Salted Butterscotch Cookie Dough Ice Cream

This Salted Butterscotch Cookie Dough Ice Cream is an irresistible summer treat! Smooth, sweet, salty, with decadent butterscotch flavor, and studded with chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough.

This butterscotch cookie dough ice cream is like classic cookie dough ice cream, but better!

I thought I was done with ice cream recipes for a while, but evidently not. My ice cream machine is proving to be a fantastic investment! 

I LOVE this brown butter butterscotch pecan ice cream I shared with you guys the other day so much that I decided to make another variation of it. So enter, Salted Butterscotch Cookie Dough Ice Cream! Sweet and salty, with decadent butterscotch flavor, and studded with chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough… this is as irresistibly addictive, bold and unpretentious as a summer treat can get. 

It’s a variation of the classic cookie dough ice cream, but with even more flavor. If you love butterscotch and cookie dough ice cream, and that sweet-salty flavor combo, this sweet treat is impossible to resist!

The only way this ice cream could be better in my opinion is if it had chocolate fudge as well. So to fix that, I made chocolate fudge sauce, which you can drizzle over this ice cream to your heart’s content! 🙂 

The base of this salted butterscotch cookie dough ice cream is almost identical to my brown butter butterscotch pecan ice cream. Only difference is that there’s no brown butter here. You’re more than welcome to add brown butter too here if you like, but I wanted to keep the recipe relatively simple, since we are making cookie dough chunks here as well. 

There are two components to this salted butterscotch cookie dough ice cream.

1. Salted butterscotch ice cream base
2. Decadent edible cookie dough pieces

Salted butterscotch ice cream base

This is easy to make – just like any classic ice cream base made with egg yolks.

The only difference here is the addition of a little butter (or brown butter if you choose to), and substituting white sugar with brown sugar. 

The eggs are whisked with melted butter and sugar until smooth and emulsified, and then the dairy is whisked in. Next, this custard is heated until it starts to steam or registers at 165 – 170°F. 

Then, the custard is allowed to cool down and chill. 

This is the salted butterscotch ice cream base that will be churned in your ice cream machine. BUT, don’t forget to add the cookie dough pieces too!

Edible cookie dough pieces

Holy cow, I love cookie dough! Eating raw cookie dough was a rite of passage for me when I started baking when I was little. That, in spite of all the voices I’ve heard over the years telling me that eating raw cookie dough wasn’t ahem… particularly nutritious. 

It used to be that raw eggs were not safe to be consumed, but I didn’t give a F, and just enjoyed raw cookie dough batter as a kid. Besides that though, raw flour is also a health hazard due to the potential of it carrying harmful bacteria. 

So with that in mind, the adult in me would like to emphasize the importance of making cookie dough pieces that are egg free, with flour that is safe to consume. The solution is using toasted flour (i.e. heat-treated flour). 

How to heat treat flour for raw cookie dough

Heat treating flour is easy. Simply spread the flour on a baking sheet (I like to put a parchment paper on my baking sheet), then heat the flour in a preheated oven for about 10 – 15 minutes. That’s it.

What does heat treating flour do?

Raw flour is not safe to eat because of the possibility of E. coli. Thankfully, the kind of E. coli found in raw four is not heat resistant, which is why heating the flour to 350°F/180°C kills the bacteria, making it safe to eat. 

Once the flour is heat treated, make sure to sift it to get rid of any clumps that might form as it cools down. 

Prepping edible cookie dough

The dough for this butterscotch cookie dough ice cream recipe is made similar to regular cookie dough, minus the eggs. And since you only need to make a small amount, I just use a spatula and spoon to mix the ingredients. 

You can use any kind of chocolate for the chocolate chips in the dough. However, if you’re using actual chocolate chips, make sure to chop them a little before adding them. Remember, the chocolate here is going to be frozen, so smaller chocolate pieces spread better through the cookie dough. Having whole chocolate chips isn’t ideal for this cookie dough ice cream.

The edible cookie dough is then spread out on parchment paper and frozen till completely hardened. Once hardened, you can chop the cookie dough block into small pieces. 

Chopped cookie dough can be added to the ice cream during the last few minutes of churning. My ice cream churner doesn’t have enough space to churn with the cookie dough pieces, so I removed the ice cream container while the ice cream had a soft-serve consistency and quickly folded in the cookie dough pieces by hand. 

Now the salted butterscotch cookie dough ice cream is ready to be frozen.

What variations of this butterscotch cookie dough ice cream recipe can I make?

Lots!

