BAKED Sunday Mornings: Malted Vanilla (and Chocolate) Milkshakes

An easy Baked Sunday Mornings recipe!  It has been super hot around LA this past week and so a recipe which requires no oven and results in a delicious milkshake makes it a prefect recipe for a hot summer day.  I promised my son a milkshake and he was holding out for chocolate, so I adapted this recipe a little bit, using chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla.  I still used the vanilla bean, so it had a nice vanilla, chocolate and malted flavor all mixed together.  If you are looking for a great milkshake recipe, I recommend this one.  It got the seal of approval from my five year old and from me!

You can find the recipe here and check out what all the other bakers did.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Each Peach (Pear) Plum

Summer is here!  That means more time for baking and lots and lots and lots of delicious fruit at the farmer's market.  Here in LA, there is a farmer's market everywhere you turn.  We love going to Culver City, La Cienega, Beverly Hills (because our cucumber lady is there) and Mar Vista, but if you are an LA person and there are other markets you like, let me know!

There is one particular stand at the Culver City market that has a huge variety of amazing stone fruit.  They have all the standards, but also lots of interesting things, like donut peaches, red velvet apricots, pluots, and other deliciousness.

This plum ice cream came about because my husband thought he had purchased red velvet apricots for apricot ice cream.  After going back and forth and a lot of tasting, we decided they were plums, but that did not stop me from making ice cream out of them.  I used David Lebovitz's recipe for plum ice cream and the only thing I should have done was taste it before freezing it because it was so so tart.  It verged on being too tart and I should have added more sugar, but we have enjoyed eating it (although we haven't served it to guests).

After plum ice cream, I decided to make peach sorbet.  Haagen Daaz peach sorbet is one of my favorite things and this sorbet tasted exactly like that.  Sometimes when I make sorbet, it is too icy, but this one was smooth and almost creamy, even though there is no dairy in it.  Another David Lebovitz gem that is sure to make a re-appearance in our house.  You can find the recipe here.

I hope you enjoy these refreshing summer treat.  Don't forget -- when you see delicious fruit at your local market, sorbet or ice cream is always a great way to go.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Salted Caramel Ice Cream

In case you didn't notice, the obsession with the iPhone camera continues.  Oh Instagram, how I love you.  As a side note, my husband, the historian, hates all the photo manipulation software because he thinks it creates an inaccurate historial record.  Since I don't think anyone is going to use this blog as a historical artifact, I am pretty sure I'm safe with my photos.

Now, onto the food.  This ice cream came about in a kind of round-about way.  A while back, I made some salted caramel brownies (which I don't think I ever got a chance to photograph and post about.  Maybe I'll make them again) and I made more caramel sauce than the recipe called for.  It sat in the fridge for a long time and then I decided I had to do something with it.  My first thought for using up ingredients is often ice cream, so I went looking for a recipe.  

Most salted caramel ice creams want you to make the caramel first, from their recipe, but since I had the sauce, I simply heated it up and added it to an ice cream base.  The result was a very smooth and creamy ice cream, but it didn't have a ton of salted caramel flavor.  I assume if I had made it from the recipe, it might have been more caramely, but it was delicious nonetheless.  You can find the recipe here.

A Holiday Triple-Header From The Baking Sisters' Dad!

Ah, Thanksgiving: a weekend of gratitude, family, shopping (for some), football (for others), and food – too much food – for all. In addition to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner (at my sister- and brother-in-law’s home in Connecticut), our family has two long-standing rituals that involve food. The first began more than 30 years ago, before any of the Baking Sisters were born. Because we live near the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade route, we used to take friends’ children to see the parade. After standing in the cold for several hours, we would return home to hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies (we still use the recipe on the package of Toll House chips). This tradition continued during the many years when we stood on the parade route with the Baking Sisters. Now that they are grown, we watch the parade on television, but we still bring out the cocoa and cookies when Santa gets to Herald Square. Next year, we hope to restore the full tradition and take our grandson to see the parade live and in person! The other tradition goes back only 15 years or so. We attend the Big Apple Circus with close friends and then return home, build a fire in the fireplace (it was 60 degrees this year, but we have to make S’mores), eat plenty of wonderful food and go through several bottles of wine. So it was a busy weekend for the Baking Sister’s dad. I started with my traditional Vermont Pumpkin Pie, based on a recipe I clipped from the New York Times many years ago which I adapted to make the pie non-dairy. Beaten egg whites give the pie a light texture, while maple syrup adds New England-style sweetness that seems to be the essence of Thanksgiving. For the post-circus feast, I made Apricot Tarragon Cocktail Cookies, which go wonderfully with cheese and wine. I saw the recipe in Rebecca’s Food & Wine magazine when I visited California in October, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the recipe was contributed by Dorie Greenspan. Here is a link to the recipe. I went all-out for dessert. I always have canned pumpkin left over when I make the pumpkin pies, so I looked for a pumpkin ice cream recipe to use it up. I found a great one on David Lebovitz’s blog. As he suggests, I included rum and chopped pecans. And since it didn’t seem right to serve just ice cream, I also made Moosehead Gingerbread from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts. According to the book, the recipe came from an old-time fishing guide in Maine. In any event, the gingerbread and the ice cream were a great combination.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Pear Caramel Ice Cream

