This Week's Ice Creams (and Cake)

Collaboration is a wonderful thing.

My brother-in-law, among others, is in town visiting for Christmas. We started off the celebratory week by turning a cocktail he's perfected into an ice cream: Black Pepper Ice Cream with Tequila Infused Pear and Fresh Ginger. Delicious!

Later in the week for a family and friends seafood gumbo gathering I churned up three ice creams:

Egg Nog with Rum Soaked Raisins - The brandy was replaced with bourbon and at the last minute I soaked some raisins in rum and added them to the mix.

Lemon and Dried Cherries - This one may be my favorite. It's super lemony and the late addition of dried cherries gives it an extra shot of chewy tanginess.

Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip - All of the recipes I came across either use mint extract (too artificial) or require steeping lots of mint in hot milk (too herbaceous). I kind of split the difference and pulverized about a ¾ cup of mint leaves in the food processor with ¾ cup of sugar then added about tbsp of mint extract. It's just as I like it, very minty.

And at the request of a lovely young girl from Sweden, for Christmas a Strawberries and Cream Cheesecake found it's way from the mixer and to the table.

P.S. The pics aren't mine.

Today's Flavor

I was struggling to come up with an ice cream that would go well with a pumpkin bread pudding that my nephew is making for Thanksgiving dessert. Finally, I came across a recipe for Brown Butter Cinnamon ice cream.

So far, so good.

The recipe can be found here.

The Latest Flavors

This past Sunday marked a milestone birthday for my favorite cuz, actually she's more like a sister since we grew up together. At this point in our semi-lengthy lives I had trouble thinking of a gift for her that she didn't already have or couldn't easily get herself.

Eventually, an answer popped into my head...lots of homemade ice creams.

First up was a batch of Dark Chocolate with Spiced Rum Soaked Cherries.  For the base I used David Lebovitz's recipe for Chocolate ice cream. I then chopped up a cup of dried cherries and let them soak in spiced rum for several hours.  The cherries get added after the churn and the flavored cherry rum, well that get consumed quickly.

The second batch was Toasted Coconut with Candied Ginger. For this one I also used a David Lebovitz's recipe for Toasted Coconut ice cream but I substituted 8 oz of milk with 8 oz of coconut milk.  I chopped about 1/3 cup of candied ginger and added that as well as about 1/3 cup of toasted coconut after the churn.

And lastly for my ice creamy gift I included a pint of Coffee (Kopi Luwak) with Toasted Almonds from my freezer stash.

The Latest Ice Cream

A friend of mine likes Jameson so when he and his wife came over for dinner recently I thought I'd try my hand at making a Jameson Select Reserve and honey ice cream.

Here'e the recipe.

The only change I made is that I churned it rather than freeze the whipped custard. Because of the relatively high alcohol content (the recipe calls for 1/3 cup) it doesn't freeze very hard. I paired it with a roasted peach and some candied pecans.

In hind sight I should have made a double recipe.

Yesterday's Ice Cream: Avocado Coconut

At the request of my wife, I made a batch of Avocado Coconut ice cream yesterday. I had some doubts going in but it turned out to be deliciously creamy with a delicate and subtle taste of avocado and coconut. An ideal dessert after a spicy meal.

Nice find sweetheart.

The recipe is here.

Today's Ice Cream: Very Cherry Chocolate Flake

I have high hopes for this one.

Cherries have been one of my favorite fruits since I was a child and chocolate, well, that's self-explanatory.

For the third time running there's no formal recipe.  I think I'm finally getting the hang of this, at least when it comes to fruit based ice cream.  Here's the list of ingredients and a quasi-recipe.

2 pounds of dark and juicy bing organic cherries. (Organic isn't a must but if you're going to the trouble of making ice cream you might as well use the best and healthiest ingredients.)
1.5 cups of heavy cream
1.5 cups of milk
4 egg yolks
75 grams of dark chocolate (I used a 70% cocoa bar from Madagascar)
1 cup of sugar (1/3 brown and 2/3 white)
1/2 tsp of vanilla
Optional: 2 tbsp of your alcohol of choice (it helps the ice cream from freezing really hard). I used one 1 tbsp of bourbon and 1 tbsp of vodka.

