Cream Cheese Ice Cream With Mars Bar Sauce

This week I started my first post-graduation, real-life job. It seems to be going pretty well, despite the unsociable hours - until I'm trained I'm working 6am - 2.30pm daily - but the main change I am seeing in myself is not tiredness but an increase in road rage.

You would think that at 5.30 in the morning there would be very little traffic, but apparently this is prime time for lorries, tractors and slow drivers. My most frightening experience was definitely yesterday morning when a lorry dragging two hay bale-laden trailers behind it pulled out in front of me. I was doing sixty, and this lorry clearly had no hope of pulling out without making me slow down, but it just didn't care. If this had been the hazard section of the driving theory test, this would have been the part where you click furiously on the lorry.

The worst part? The hay bales weren't even secured to their trailers. They were just haphazardly stacked on top. Naturally, I kept my distance, and fortunately this lorry of hay bale death left after about a mile or so.

Until the schools break up for the summer (I'm told this is on Tuesday?), my drive home from work is clogged up with parents on the way to get their children from school. I understand that they need to collect their children and everything, but could they perhaps pay attention to the speed limit? On my way home yesterday I was following someone who refused to go faster than 50mph, despite it being on a national speed limit road (and this was not a country lane, this was a road that is made for heavy traffic). This person refused to speed up for three quarters of my journey home - approximately 30 minutes.

Now normally I'm a pretty chilled out person and am very difficult to annoy or offend, but if I've been up since 4.20am and you're preventing me from getting home I'm not going to be happy. I was loudly telling the car in front off (and I do mean loudly talking, not shouting) towards the beginning of our meeting, and by the end (after probably seven of 13 roundabouts I meet on the way to and from work) I  was ever-so-mildly threatening them.

So really, this increase in road rage is only caused by drivers who should know better. I'm not a maniac on the roads; I just don't like to dawdle. If you drive properly (and indicate so I know what you're planning on doing) we will have no trouble and I will not talk to/threaten you as if there is an intercom system between our cars.

If everybody could just clear the A142 between 5.30-6am and 2.30-3pm each day that would be great.

I'm sure the inspiration for this ice cream came from Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog mentioning cream cheese ice cream somewhere on her blog recently, but I can't find the post where I read about it. If it was you whose post I've mistaken for Choclette's in my recent whirl of packing, graduating, moving, unpacking and starting a new job, please forgive me and do let me know. Anyway, the ice cream is as good as I had hoped. It tastes pretty much like cheesecake, just without the biscuit base. I used philadelphia cream cheese, but I think any cream cheese would work. You just need to make sure you like it since the main flavour of the ice cream will reflect that of the cheese.

The Mars Bar Sauce is a creation of Chele at Chocolate Teapot. I read about it last year and mentally tucked it away for an occasion such as this Cream Cheese Ice Cream. The two go fantastically well together, and I'll definitely be making them again.

You don't need an ice cream maker for this - I did use one, but you could just as easily stir the ice cream around in the freezer every 30 mins or so until it is set.

Serves 4-8
Ingredients

• 4 Egg Yolks
• 80g Caster Sugar
• 4 Tbsp Cornflour
• 200mL Double Cream
• 100mL Milk
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
• 600g Philadelphia Cheese

For the Mars Bar Sauce, please refer to the recipe at Chocolate Teapot

Recipe

• Put the egg yolks, caster sugar, cornflour, cream, milk and vanilla essence in a saucepan. 
• Place over a low heat and whisk until the mixture has thickened into a custard and stars to boil. 
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature before whisking in the philadelphia cheese.
• Refrigerate for at least 30 mins until the mixture has cooled to fridge temperature.
• Pour into your ice cream maker (prepared to manufacturer's instructions) or place in a container and freeze, stirring every 30 mins until set.

I'm entering this into July's We Should Cocoa. This month it's hosted by co-founder, Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog (the other co-founder being Chele of Chocolate Teapot), and the theme is ice cream. I'm not the biggest fan of chocolate ice cream itself, but I do love a chocolate sauce so I hope pairing the two together qualifies me for the challenge.