I know I should be posting something more Thanksgiving-like, such as pumpkin pie (but we all know I hate pumpkin) or something to do with turkey.  However, once thing I have noticed over the last few years of living in California is that Thanksgiving can kind of sneak up on you, since the weather doesn't really change.  That is why I think it is ok to post this ice cream --  it has lots of good fall flavors, but it is appropriate for a place where it is going to be 70 degrees on Thanksgiving day.

This is Pear Caramel Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.  Once again, David knocks it out of the park with this flavor combination.  You might think it would be too sweet, but the caramel cooks long enough to get a strong, complex and not to sweet flavor.  When you eat this ice cream, you can really taste both the pear and the caramel and they hit you at slightly different times, making the flavor of this ice cream really interesting and the color of the ice cream a gorgeous pale color.  This would be a fine thing to eat on Thanksgiving weekend (although not after turkey if you are kosher -- maybe a midnight snack?).  Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Here is the recipe:

Pear-Caramel Ice Cream

• 3 medium-sized ripe pears, peeled and cored
• 3/4 c. + 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/8 teaspooon coarse salt
• a few drops of fresh lemon juice

1. Dice the pears into 1/4-inch pieces.
2. Spread the sugar in a large, heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat, carefully watching and stirring occasionally with a heatproof spatula until melted. 
3. When the sugar is a deep amber, stir in the pears. The caramel will seize, that's ok. Continue cooking and stirring occasionally (again with a heat-proof spatula – caramel will burn heck out of you) for ten minutes. The sugar will have dissolved.
4. Remove from the ehhat and stir in 1/2 cup of the cream, then mix in the rest of the cream, salt, and lemon juice.
5. Cool to room temp, puree until smooth, press through a strainer.
6. Chill according to your ice-cream maker manufacturer's instructions. 

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Have You Milked A Goat Today?

Here's one from the Baking Sisters' dad! Take it away, Dad!

It’s time for another guest blog by the Baking Sisters’ dad. This incredibly delicious recipe is adapted from the signature dessert of Eden Village Camp, the first (and only) Jewish environmental residential camp, located in Putnam Valley, New York. EVC is a wonderful place (you can see for yourself at www.edenvillagecamp.org ) that has what may be the best camp food in America – some of which is grown by the campers themselves!

Enough with the commercial – let’s get right to the recipe:

2-1/4 cups goat’s milk

2/3 cup sugar

scant 1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

3/4 cup half & half

3/8 tablespoon vanilla extract

Pour 1-1/2 cups of goat’s milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and salt, stirring until the mixture is completely dissolved. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator. Puree the blueberries in a blender until almost completely smooth. When the mixture is thoroughly chilled, add the remaining goat’s milk, the half & half, and the blueberry puree. Stir to mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture into the prepared bowl of an ice-cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s directions.

As I said, EVC is an environmental camp, so the original recipe calls for milking the goats (I got my goat’s milk in the organic/specialty dairy case at Fairway) and pureeing the blueberries in a bicycle-powered blender (mine is electric). I don’t think either variation affected the taste.

NOTE: I would consider substituting heavy cream for the half & half. And I would add a couple of tablespoons of alcohol (vodka or a fruit-based liqueur) to give the ice cream a smoother consistency.

BAKED Sunday Mornings: Coffee Ice Cream

Amazing!  A Baked: Explorations recipe that didn't involve every dish in the house.  This week's pick was coffee ice cream.  Now, I am not a coffee person, but I love coffee ice cream.  I have made David Lebovitz's coffee ice cream before and it is good ice cream, but the bitter coffee flavor is a little bit too strong for me.  Maybe it is the beans I am using?  I was hoping that this version might have a different coffee flavor, since it uses espresso powder and Kahlua to give the coffee flavor.  I think something might have gone wrong when I added the salt (like maybe I added 2 teaspoons by accident or something), because the base was really salty.  It actually reminded me more of salted caramel ice cream than coffee ice cream. It was actually really interesting and I enjoyed eating it, but I want to make this again to see what it really tastes like.  Head over to the Baked Sunday Mornings blog to see how everyone else did.