• My favorite – layer a generous amount of hot fudge sauce (at room temperature), while transferring the ice cream into a container from the churner. Alternate the layers of ice cream and fudge sauce and swirl them in.
• Instead of salted butterscotch ice cream, you can make classic vanilla ice cream base for a classic cookie dough ice cream. 
• How about an adult version of this ice cream with a shot of bourbon when churning it? 
• Substitute 2 tbsp of heat treated flour with 1 tbsp cocoa powder, to make chocolate cookie dough ice cream. 
• Want to go nuts? Pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts are all great choices.
• For an even more indulgent ice cream, add some chopped peanut butter cups!

But if you like it as is, you can still drizzle some delicious hot fudge sauce on top before serving. Maybe even some whipped cream too? If you’re going to indulge with a decadent ice cream this summer, you might as well make it worth your while (and your taste buds)! 🙂 

If you like this recipe, then you may also love these ice cream recipes 

Creamy Chocolate Ice Cream

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice cream

Rainbow Ice Cream Slice (no churn)

Special Equipment I used for this recipe – 

ICE CREAM MAKER – An inexpensive freezer bowl ice cream machine will be perfect for the average cook/baker. I have used & recommend this Cuisinart model. If you do constantly make ice cream in summer, then I would recommend investing in an ice cream maker with a built in compressor. These machines do not require to be pre-chilled and you can make many batches of ice cream over and over again. I currently own, and recommend this Cuisinart model. 

THERMOMETER – An inexpensive Cooking thermometer or a more expensive instant read thermapen.

Salted Butterscotch Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Course: Desserts, Frozen Desserts, Ice Cream

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Butterscotch, Cookie Dough, Dessert Recipes, Ice Cream

Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Inactive / Chilling time: 8 hours

Total Time: 10 hours 15 minutes

Servings: 7 1 cup servings

Calories: 649 kcal

Author: Dini @ The Flavor Bender

Smooth, sweet, salty, with decadent butterscotch flavor, and studded with chunks of chocolate chip cookie dough!

Intermediate - This recipe requires more than 2 techniques + special equipment. Each technique is easy, and just requires planning ahead.

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Ingredients

Salted Butterscotch ice cream

• 3 tbsp unsalted butter melted
• ¾ cup dark brown sugar or raw sugar
• 5 - 6 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1 ½ cups full cream milk
• 1 ½ cups whipping cream 35% fat

Toasted Flour for edible cookie dough (Heat Treated flour)

• 1 cup AP flour

Edible Cookie dough

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter softened
• ⅓ cup brown sugar
• ¾ tsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp dark corn syrup you can use light corn syrup too
• ½ cup toasted flour check instructions for making toasted flour
• ⅓ cup chopped chocolate

Instructions

Salted Butterscotch ice cream

1. Place the 3 tbsp butter, ¾ cup sugar, egg yolks, vanilla extract and 1 tsp salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Whisk well until the mixture is emulsified, and is creamy and smooth.

2. Whisk in the milk and cream.

3. Heat the custard over medium heat until it registers at 165 - 170°F, while whisking frequently. If you don't have a thermometer, heat and whisk until the custard is steaming but NOT boiling.

4. Allow the custard to cool down to room temperature. Cover and chill in the fridge for at least 3 - 4 hours, or overnight.

5. Make the cookie dough while the ice cream base is chilling.

Toasted Flour

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a half sheet pan or quarter sheet pan with parchment paper.

2. Place about ¾ - 1 cup of AP flour (125 g) on the parchment paper and spread it evenly.

3. Heat the flour in the preheated oven for about 10 - 15 minutes, making sure to mix the flour once or twice during the process, so that the flour is evenly heated/toasted.

4. Remove the flour from the oven and let it cool to room temperature. Sift before using.

Cookie dough

1. Place the 4 tbsp softened unsalted butter, ⅓ cup brown sugar, ¾ tsp salt, 2 tsp cream, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 tbsp corn syrup in a bowl and mix until creamy and well-mixed.

2. Sift in the ½ cup toasted (heat treated) flour. Mix until you have a spreadable dough.

3. Add the chopped chocolate and mix well.

4. Line a quarter sheet pan with parchment paper and spread the cookie dough on it in a thin layer (about ½ cm thick).

5. Freeze the cookie dough overnight (or 3 - 4 hours) until completely hardened.

Salted Butterscotch Cookie dough ice cream

1. Churn the salted butterscotch ice cream custard in your ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions. BUT, only churn the ice cream to a soft-serve consistency, since you have to fold in the cookie dough pieces by hand at this stage.

2. While the ice cream is churning, remove the frozen cookie dough from the freezer. Using a sharp knife, cut the cookie dough slab into small pieces. Keep the pieces frozen until needed.

3. When the ice cream is at the soft-serve stage, remove it from your ice cream machine and fold in the cookie dough pieces by hand.

4. Then transfer the ice cream into a freezer container and freeze until the ice cream is completely hardened (about 4 - 8 hours).

5. Serve with fudge sauce or whipped cream.