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.

Ethnic Flavor: Well, I Tried

Whenever Rachel and I go to LA, we are treated to the wonderful pretzel challah from Got Kosher? Rebecca, of course, lives in LA, so she can have pretzel challah any time she wants! And now, with the magic of boiling water and baking soda, so can you!


One of my oldest childhood friends moved to Chicago today. She is going to make the world a better place through teaching sixth grade math, and everyone should wish her the best of luck! She came to my house for a long-delayed Shabbat dinner on Friday, and I thought that in her honor, I would make these tasty loaves. I found the recipe in Kosher By Design: Teens and 20-somethings, which my parents thoughtfully bought for me when I moved out of their apartment. 


I titled this post "Well, I Tried," not because of the taste of the challah (amazing) but rather the way it looks, which is totally wonky and strange. I had a lot of trouble extracting the loaves after I dipped them in the boiling mixture, and one ended up kind of weirdly extended while the other one just got completely misshapen. But whatever. Salt! How can you go wrong? (But if you have a better method for extracting them than desperately and spastically maneuvering two spatulas, do let me know.) I halved the recipe and made two loaves but the challot stretched out in the water and were fairly sizable. I doubt that larger loaves would have fit in my boiling solution, but if you have a wider-mouthed pot, be my guest. Also, the dough is very sticky with only 3 (or 6, if you make the whole recipe) cups of flour, so be sure that your hands and your surface are well-floured when you braid the loaves.


As I said, it tasted amazing; plus, it takes less time to rise than my usual challah recipe, so good if you're in a hurry. There's a distinct baking soda taste - unsurprising, in a recipe that involves 2/3 cup of baking soda. It's definitely best warm but I found that it was still moist and delicious the next day. There was no next day after that; Brianna and I ate an entire loaf between us on Friday night, and then my roommates and I made short work of the rest on Saturday. You can find the recipe here; now you don't have to go all the way to Los Angeles to get your fix!

Strawberry Shortcake (Cream on Top.)

In New York, you know it's summer when the fruit stands on the street start selling strawberries for 2 boxes for $3. For me, that's the happy time of year, as I love strawberries. So when I was enlisted to make a friend a birthday dessert and I heard that she liked fruity things, my mind jumped right to strawberry shortcake.

I've never made strawberry shortcake before, but I have enjoyed it many times. What's not to like? Strawberries-- good. Biscuits-- good. Whipped cream-- SO good. The trick was to find a recipe that could be made in advance, and that I could make into individual shortcakes, because those are just so much fun.

This recipe from the Food Network hit the spot. I made the shortcakes in advance and then left them in the fridge for a few days before we ate them. I made 10 small shortcakes rather than one big one, which reduced the baking time a bit. Other than that, the only trick is making sure that you have enough juices from the strawberries to soak into the shortcake itself. Happy summer everyone!

Bullseye? Buckeye!

Every year, my friend Ruthie throw an ice cream sundae birthday party, where she provides the ice cream and the guests compete to win the best topping award. This year, however, was Ruthie's last New York party, because she is moving to Ohio-- the Buckeye State. For those of you who are interested, the buckeye is a nut, but it is also a delicious chocolate peanut butter candy. Ruthie, in honor of her impending move, held two contests this year, one for the best topping and one for the best interpretation of a buckeye. Naturally, being a Baking Sister and generally ridiculously competitive about things that don't matter, I planned to not only enter, but also to win.

And I am happy to report, dear readers, that I did just that by inventing a delicious chocolate peanut butter pretzel caramel concoction. The perfect decadent combination of salty and sweet. Just a warning-- when you add the caramel to the chocolate, it gets very sticky and does not want to attach to the peanut butter balls. So patience is a virtue. Dip, wait, and enjoy!

Peanut butter pretzel balls:
1 cup of butter, softened (not melted)
1 1/2 cups of smooth peanut butter
6 cups confectioners sugar
3/4 pound of pretzels, broken into small pieces but not ground

Blend the butter, sugar and peanut butter in a stand mixer slowly, until well blended. Add the pretzels and mix slowly until the mixture is just blended. Roll up the mixture into 1 inch balls. Stick a toothpick into each ball and put them in the freezer until complete hard.

Melt 1 bag of chocolate chips in a double boiler. Mix it with 4 oz caramel sauce. Keeping the mixture on low heat, dip the balls in by the toothpick until about half of the ball is coated. Repeat until all of the peanut butter balls have been dipped in chocolate. Remove the toothpicks and place in the fridge to cool, until you are ready to eat them.