I put this ice cream on top of a chocolate cake with coffee glaze (that I will blog about later) and the combination was great.  The cake was able to cut some of the salt flavor.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Our Favorite Late-Summer Ice Cream

We’re coming to the end of summer, and it’s very sad. The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler, and soon all the delicious summer produce that floods the farmers’ markets between June and September will be gone. But fear not, there’s still some time to make this tastiest of ice creams: peach sour cream. We’re serious; if you only make one more ice cream this season, make it this one. It's so easy - it doesn't involve egg yolks or custards or anything of the sort, you pretty much just cut, stew and blend. Daddy and I both agree that it’s the best ice cream we’ve ever had. How good is it? I dipped in a spoon to take a taste while it was churning, and after I tried it, I literally exclaimed aloud, “Oh my God, this is good,” even though there was no one else around. It’s so good that I practically had to drag Daddy to Grom, which has the best gelato in the city (in our opinion), because he just wanted to stay home and eat the peach sour cream ice cream. You shouldn’t even be reading this. Go, make a batch right now. That’s what Daddy and I are doing tonight.

Peach Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop

Yield: 1 quart

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ pounds [600 grams] ripe peaches [about four large peaches]
• ½ cup water
• a quarter cups sugar
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 cup heavy cream
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
• A few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preparation:

Peel the peaches, slice them in half, and remove the pits. Cut the peaches into chunks and cook them with water in a nonreactive saucepan over medium heat, covered, stirring once or twice, until soft and cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, stir in the sugar, then cool to room temperature.

Purée the cooked peaches and any liquid in a blender or food processor with the sour cream, heavy cream, vanilla, and lemon juice until almost smooth but slightly chunky.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator and freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Faraway Journeys and a Return to Our Roots

Ni hao! I just got back from a very fun, broadening and delicious trip to Taiwan with my friend Emily! Here's what you need to know if you go to Taiwan:

1) If you're using the public restroom, bring your own toilet paper. But don't throw it in the bowl, it won't dissolve. Throw it in the trash can instead.

2) Paleness is considered very attractive. Everyone was appalled at the way Emily and I dressed - not because of modesty concerns, but because we were exposing so much of our skin to the sun. There are lots of ads for skin-whitening cream, like in apartheid South Africa. The women there all carry umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, and they cover up even in extreme heat and humidity, sometimes even wearing kerchiefs over their faces! I don't understand this practice. What's the point of being pale if no one can see you?

3) No one cares about their teeth. We were watching the Golden Melody Awards (the Taiwanese Grammys), and even the biggest stars in Taiwanese music have worse-looking teeth than your average pre-braces suburban teenager.

4) The vendors are super super nice. Imagine the nicest, most accommodating salespeople you know, the ones who will give you endless free samples or will give you a free makeover on Fridays or whatever. That's just about every salesperson in Taiwan. For instance, we went to all these tea tastings where they would do an elaborate ceremony to make and serve us cup after cup of tea, but there's no significant pressure to buy.

5) The food is AWESOME! The sweets and baked goods were especially yummy. They aren't that different from Euro-American treats in their fundamentals - butter, sugar, flour, etc - but they favor fruit flavors, and chocolate is used pretty minimally. A popular flavor that I quite liked was taro, a fruity-tasting root that imparts a purple coloring. Here are some photos I took in Taiwanese bakeries:

Good stuff. My favorite sweet was the suncake, a round, flaky pastry with a sugary filling. I brought some home for my parents and had one for breakfast today. (Unfortunately, breakfast was at 2:30 a.m. since I am jetlagged all to hell.) Here's a picture:

I came home to discover that, in my absence, my dad had intensified his love affair with the ice cream maker. During the ten days I was gone he had made three different types of ice cream, and that was on top of the ice cream we had made before I left. I guess it makes sense that he would have a strong affiliation for ice cream. His father, my grandfather, owned an ice cream shop called Ralph's Dairy Bar in Butler, PA, and he used to work there over the summers growing up. But I think it's been a long time since he had homemade ice cream, since after we spooned the churned Dorie's peach honey ice cream into its container, the two of us licked the freezer bowl clean as if we had never tasted ice cream before. It was so good! Very summery and flavorful but not too sweet, although I did think the honey flavor was stronger than the peach flavor. (I pureed all the peaches instead of putting in chunks, which was actually an error but one I'm glad I made.) And it was a very nice catharsis for me. This was the first recipe I ever made in the ice cream maker, back when the heat wave was melting the freezer bowl and I didn't really know how to make ice cream. Like all the ice cream I made at that time, it didn't churn properly, so it tasted good but the texture was all wrong. Therefore, it was a treat to actually be able to make it and have it taste like ice cream, and it was an equal delight to share the experience with my dad. I loved teaching him how to make ice cream, and he has obviously become quite the expert himself!

