my reflex when I have a seemingly crazy idea is to check whether someone else has had it, too. If nothing else, it will embolden me to try. If Idahoan endorses the use of potato flakes in ice cream, what could possibly go wrong?

Also on the backburner of my mind is buttery popcorn ice cream, which I hear is best made with the most artificial buttery microwave popcorn possible. With that it mind, I ordered some "butter sprinkles" for that special fake butter flavor. I suppose I could have used buttery instant mashed potatoes, but I assumed those would have garlic or somesuch. And no. My buttery mashed potato ice cream will be sweet. To a half-batch of Alternative Ice Cream in which I omitted salt, add:

- 2 T melted, but not browned, butter

- 3 to 6 T butter sprinkles, to taste - up to 90 g dehydrated potato flakes; that was 1.5 cups of my large flakes, you may wish to start with 1 cup (60g) - 1 T honey or corn syrup - 1 t each butter extract, vanilla extract (a full batch of the Alternative base has 1 T vanilla already) I strongly suggest adding the potato and butter sprinkles gradually to taste. The former because it will drastically affect the texture of your ice cream, potentially beyond your comfort zone. You know how mashed potatoes can become elasticized and gummy if you overprocess them? That's what you are getting. I happen to love this in ice cream, your mileage may vary. I haven't found butter sprinkles without a decent dose of sodium in them, so that is also worth approaching with caution. The result? A chewy, stretchy ice cream with a rich and comforting flavor of mashed potatoes that should be horribly wrong in a sweet vanilla context, but is somehow absolutely right. I loved this so much I made another batch a few weeks later, despite my never-ending queue of new things to try in ice cream form.

Don't understand why this is called Spudnik? We can't be friends. #dadjokes

#icecream #sweet #splurge #alternativefoods