Vegan By Design: Short on Time

Hi there! Long time no blog. It’s been an eventful week or so, with lots to celebrate and lots of occasions for baking. There was Rachel’s graduation from Drisha (which involved a crapton of baking, more on that later) and my friend Brianna’s graduation from Columbia (which involved less “baking” and more “eating half a tube of Pillsbury’s cookie dough while watching The Devil Wears Prada”). But today I am going to talk about my officemate, Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn is very cool. She is unfailingly pleasant to be around, she works harder than anyone in the office, and she always has nice clothes. She is also a vegan, which means that she rarely gets to enjoy Baked Goods Fridays. Once I made vegan cookies. It was a huge deal. It was that ridiculous (but wonderful) chocolate chip cookie brittle from Kosher by Design: Short on Time that only has four ingredients. I for one was impressed that it only took six months of me working with Kaitlyn for me to finally make something vegan. [Sarcasm.] But with her birthday coming up, I thought I should make something that was actually vegan on purpose. 


So when I came across this vegan chocolate peanut tart on Couldn’t Be Parve, I knew it was destiny! Chocolate and peanut butter just happens to be Kaitlyn’s favorite combination. Score. I bought a jar of coconut oil, a carton of coconut milk, and a couple of bars of vegan chocolate and got to work. 


I don’t know if you’ve ever seen coconut oil. We had a big tub of it in my apartment in college because one of our summer subletters had been a vegan and vegans use it a lot. When I saw it, I thought that it had somehow gone rancid, because it was so much more viscous than any other oil I had ever seen. Turns out that’s how it’s supposed to look, phew. But I guess unsurprisingly for an oil-based dough, the crust was very…oily. This is kind of exactly the opposite of what you want in a tart crust, and while the final baked product was not greasy, it was a little tough on the bottom. Meanwhile, the top of the sides melted off during the baking. On the flipside, the dough was incredibly easy to manipulate, and putting it in the tart pan (a process that typically takes me a good 15 or 20 minutes) was the work of mere moments. 


The ganache was easy-peasy, and quite tasty. It didn’t suffer at all from not having cream; in fact, considering the richness of the chocolate-peanut butter combo, I think it may have been a blessing. 


Like most ganache tarts, this is also a really good to make if you’re in a hurry. Well, I guess not that much of a hurry, since you have to bake the crust and wait for it to cool and then wait for the ganache to set. But the component parts all come together very quickly. The recipe for the ganache can be found here, and the recipe for the crust can be found here. And a very happy (belated) birthday to Kaitlyn! 

Baked Sunday Mornings: Peanut Butter Chocolate Cream Pie

On the outside, this looks like this week's Baked Sunday Mornings assignment, Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie, but on the inside it is NOT!  As readers of this blog may know, I really do not enjoy bananas.  However, I wanted to bake this week because I haven't made any of the most recent selections.  I went back and forth between making this as is and pawning it off on people or adapting it so that it was something I wanted to eat.  In the end, I decided that it is always good to to want to eat what I bake, and I adapted this pie and brought it to our end of the year staff meeting at school.  It was a big hit!

I did a couple of things differently than the recipe called for.  For the crust, I didn't bother with the food processor.  I just crushed up the vanilla wafters with a rolling pin, mixed in the melted butter and mixed it with the sugar.  It turned out fine -- just like a graham cracker crust.

My main adaptation was to change the banana pudding into chocolate pudding.  Instead of the vanilla bean and the bananas, I used 1/3 cup of cocoa powder.  The pudding was a little lumpy before it was set, but it was smooth once we ate it.  I made the peanut butter topping as written and the whole combination was terrific.  It was almost totally gobbled up at the meeting, but I tried to take a picture of what it looked like with the different layers.  Not my most successful photo, but you get the idea.  You can see the unmodified recipe here and also check out what other bakers created.

MSC: Orange Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Candied Oranges

It has been a long time since I baked in the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club, but when I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it.  It required two things that I have never worked with before -- candying citrus and vanilla beans.  For some reason, I have always had a fear of vanilla beans, but they are much less scary than I thought!  I don't know if I got all the seeds out, but it was not that hard to slit it and scrape the seeds out (and I put the rest of the pod into some vodka and am making homemade vanilla extract, which I will post about in a month when it is done).  Now, for candying citrus.  All you do is make some simple syrup (water and sugar) and float the orange slices in it and 20-30 minutes later -- candied orange slices.  I haven't tried to eat one, but they smelled so delicious that I am sure they will be good.


I joined this baking group both to try new baking skills and also to try my hand at some decorating.  These candied orange slices are so pretty and so easy and I am glad I learned this trick for decorating future baked goods.  If you want your house to smell amazing, I would highly recommend baking these cupcakes.  The combination of the orange and the strong vanilla bean was heavenly!  Thanks to Jamie from Cookin' with Moxie for a choice that allowed me to expand my baking horizons!