Honey-Peach Ice Cream
From Baking from my Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

4 large ripe peaches (about 2 pounds), peeled and pitted
1/4 cup honey
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Coarsely chop half the peaches into 1/2-inch chunks and toss them into a small saucepan. Add the honey and bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally until the peaches are soft but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Scrape the mixture into a blender or food processor and whir to puree. (Alternatively use a hand blender.) Set the peach puree aside while you make the custard.
Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan.
Meanwhile in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until very well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid - this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they don't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of the spoon; if you run your finger down the bowl of the spoon the custard should not run into the track. The custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour the custard into a 2-quart glass measuring cup or clean heatproof bowl. Stir in the vanilla and the peach puree.
Refrigerate the custard until chilled before churning it into ice cream.
Scrape the chilled custard into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to manufacturer's instructions. While the ice cream is churning, finely dice the remaining 2 peaches, then, just before the ice cream is thickened and ready, add the peaches and churn to bland. Pack the ice cream into a container and freeze it for at least 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream

It's spring in Providence! What does that mean? It means that we get occasional sunny days to break up the monotony of the rain. It means that the day I made this, it was gorgeous out until a massive thundercrack was heard, sending all the students out on the Main Green scurrying inside as a dark cloud rolled in from the west. Then it poured for about an hour, then cleared up, then poured again, then the rain turned into hail (although all of this business was emanating from one cloud - beyond it, you could still see the sunny sky, and it was still 65 degrees), then back into rain, then it cleared up again and all was fresh and lovely until that evening, when it drizzled. So yeah, spring in Providence. Time for ice cream!

This was the easiest ice cream I have ever made, bar none. I'm not wild about the chocolate/raspberry combination but I had a bunch of frozen raspberries left from my Thesis Cake and I wanted to use them up. Nevertheless, overall, I was quite pleased. The ice cream was very creamy and satisfying, with a good balance between the chocolate and raspberry flavors; I suppose this is one of those recipes where the quality of the cocoa powder you use makes all the difference. I also added chocolate chunks because, you know, that's how I do. If you are looking for a quick, easy, yummy ice cream that doesn't require a lot of ingredients or fuss, this is a great choice.

Chocolate-Raspberry Ice Cream

From The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cup (375 ml) Heavy Cream
5 Tbsp (40 g) Unsweetened Dutch-process Cocoa Powder
2/3 Cup (130 g) Sugar
2 Cups (240 g) Raspberries, fresh or frozen

Method

Whisk together the cream, cocoa powder, and sugar in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a full, rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from the heat and add the raspberries. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes.

Puree the mixture in a food processor or blender. If you wish, press the mixture through a mesh strainer to remove the seeds.

Allow the mixture to chill thoroughly, then freeze it in an ice cream maker.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Seasonal Strawberry Ice Cream

I told you this was my own personal strawberry week!  There are lots and lots of strawberries all over Los Angeles now, so I have to keep thinking up things to make with them.  Last weekend, we went to the farmer's market and, of course, bought strawberries.  Then, we sat down to listen to some Cinco De Mayo music, and my son fell off his chair (he was very into the music) and right into the strawberries.  So the question is -- what can you do with crushed strawberries?  The answer -- ice cream!

I looked in The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz, to find a strawberry ice cream recipe, but there wasn't one.  I could not believe it!   He has many strawberry recipes, but nothing for straight strawberry ice cream, which is what I wanted.  However, after poking around on various blogs, I found a good recipe.  I don't normally go for strawberry ice cream, but this was really good.  It tasted really fresh -- like strawberries and cream.  I would recommend adjusting the sugar and lemon juice to your taste, so you get the right balance of tart and sweet.

Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream

1 pound strawberries, washed and stemmed
1 cup sugar, divided
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cups heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 vanilla bean pod (or 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract)
4 egg yolks

1. In a medium bowl, lightly mash strawberries with 1/4 cup sugar and the tablespoon of lemon juice.  Toss to combine and set aside.

2. In a saucepan, stir together cream, remaining 3/4 cup of sugar, and salt.  With a sharp knife, split the vanilla bean pod in half lengthwise and using the tip of the knife, scrape the seeds into the pot of cream (if using extract instead of vanilla bean, you will stir it in later); add the pod halves to the pot, too.  Bring the cream mixture to a simmer over medium heat, then turn the temperature all the way down to low.

3. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks until smooth.  Slowly add a ladleful of the hot cream mixture to the egg yolks, whisking continuously.  Slowly pour the yolk mixture back into the pot of cream and whisk until incorporated.  Bring the liquid back to a simmer and cook, stirring, for 5 – 6 minutes until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.  Strain the mixture through a sieve into a medium bowl.

