Bi-Rite Creamery's Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Bitter, complex caramel is balanced by a plush, rich custard.

Updated April 17, 2024

Bi-rite salted caramel ice cream in a dish. — Serious Eats / Max Falkowitz

Why It Works

A deep, bitter caramel is balanced by a sweetened custard base.
The high milk to cream ratio makes for an ultra-creamy ice cream.

Before there was salted caramel everything, there was Bi-Rite's salted caramel ice cream. It's by far the scoop shop's most popular flavor, and with good reason. This stuff is aces. The caramel is bitter, smoky, and intensely complex, but sweet cream has a way of rounding out all its nastiness for a scoop that you really just can't stop eating. And now you don't have to, thanks to this recipe from Bi-Rite's new ice cream cookbook, Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones.

As I've learned from developing my own caramel recipes and participating in taste tests, individual preferences for salted caramel vary wildly. There's a different balance of salty, smoky, sweet, and bitter for every palate, and it takes some experimentation to find what's best for you. But this recipe is a great place to start, and since it's sweetened by a separate measurement of sugar from the caramel, it's easy to adjust to your tastes.

The salted caramel ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery is one of the best I've ever tasted. It's wildly complex, a tad smoky, and just salty enough. Just as important, it's ridiculously creamy thanks to an especially high proportion of cream that takes all the rough edges off the caramel.

What Worked: All of Bi-Rite's ice creams are, first and foremost, incredibly creamy. Look at the recipe for their standard base and it's easy to see why: they use a higher ratio of cream to other ingredients than most other recipes out there, 1 3/4 cups cream to 3/4 cups of milk for not-quite-a-quart. It's best not to think about the caloric impact of it, and focus on the flavor instead, which rings clear and true in a superbly creamy, almost fluffy ice cream.

What Didn't: This recipe calls for making a dry caramel, in which you caramelize a small amount of sugar in a pan with no water to kickstart the process, then slowly add more sugar as you go until everything is evenly cooked. Honestly, I don't care for this method, and my tests here confirmed why: it works, but it means you're constantly worried about over-burning your sugar before integrating the full amount.

Suggested Tweaks: I prefer a wet caramel method: add the sugar for the caramel all at once, then slurp in just enough water to moisten it. Cook the the whole syrup at once until the water evaporates and a caramel forms, no stirring required.

This recipe was originally part of the series "Scoop the Book".

April 2012

Recipe Details

Bi-Rite Creamery's Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Prep 0 mins

Cook 45 mins

Active 30 mins

Churning/Freezing Time 6 hrs 30 mins

Total 7 hrs 15 mins

Serves 8 servings

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups heavy cream, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup 1% or 2% milk
1 teaspoon kosher salt
5 large egg yolks

Directions

For the Caremel: Set the measured cream by the stove so it's at hand when you need it. Measure out 1/2 cup of the sugar and keep near the stove; you'll use this for the caramel (the rest will go in with the yolks). Put 2 tablespoons of the sugar for the caramel in a heavy stainless steel pan over medium-high heat. When the sugar is melted around the edges and starts to turn amber in places (about 2 minutes), stir the mixture gently and add another 2 tablespoons sugar to the pan.
Continue to add the rest of the 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, stirring frequently and allowing most of the sugar to melt before you add more. Watch carefully as the sugar darkens, stirring gently to help it melt evenly.
When the caramel becomes a dark mahogany color, remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour the cream slowly into the pan. (It will steam and bubble up, so wear oven mitts and be very careful to avoid splatters and steam burns.) When the bubbling subsides, gently stir to blend the cream completely into the caramel. If you have lumps of hardened caramel in your pan, simply put the pan over low heat and stir until the caramel is melted.
For the Base: Once the caramel is completely smooth, stir in the milk along with the salt and put the pan over medium-high heat. When the mixture approaches a bare simmer, reduce the heat to medium.
In a medium heatproof bowl, whisk the yolks just to break them up, then whisk in the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Set aside.
Carefully scoop out about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture and, whisking the eggs constantly, add the cream to the bowl with the egg yolks. Repeat, adding another 1/2 cup of the hot cream to the bowl with the yolks. Returning to the pan of cream on the stove, use a heatproof spatula to stir the cream as you slowly pour the egg and cream mixture from the bowl back into the pan.
Continue to cook the mixture carefully over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thickened, coats the back of a spatula, and leaves a clear mark when you run your finger across it, 1 to 2 minutes longer.
Strain the base through a fine-mesh strainer and into a clean container. Set the container into an ice bath, wash your spatula, and use it to stir the base occasionally until it is cool. Then cover base with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Freeze the Ice Cream: When the base is completely chilled, freeze in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. While the ice cream is churning, put the container you'll use to store the ice cream into the freezer. Enjoy right away, or for a firmer ice cream, freeze for at least 4 hours.

Special Equipment

Ice cream machine

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
313	Calories
23g	Fat
22g	Carbs
6g	Protein

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories	313
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 23g	29%
Saturated Fat 13g	67%
Cholesterol 200mg	67%
Sodium 228mg	10%
Total Carbohydrate 22g	8%
Dietary Fiber 0g	0%
Total Sugars 22g
Protein 6g
Vitamin C 0mg	2%
Calcium 82mg	6%
Iron 1mg	4%
Potassium 127mg	3%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.