These Recipes are the Best Way to Beat the Heat

We're deep in the dog days of summer, when turning on your oven is as appealing as a trip to the DMV. If you're looking to beat the heat, we recommend cranking up the A/C, drinking plenty of water, and eating as much ice cream as possible. To that end, we've called on the champion churners behind JBF Award winner Food52's new cookbook, Ice Cream and Friends, for some innovative recipes to break you out of the vanilla-and-chocolate rut. 

Mint–Basil Chip Ice Cream
This sophisticated take on everyone’s favorite green scoop ditches the food coloring for fresh herbs, adding in basil to complement the mint leaves for a satisfying sweet and savory one-two punch.

Horchata Ice Cream
The classic Mexican rice–almond agua fresca gets a decadent upgrade in this recipe, which starts with a homemade horchata that is then incorporated into a custard base, yielding an eggy, creamy frozen treat just begging to be dug into (or topped with churros, we won’t tell).

Burnt Toast Ice Cream (pictured above)
It may sound a little unusual, but the scoop sages at Food52 swear that swirling your base with slivers of charred country-style bread adds a deep, smoky flavor evocative of the best piece of buttered toast you’ve ever had. Plus, it’s the perfect excuse for ice cream for breakfast (or lunch, or dinner).

Hungry for more? View our entire recipe collection.

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Maggie Borden is associate editor at the James Beard Foundation. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.