4. Puree the strawberry mixture in a blender or food processor until smooth [Note -- I left some chunks, because I thought it would be good, which it was].  Stir the strawberry puree into the cream mixture until completely incorporated.  If using vanilla extract instead of vanilla bean, stir extract in now.  Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface to prevent a skin from forming while cooling.  Place bowl in the refrigerator and allow the mixture to cool completely – at least two hours.  After it is well chilled, freeze mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer directions.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: A St. Patrick's Day Treat

Hi all! I hope you had a wonderful Pi Day - I sure did. As per our annual tradition, Emily and I made Emily's foolproof pie, which was delicious as always, although I'd recommend adding some salt to the crust next time. Nevertheless, that pie is foolproof for sure.

Our pi(e) before it went in the oven

Tomorrow, as I'm sure you alcoholics out there know, is St. Patrick's Day. I spent last St. Patrick's Day in London, where they rather pointedly did not give a rat's ass, so it's nice to be back here in America (or more specifically, in college, where any excuse to drink becomes a major holiday). Wasn't it nice that we had this interfaith cooperation so that St. Patrick's Day and the Jewish drinking holiday, Purim, could be in the same glorious alcohol-poisoning-filled weekend? I thought so too.

Is there any point to this rambling? Why yes, dear reader, there is. But first, some additional rambling. When I was fifteen, a young Machoner at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires, my age cohort went on a lot of trips, including to Canada. On our way up to the border we stopped in Vermont at the Ben and Jerry's factory. We took a tour of the factory and each bunk ate a Vermonster, which is 20 scoops of ice cream and all the toppings. On the tour we were permitted to sample some of the flavors the company was going to debut soon. One was some raspberry sorbet thing, which was fine but nothing special. But the other one was amazing, and has been my favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor ever since - Dublin Mudslide. Bailey's ice cream with chocolate chocolate chip cookie chunks and a coffee fudge ripple, is there anything more delightful? So for this St. Patrick's Day, I was inspired to try and recreate Dublin Mudslide ice cream.

For some reason there was no readily available guide on how to do this. I am such a pioneer. The first thing that I was worried about was the coffee fudge ripple. What does it meeeeeean? David Lebovitz to the rescue! Well, sort of. While searching for Bailey's ice cream recipes I came across his recipe for Irish Coffee ice cream. Bam. Problem mostly solved. I wasn't a huge fan of the first David Lebovitz coffee recipe -too strong - but since this one only involved steeping the beans and had no additional coffee added, it was a lot more palatable to me.

Next up, cookies! I made the tried-and-true Dorie Greenspan chocolate chip cookies, only with the cocoa powder substitution for some of the flour. I halved the recipe and only ended up using half of those again, which I crumbled and added to the churning mixture about five minutes from the end, but they're such delicious cookies that you won't mind having a few left over to eat plain.

Finally, the mysterious fudge ripple. Thank goodness for David Lebovitz, whose Perfect Scoop had a simple and delicious recipe. I didn't chill it for as long as I should have - in fact, I barely chilled it at all - but it still came out so professional-looking and, of course, tasty (though a bit more crystalline than I had hoped).

I wanted to buy a pint of Dublin Mudslide and do a taste test along with my homemade version, but I couldn't find any in my local grocery stores/minimarts. Can you believe it? What a travesty. But Dublin Mudslide had initially been released as a limited time only flavor - that would have REALLY been a travesty! So we have to be grateful for what we've got. In any case, this didn't really taste much like Dublin Mudslide, mostly because of the coffee flavor in the base. I couldn't taste the Bailey's at all, which is also the case for the original, so no big deal there. My favorite part was the chocolate chocolate chip cookie chunks. Regardless of its differences with the original, I think that this is an ice cream worth making in its own right. After all, it's less money and effort to just go to the store and buy a pint of Dublin Mudslide if that's really what you're after, but trust me, this confection won't let you down.

You can find the ice cream recipe here, the chocolate chocolate chip cookie recipe here (take out 3/4 cups of flour and replace with 3/4 cups cocoa powder) and the fudge ripple recipe here. Happy St. Patrick's Day, see you on Friday for some Purim treats!

Do a Little Dance in That Mississippi Mud

Sometimes, your friends hate the things you love, and vice versa, to the extent where you wonder how you could even be friends with them. This is the case with my friend Emily. She has been mentioned on this blog before as a certifiable health nut, a lover of broccoli, exercise and extra-virgin olive oil. She is also a hater of baked goods! Can you believe it!? We lived together for three years and she ate everything I made, and now that we are living separately she comes out with the truth. For shame.

Thank God she likes ice cream, or it would really be curtains for us. She also loves coffee, so for her birthday I wanted to make her the beautiful espresso cake in Baked Explorations. Then she was all blah blah blah I hate baked goods, so I decided not to waste me time. But she had been requesting that I make some coffee ice cream. And suddenly, the idea for her birthday treat came to me!

