Meet your new favorite ice cream flavor! Studded with candied pecans in each bite, this homemade butterscotch ice cream is pure decadence with its ultra creamy texture and prominent caramelized brown sugar notes. Serve this ice cream on a slice of rich pound cake or unadorned in a simple dish —- either way, you’re in for one indulgent treat.

Two ice cream dishes of butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans on gold and marble coasters.

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Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
How to Make Candied Pecans
Perfect Pairing
Love Homemade Ice Cream?
📖 Recipe

Why don’t we see butterscotch ice cream often? Sure, we have butterscotch ice cream topping, but butterscotch as a stand-alone ice cream flavor rarely makes an appearance in the grocery aisles or ice cream shops. Considering that we see plenty of caramel ice creams, butterscotch ice cream also deserves a place in our ice cream-loving hearts.

Fortunately, we're changing that with this butterscotch ice cream recipe. Just one bite and you'll see why we need butterscotch-flavored ice cream in our lives.

Related: For more ice cream recipes, make sure you also try my Biscoff ice cream, gingerbread ice cream and amaretto ice cream!

A few scoops of butterscotch ice cream with two gold spoons next to it.

Ingredients

Let's make some ice cream! Here's every ingredient you need to make this butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans.

Dark brown sugar
Butter
Heavy cream
Whole milk
Egg yolks
Vanilla extract
Salt
Pecans
Egg white
Cinnamon

Now I know I say this all the time, but dark brown sugar is essential for this recipe. No exaggeration. Light brown sugar doesn't give us the depth of flavor we need to get those rich butterscotch notes. When making butterscotch, always go for dark brown sugar.

A gold container with butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans and three scoops on top.

Step-by-Step Instructions

We begin by melting some butter in a saucepan, adding our dark brown sugar and giving it a stir. The mixture will initially look clumpy like so.

The dark brown sugar in a saucepan looking initially clumpy.

We continue to cook the brown sugar mixture until it comes to a simmer and starts to liquify.

The dark brown sugar as it starts to simmer.

At that point, we cook it for just another minute or two and then add our heavy cream and milk.

Once we add the heavy cream and milk, the sugar mixture will seize up and pieces will harden. Don't panic. That's totally normally. We just continue to cook our mixture, and the hardened pieces will melt back into our cream.

After our cream mixture comes to a simmer, we turn off the heat and ladle in a scoop of said cream mixture into whisked egg yolks and vanilla. We repeat this process a few more times, which allows our egg yolks to gently cook without turning into scrambled eggs. Now we spoon our egg mixture into the remaining cream, put the saucepan back on the stove and cook until it thickens.

From here, we give our butterscotch mixture plenty of time to cool in the refrigerator, preferably overnight, and then we're ready to churn.

Butterscotch ice cream on cheese cloth with flowers in the background.

Looking straight at a dish of butterscotch ice cream with a gold spoon on the side.

How to Make Candied Pecans

This rich ice cream is incredible on its own, but you know what makes it even better? Candied pecans. We basically caramelize a dark brown sugar mixture onto the pecans for the perfect complement to our rich butterscotch.

To make our candied pecans, we mix together some dark brown sugar and a touch of cinnamon in one bowl. In another bowl, we whisk an egg white until frothy. Now we add our pecans to the egg white and then move them to our dark brown sugar mixture to coat. We pop them in the oven and bake at a low 300 degrees, giving the pecans a stir every so often, and that's it.

Oh, and here's a little pro tip: Don't be like me and forget to put parchment paper on your baking dish. Clean up is much easier if you remember to use parchment paper.

The candied pecans before cooked in a baking dish.

Perfect Pairing

With that rich butterscotch flavor, you can never go wrong with a barley wine, which comes with a sweet, caramel-like malt. Many barley wines also carry toffee and dried fruit notes that pair perfectly with the butterscotch.

If you need a wine pairing, you'll love a PX sherry. This sherry shows off honey, fig and candied fruit flavors. As you can imagine, those all work well with our butterscotch. You could even pour some PX sherry on top off this butterscotch ice cream for a boozy kick if you're into that sort of thing.

For those times you need a rich, decadent treat, I hope you try this butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans.

Cheers!

Looking into a scoop of butterscotch ice cream with a gold spoon sticking out and one gold spoon to the side.

Two dishes of butterscotch ice cream with candied pecans and flowers in the background.

Love Homemade Ice Cream?

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