Last time we made the trip into downtown Charleston, we stopped at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. Now I have had Jeni’s before and have had their Gooey Butter Cake ice cream but something about it last time had us in awe. Garrett and I could not stop oogling over it and thinking about it for weeks.

Fast forward a few months and for Garrett’s birthday, I decided I wanted to make homemade ice cream somewhat inspired by the Jeni’s gooey butter cake ice cream. Jeni’s Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream is a cream cheese flavored ice cream base mixed with vanilla cake and caramel & butterscotch sauce. I did not take that same route, which is why I am not calling this recipe a recreation. HOWEVER, this is recipe is arguably better (in my humble opinion). It has the same flavors but the cake in it is just SO good, there’s no way you can top it. The cream cheese in the cake gives the overall recipe that flavor and the brown butter gives some nuttiness that you would get from the caramel- butterscotch sauce in Jeni’s.

I combined two recipes to make this Gooey Butter Cake ice cream. I slightly modified the brown butter ice cream base recipe from Buttermilk by Sam (obviously omitted the cookie dough part) and then folded in chunks of the iconic gooey butter cake (recipe by Paula Deen). I did halve the recipe below for the ice cream base so that we could enjoy half of the gooey butter cake without it being in the ice cream. Because the gooey butter cake is made with a packaged cake mix, it’s hard to halve that recipe! Luckily, ice cream stay good in your freezer for a while, so have no fear about making too much! 😉

How to Make Jeni’s Inspired Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

Equipment Needed

Ice Cream Maker: I use this KitchenAid Ice Cream maker attachment. We keep the bowl in our freezer all the time so that I don’t forget to freeze it the night before I plan to make ice cream!

Mesh Sieve

Electric Mixer or Stand Mixer: I have a KitchenAid stand mixer, but you can use either for this recipe.

Digital Baking Thermometer: This will be necessary to get your ice cream custard to 165 degrees.

Recipe Ingredients

Yellow cake mix: calls for 18 ¼ oz, but I used 15.25 oz box and it turned out great

Eggs and Egg Yolks: A lot of them

Butter: a lot of it lol

Cream cheese: softened to room temp

Vanilla extract

Powdered sugar: 1-16 oz box (or half of the 2 pound bag)

Heavy cream: You can alternatively use whipping cream

Brown sugar

Vanilla bean paste: If you opt to use vanilla extract for the ice cream base, add it after it is removed from heat on the stove instead of before.

Sea salt

Whole milk

Instructions

Gooey Butter Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 °F
2. Combine the cake mix, 1 egg and 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
3. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining 2 eggs, vanilla extract and remaining 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter and beat together until combined.
4. Slowly add the powdered sugar and mix well until smooth. Spread over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Center will still be a little gooey.
5. Let cool and set aside for churning portion of ice cream.

Brown Butter Ice Cream

1. Set the 1/2 cup butter in a frying pan over low-medium heat. Stir occasionally as it melts and then it will begin to sputter and pop. Once the butter goes silent, and is foaming, stir more frequently to brown it evenly. When you see lots of brown bits at the bottom, immediately remove from heat and pour into a clean bowl, scraping the brown bits into the bowl. Let cool for a bit and the brown bits (milk solids) will sink to the bottom. Once they do, you can scoop off/pour off as much of the golden liquid from the brown butter bits as you can. Set aside the brown butter bits for step 2.
2. Add the brown butter bits, brown sugar, egg yolks, vanilla paste, heavy cream, milk, and salt to a pot. Whisk to combine.
3. Set the pot over medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly until the temperature reaches 165 F. Immediately remove from heat.
4. Set a mesh sieve over a bowl and pour the custard through it to catch any bits of egg that might have cooked too quickly. Ideally pick a sieve that is not super fine so that it doesn’t catch all of your brown butter bits!
5. Let the mix come to room temperature then cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge for a few hours.
6. When ready to churn ice cream, give the custard a stir and then pour into prepared ice cream machine and churn according to manufacturer’s instructions.
7. Moving back to your cooled gooey butter cake, crumble into large chunks.
8. When the ice cream is almost done churning, use a rubber spatula to gently fold in your cake chunks.
9. Store the ice cream in an airtight container and freeze. It’ll be ready to eat after freezing for about 4 hours.

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