This post is actually a double-header. It's the Mississippi Mud Pie recipe (B) from Baked Explorations, made with the coffee ice cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. I won't say much about the ice cream, since Rebecca already blogged about it and I have basically the same impressions. The coffee flavor is VERY strong - too strong for a non-coffee drinker like me. In fact, I decided to put it in the pie because I didn't think I would end up finishing it otherwise, and it's a shame to waste ice cream, even ice cream you don't really care for. The pie, on the other hand, was awesome. On balance, I think the coffee ended up going well with the sweeter, ever-so-slightly-alcoholic chocolate flavors, with neither one overpowering the other, and the nuts were just tasty extras, giving it additional taste and texture. I was not already in possession of bourbon, not being an elderly Southern gentleman, so I bought the cutest little bottle of bourbon there ever was. The whole thing was probably four tablespoons. So adorable. This was a big hit at Emily's birthday celebration and I would totally make it again, but to be honest I'd probably use my coffee ice cream of choice, which is Starbucks brand. Yummmm.

You can find the recipe here. Plus, they have the same bowls as me so there's an additional layer of authenticity.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Snow White Ice Cream for a Winter Wonderland

I love snow. Or I once did. Snow is one of the chief reasons I always told myself I could never live in LA or a similarly warm clime. But these days, I can't help thinking that Rebecca got out while the going was good. Here in New England, it feels like we have been hammered by a major snowstorm at least once every week since Christmas. The drifts outside my apartment are taller than I am, and I have already had one extremely bloody encounter with ice (more on that in my next post). Amidst this frozen hell, who would even want to think about ice cream, which so resembles the hated snow?

Apparently, I would. As devoted readers know, I was having some issues with my ice cream maker back in the heat wave of September (ah, who would believe I would remember that weather with a fond smile?) It seemed to me to be a pretty bad design flaw that an ice cream machine, which would see most of its use in the summer, would be unable to withstand the temperature of my admittedly non-air conditioned kitchen without melting, but whatever. I watched Rebecca put together the sparkling cider sorbet, heard the noise the ice cream maker was supposed to make, saw what churning was supposed to look like, and decided to try again. No one would accuse my kitchen of being overheated these days, so I thought that it might be time to pull out the ole Cuisinart. And behold, turns out all it needed was three months in the back of my freezer to start working! So yay.

For my first (successful) endeavor in ice cream, I made white chocolate ice cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. I have no particular attachment to white chocolate, but I had just gone to Whole Foods and, for some reason, bought a pound-and-a-half block of white chocolate, along with an equal sized block of milk and dark chocolate. Really, I should have just bought three dark ones because that's the kind of chocolate I use the most. But whatever. Anyway, I realized that I would never use that much white chocolate in a semester unless I really really tried, so here we are.

I was worried that the ice cream would be too sweet, since I sometimes find white chocolate to be cloying, but to be honest, this didn't taste like white chocolate or like ice cream. It tasted like really good-quality vanilla frozen yogurt. Take that to mean what you will. It tastes delicious as a side with some chocolate cake, or with a splash of Bailey's.

White Chocolate Ice Cream
From The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

2/3 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk (Blogger's note: I used skim)
2 cups heavy cream
8 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
5 large egg yolks

Pinch of salt

1. Put the chopped white chocolate in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

2. Put the sugar, the milk and salt in a saucepan and warm the mixture.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, then gradually add some of the milk mixture, whisking constantly as you pour in the warm milk. Pour the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Strain the custard into the white chocolate, and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Add the heavy cream stir until cool in an ice bath. Chill thoroughly.

5. Chill mixture thoroughly, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Flavors of Fall

One of the best recipes we have ever made from Dorie is Applesauce Spice Bars, which are unbelievable and perfect for fall. You know what else is perfect for fall? Ice cream. But no, Sarah, you insist, ice cream is perfect for summer. To which I reply, Shut up, ice cream is for all seasons, you fascist.

I got an ice cream maker this month. Great excitement, except that it has not really been functioning as expected. The problem is that it doesn't churn the ice cream, which I guess defeats the purpose of having an ice cream maker. I'm going to try one more time, since I promised my friend Emily some coffee ice cream, and then I'm going to send it back to the manufacturer if it doesn't work. But enough griping, on to the recipe.

