Coffee caramel ice cream pie combines all your favorite coffee shop flavors in one easy no-bake dessert.
Earlier this summer, I stocked our freezer with ice cream (homemade and not) in preparation for a hot summer. Did we get a crazy hot summer? No. So what is a girl to do with all this ice cream? Make pie, naturally. Pies are a very classic summer and fall dessert, but I know no one wants to turn on the oven in the summer unless you really have to. Ice cream pie solves this. You can have your (no-bake) pie and eat it too. 😉
Coffee was one of the flavors of store-bought ice cream we had on hand, and I had some caramel in the fridge, so combining the two flavors and making a caramel coffee ice cream pie seemed very right. I debated a little about the crust flavor because a graham cracker crust didn’t fit in my opinion. A chocolate cookie crust totally did the trick though, and then I had a perfectly good reason to make chocolate ganache.
Let’s talk a little about chocolate and the freezer though, shall we? Because any time I’ve made a chocolate chip ice cream and put it in the freezer, I get hard chunks o’ chocolate and not the lovely melt-in-your-mouth bites I expect. This is because the freezing point of chocolate chips is different than the freezing point of the ice cream, and chocolate chips are not meant to be eaten straight out of the freezer. But I wanted a chocolate topping to this ice cream pie because then it’s like a caramel mocha, which makes it extra fancy. And if you’re going to have dessert, let’s make it fancy.
To keep the chocolate ganache from going grainy or getting too hard in the freezer, I borrowed a tip from gelato-making. When one makes stracciatella gelato (basically chocolate chip gelato), it’s done by making a chocolate ganache with an invert sugar and then drizzling that into the gelato at the end of the churn. The invert sugar helps keep the gelato nice and shiny and lowers the freezing point so it’s not rock solid coming out of the freezer. Hooray!
Store the assembled pie in the freezer up to two days covered in plastic wrap, and then top with whipped cream and the caramel drizzle when you’re ready to serve. Enjoy!
Coffee Caramel Ice Cream Pie
Stay cool and get your coffee fix this summer with a delicious coffee caramel ice cream pie! This is a lovely make-ahead dessert ANYONE can assemble. You'll love this tasty, creamy, coffee dessert with the perfect balance of coffee, chocolate, and caramel. Yum!
Ingredients
Chocolate Cookie Crust
- 8 ounces chocolate cookies, crushed into crumbs
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Filling
- 1 pint coffee flavored ice cream
- 1/2 cup caramel sauce, homemade or store bought
Ganache Topping
- 6 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 4 ounces heavy cream
- 1 tbsp light corn syrup
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Finishing Touches
- whipped cream
- extra caramel for drizzling
Instructions
- Crush your chocolate cookies into fine crumbs and combine with the melted butter. Press into a 9" pie dish and place in the freezer.
- Remove your ice cream from the freezer to soften while you make your ganache.
- In a double boiler or in the microwave, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and corn syrup until smooth. If using the microwave, remember to start with 1 minute, at 50% power, then stir, and repeat in 30 second intervals as needed. Stir in the vanilla extract once your ganache is smooth, and set aside.
- Remove the pie crust from the freezer and cover the bottom with half your softened ice cream. Drizzle 1/4 cup of the caramel sauce onto the ice cream. Top the caramel with the remaining ice cream.
- Pour the ganache over the ice cream, then drizzle the ganache with the remaining caramel and return the pie to the freezer for at least 30 minutes to set.
- Remove the pie from the freezer 5 minutes before serving, top with whipped cream and additional caramel, if desired. Enjoy!
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