Pit and chop the cherries into chunks. Sprinkle and toss the cherries with 2-3 tbsp of sugar then roast at 350F for 15 minutes or so until soft and juice has been released but before they burn. Take 2/3 of the roasted cherries (including 2/3 of any juice in the pan) and puree in a blender. Place the remaining 1/3 in the fridge. Make the base, cool it, then mix well with the pureed cherries. Incorporating the cherry flavor into the base as opposed to pieces of cherry in a plain/vanilla base is what makes it "Very Cherry" for me.

Chill overnight.

The following morning, shave as much of the chocolate bar with a veggie peeler as you'd like (I used almost the entire bar). You should get lots of small chocolate flakes as in the photo above. Mix the vanilla and alcohol, if you're using it, into the ice cream batter and churn.  When done, in batches fold the remaining chopped up cherries and chocolate flakes into the ice cream. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

Enjoy!

This Week's Flavor: Spring on a Spoon

Yesterday I churned up a batch of Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb ice cream.  I couldn't find an exact recipe on the net so I winged it.  The basics:

- Two stalks of rhubarb cut into 1/2 chunks and
- 1.5 lbs of strawberries quartered
- Roast the strawberries and rhubarb with a dusting of corn starch 450 until soft. Blend half until smooth and mix into the ice cream batter. Mash the other half with a fork and add to the ice cream after churning.
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 cup of sugar (1/3 brown sugar and 2/3 unrefined)
- 1.5 cups heavy cream
- 1.5 cups of milk

This Week's Ice Cream: It's a Weird One

We were cleaning Dungeness crabs in prep for a small gathering of friends and at some point as my wife was eating a bit of the tomalley (aka mustard, guts, or if you want to get technical, the hepatopancreas) someone, probably her, had the idea of making a savory ice cream with it.

My response, "Uhh ok, why not." Thus began the strangest ice cream I've ever made.

Surprise, surprise, there aren't many any recipes for tomalley ice cream on the interwebs so this one was going to have to come down to pure creativity. On the ride home with the tomalley comfortably in the back seat we considered a variety of things to mix with it, none of which I can remember now.  After a night's sleep I awoke and had a flash that corn could work well.

The final crabby corny concoction consisted of:
1 cup or so of crab tomalley

Kernels from 2 ears of fresh corn

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup of milk
4 egg yolks
1 clove of diced garlic
2-3 tablespoons of dry sherry
Pinch of salt
Pepper to taste

All of this was cooked (in the typical ice cream batter manner), blended, and then strained. When finished and hot it was a rich and tasty crab-corn bisque.

Once cooled and churned into ice cream frozen crab-corn bisque, topped with smashed wasabi peas for texture and a bit more flavor (a brilliant addition that I can't take credit for), and then served as an appetizer, it became something quite different.

Strangely odd but still quite tasty. It needs to be tweaked to be truly delicious -- the tomalley could be cooked to reduce the water content and make for a creamier ice cream and a bit of brown sugar on top would add another layer of complexity. Nonetheless, for a first try at making crab tomalley ice cream it was pretty good and everyone enjoyed it, or so they said.

Unlike the Prosciutto-cantaloupe ice cream, I'll definitely give this one another shot.

This Week's Flavor: Matcha

For this week's flavor I returned to the past. Matcha, green tea powder, ice cream is one of the first flavors I made almost exactly three years ago when I bought my ice cream maker.  Since then around 60 different flavors have come out of this gem of a kitchen gadget.

As the chicken slowly turned on the string, I made a half batch of black sesame shortbread cookies to go with the ice cream.

The dessert was supposed to follow the fireplace chicken but after a bit too much vino and a relaxing massage I was out like a light.  So, we ate dessert for breakfast the following morning.

Today's Flavor: Butter Pecan

My notes tell me I made Butter Pecan ice cream, one of my mom's favorites, once before but I have little recollection of it. Anyway, I'm at it again and with the addition of a bit of DC's own Filibuster Bourbon it's tasting pretty good.

The recipe is here.

Today's Flavor

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

There'll be no turkey on the dinner table this evening, we're having a seafood paella instead. There will also no pumpkin pie afterwards but we will have Pumpkin (technically it's kabocha) and Candied Pecan Ice Cream.