What would go well with applesauce spice bars? I wondered. Perhaps something that brings out the subtle caramel-y flavors in the bars. Burnt sugar ice cream! Leave it Dorie to improve on perfection. Even though the ice cream didn't churn to my satisfaction (at all) and it ended up with a more sorbet-like texture, it was amazing. Dorie describes the flavor as "intense," which is precisely the right adjective, and though she recommends pairing it with something bland for that reason, I found that it went beautifully with the bars. My one note for the recipe: when she says not to worry about the caramel sticking to the bottom of the pot, listen to her! I spent so much time trying to scrape it off the bottom with my spoon as I mixed and ended up splashing custard all over the kitchen! Oh no! Trust me, once you taste this ice cream, you'll want to have as much custard as possible.


Rebecca also made this ice cream and you can check out her post here.

Burnt Sugar Ice Cream
From "Baking From My Home to Yours" by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Stir the sugar and water together in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Place the pan over medium-low heat and cook until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil, without stirring, until the syrup turns a deep amber color--from time to time, brush down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush and swirl the pan. (Depending on the size of your pan and the intensity of the heat, it could take about 8 minutes for the caramel to color properly.)

Stand back--things can get a little wild--lower the heat and add the milk and cream. Don't be concerned when everything bubbles and seethes and the caramel hardens; it will calm down and smooth out as you heat and stir. Continue to heat and stir and when the mixture is smooth, remove the pan from the heat.

In a medium heatproof bowl, whisk the yolks and salt together until blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid--this will temper, or warm, the yolks. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon; if you run your finger down the bowl of the spoon, the custard should not run into the track. the custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant-read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour the custard into a 2-quart liquid measuring cup or clean heatproof bowl. Stir in vanilla extract.

Refrigerate the custard until chilled before churning it into ice cream.

Scrape the chilled custard into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. Pack the ice cream into a container and freeze it for at least 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop.

Makes about 1 1/2 pints.

Serving: If the ice cream is very firm, allow it to sit on the counter for a few minutes before scooping or warm it in a microwave oven using 5-second spurts of heat.

Storing: Packed tightly in a covered container, the ice cream will keep in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.

Summer is Finally Here...In Fall!

So, those of you living in Southern California right now know that we are experiencing a heat wave.  It is the hottest it has been since we moved here in the beginning of June.  Who knew that summer came in late September...and on Sukkot no less?  Sukkot always seems to bring extreme weather, either hot, cold or rain.  Somehow, when we have to eat outside and we are supposed to dwell in little huts, we are reminded that we don't control everything, especially the weather.  

When the temperature creeps up (or in this case jumps...it was in the 70s a couple of days ago and it is going to be 97 tomorrow!), nothing is better than ice cream.  In this case, it is a duo of ice creams...lemon ice cream and strawberry frozen yogurt.  Both these frozen treats were born out of fruit and/or dairy products that were about to go bad.  I am glad I was able to save them with this yummy product.

Both of these are from David Lebovitz, guru of all things frozen.  The only thing I would say about both these recipes but especially about the strawberry, is to make sure you have really good, flavorful fruit, because that is all the flavor of both these desserts.  We had yummy farmer's market strawberries, so it turned out well.  As for the lemon, it had a nice tart and creamy flavor, different from the expected lemon sorbet.

The strawberry frozen yogurt can be found here.

The lemon ice cream can be found here.

Our One Year Blog-Aversary!

We have been blogging for one year! In celebration of this momentous occasion, we all decided to make the same cake -- Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte. Yum! Here are our takes:Rebecca

This cake took a long time, but also didn't. I know that doesn't make any sense, but the components are very simple and quick to put together, but there is a lot of waiting around time. Part of the reason that my cake doesn't look straight is because I didn't let the layers freeze for enough time before adding the next component (note to self: do not make this cake starting at 9:30PM) and because I am incapable of dividing the ice cream in half just by eyeballing it. However, it was delicious. I am so glad we picked this because it was amazing. Totally worth all the waiting around until almost 1AM.

I didn't make any changes to Dorie's recipe, except that I made my own raspberry ice cream, from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. It was really good, but annoying to strain out all the seeds from the puree. I think raspberry and chocolate are pretty perfect together, but I could see using strawberry, coffee, burnt sugar or pretty much anything else. You can get the recipe for the cake and the raspberry ice cream after the jump.

Sisters? What did you think?

Rachel here. As you all know by now, I'm the freakish sister who doesn't like chocolate. So I decided to take Dorie's recipe and put my own ganache-free spin on it. I used brownies instead of ganache, and then chose a caramel ice cream for the in-between layers, since I love the brownie/ caramel combo. I made the brownies in a springform pan, so that I would be able to take the brownies out and then put them back in the pan afterward. I realized once I took them out that they wouldn't be thick enough to cut slice into thirds-- if I were to do it again, I would make a recipe and a half so they would be thicker. So I put a layer of ice cream down on the bottom, then a layer of brownie, then another layer of ice cream and then another layer of brownie. Yum! Sarah, you're up...