Based on last night's preview it's pretty good.

Here's the ice cream recipe and here's the recipe for the extraordinarily addictive candied pecans (add a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper for a touch of heat).

Today's Flavor

I crashed early last night so I was up this morning at 5:30 to mix up the batter for Vanilla Chai Tea Ice Cream to accompany a Banana Pecan Bread for tonight's dessert.

The recipes are here, except for three changes to the ice cream: steep 6 teabags with the milk and spice mix (I used Earl Grey), add an extra egg yolk, and add a 1/4 cup more sugar.


So far so good.

I Scream, You Scream...

Hilarious in an ice creamy kinda way.

From Twisted Sifter...

Last Week's Flavor

I was so focused on the meat ice cream last week I forgot to post about the other ice cream my nephew and I churned up:

Balsamic Fig

A nano better than the Prosciutto Cantaloupe ice cream but it still missed the mark. One taster (ahem, the relation shall go unnamed) said it tastes like mayonnaise.

Not quite what I'd call a ringing endorsement.

You can't win 'em all.

Next.

This Week's Flavor: Oink

After reading through several unique ice cream recipes in the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book I decided to give one of the more bizarre flavors a shot:

Prosciutto ice cream.

I know what you're thinking, "meat ice cream"?

Yup.

As strange as it sounds, the challenging flavor and my logic got the best of me.  I like ice cream and I love some swine so how bad could it be, right?  With the addition of some roasted cantaloupe, I was convinced this was headed for success.

This isn't exactly what I made but flavor wise it should be fairly close...

It started out promising and tasted pretty darn good in the beginning stages but somewhere between adding the roasted cantaloupe and freezing the batter the meat ice cream went over the cliff.

I'm ready to make a meaty contribution to the local landfill but my wife likes it and it got the green light (or at least a yellow light) from some friends so I guess it'll stay in the freezer a little longer.

It was a learning experience. I learned I don't like meat flavored ice cream.

Next.

Today's Flavor

Mango Lassi with Candied Toasted Pistachios

I used this recipe as the launch pad but veered off course a bit due to laziness -- candied pistachios got substituted for the pistachio biscotti -- and necessity -- no rose water in the house but somehow we had orange blossom water.

P.S. the pic's not mine but it's similar.

Coming This Week

Grilled Peach Ginger Bourbon ice cream.

Picked up some nice peaches at the farmers market this AM.  About to grab some bourbon.  Ginger will be in hand mañana.

I can't find a recipe so I'll be winging it. I think it's got potential but we'll see. Stay tuned.

This Week's Flavor: It's Complicated

Following on the heels of the Blueberry Thai Basil ice cream which was very blueberry but not so basily we went all in and created Coconut Thai Basil Lime ice cream.

There was no recipe to be had on the interwebs so I started out with this recipe, substituted coconut milk for the milk, swapped out the lemon zest with lime, added a few tablespoons of lime juice, dialed back the egg yolks to four, and replaced the Italian basil with a boat load of Thai basil from zee garden.

The grammar sticklers will cringe but with it's bright green color, intense herbaceousness, and undertones of coconut and lime, the combo results in a very unique ice cream.

Accompanied by a few roasted macadamia nuts and either pineapple or mango on the side, it'll make a tasty dessert.

Today's Flavor: Blueberry Thai Basil

As I entered the grocery store the other day I remembered that since we'd lost power for all of 31 hours the remaining ice cream in the freezer was likely toast.  With temps rising into the mid to upper 90s  this week this was no time to be ice cream-less.  Blueberries were on sale but the thought of plain blueberry ice cream didn't do much for me.  It needed something else.  That's when the lightbulb went off...add some fresh basil from the garden.  


How creative!

Not. 

The Google quickly let me know that several folks already had the same lightbulb moment. C'est la vie...it's pretty darn good even if it's not an original creation.

The recipe is here.  The biggest decision was choosing between Italian and Thai Basil.  I went with Thai...which just might be an original idea.

Yesterday's Flavor: Roasted Peach Bourbon

I've made peach ice cream a couple of times before but this one beats 'em all. Roasting the peaches concentrates the flavors and creates a peachy caramel bourbon juice to go straight into the ice cream.

The recipe is here.