Sarah here. It's odd that we picked this recipe for the Baking Sisters' birthday, since it doesn't actually involve any baking, but after a year of crazy intense baking I guess it was time to give our poor ovens a rest. And this recipe was so excellent! For whatever reason, I had a devil of a time trying to find raspberry ice cream in Cambridge so I ended up going with something called Crema di Marscapone. According to the Carte D'or Web site, it's "Divinely smooth ice cream made with authentic mascarpone, swirled with red berry sauce and sprinkled with pistachios. It's a real taste of Italian inspired indulgence." Indeed. Anyway, I wasn't sure what the pistachios were so I skimmed them off the top and I'm glad I did, because I don't think they would have gone well with the texture.

In terms of the procedure, my only advice would be to make sure the ganache layers are really good and frozen before you add the ice cream, because they can look deceptively smooth and then get all up in yo ice cream's grill when you try to add the next layer. I would also advise you to do something (grease? add parchment paper?) to the bottom of the pan, because the bottom layer of ganache would often get stuck and have to be pried out in an awkward manner that ruined the otherwise beautiful presentation of the slice. And it really is beautiful, not to mention delicious! Everyone will be so impressed when you serve it at your next party or picnic, and it's not that difficult at all! Thanks yet again, Dorie, we love you!

My Greatest Creation: Chocolate Covered Pretzel Ice Cream Cake

Last year, for my friend Amy's birthday, I created a delicious ice cream brownie concoction that won me rave reviews for excellent cake inventing. So when I volunteered to make Amy's cake again this year, I felt that I had to raise the bar-- especially because by her next birthday, she'll be married and living in Boston, far away from me. I decided to take the winning elements of last year's cake, and mix in something that everyone loves-- the chocolate covered pretzel.


This cake is actually really easy to make, but it seems deceptively fancy because of all of the elements. It starts with a crust made of pretzels, which both adds a little bit of salt to the pie, and has the added bonus of not getting soggy. While I would recommend cutting pieces of this cake on the smaller side because it's so rich (I used low fat ice cream and it was still super intense), don't be surprised if your guests come back for more.


Chocolate Covered Pretzel Ice Cream Pie:


2 1/2 cups crushed pretzels
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup (give or take) hot fudge
1 1.5 quart container of vanilla ice cream
15 oz chocolate covered pretzels (I recommend Nestle Flips)
Caramel sauce to garnish


You can find the recipe for the pretzel crust here.


Make the crust in a 9 or 10 inch pie pan. Before it cools, pour a layer of store-bought hot fudge over the crust. Then put it in the freezer and allow it to set.


Before you take the crust out of the freezer, allow the ice cream to soften. Grind up about 2/3 of the chocolate covered pretzels and mix them up with the ice cream until they are evenly distributed. Spread the ice cream evenly over the crust.


Drizzle caramel across the top of the cake. Add extra chocolate covered pretzels around the edges to decorate. Return pie to the freezer and allow it to set before serving.

Grown Up Hot Fudge Sundae: Milk Chocolate and Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

I often wish I could be part of Tuesdays with Dorie, a baking group that bakes something from Baking from My Home to Yours every week.  However, the every week baking commitment is too much for me.  I just can't make that kind of commitment to baking from Dorie's book, much as I love it.  However, I often check out the group to see what they are making and I follow a bunch of blogs that are part of the group and I love seeing what they make.

This week, the recipe was burnt sugar ice cream from page 432 of Baking and I was looking for an ice cream flavor to make and decided to give it a try.  Both my husband and I liked this ice cream (a rarity in the chocolate/non-chocolate divided house).  It has a strong, complex flavor with a little bit of bitterness.  This is not ice cream for children.  You can find the recipe here, on the blog of the person who chose it for Tuesdays with Dorie.

I thought the ice cream could use a little something to compliment the flavor.  Dorie suggests a sugar cookie, but I decided to try hot fudge, which I have been wanting to try making anyway.  I tried Dorie's recipe and it was so good. Rich and thick and chocolaty, and it hardened just the right amount when it touched the ice cream.  I thought the flavors of the burnt sugar and the hot fudge went really well together.

I also had some milk chocolate ice cream in the freezer, left over from when we were supposed to have people over but had to cancel because of sick children.  I put some of that in the bowl as well.  The milk chocolate ice cream has a pretty mild flavor, but I thought the burnt sugar actually brought out the milk chocolate flavor well.  And chocolate ice cream with hot fudge is always good in my book.  The recipe is from David Lebovitz (my personal ice cream guru).  He says to use a premium quality milk chocolate (not a Hershey bar or something like that).  I used Scharffenberger, which has just appeared in my grocery store and it worked well.  I thought it had really good flavor.

You can find the recipes after the jump.