TWD: Coffee Ice Cream Tart

This week, Jessica of Domestic Deep Thought of the Day chose Coffee Ice Cream Tart for Tuesdays with Dorie.

I changed this up a bit and used vanilla ice cream and peanuts rather than coffee ice cream and almonds.


I was really surprised at how good this tasted. It was seriously delicious. I LOVED the peanut butter flavored ice cream and the sandy, sweet tart crust.

Sorry, but I gotta go! I have about a week's worth of work to do by noon tomorrow!!! I can literally feel an ulcer growing in my gut LOL.

Look for the recipe on Jessica's blog (link in first paragraph) or Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread and Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

Oh holy cow! Am I a slacker or what? Please bear with me, it's getting to the make-or-break part of summer... the part where I question whether I am truly cut out for motherhood. Or at least summer break.

Yea, yea, enough whining, you say. We're all in the same boat here, right? So let's get on with it... last week for Tuesdays with Dorie, Natalie of Oven Love selected Oatmeal Breakfast Bread.

The week before, Katrina of Baking and Boys picked Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream.


Both recipes were fantastic! Thanks so much to Natalie and Katrina for the excellent picks.

You want to hear what a knucklehead I am? I actually left the oatmeal out of the the Oatmeal Breakfast Bread. Derrrrrr! Totally spaced it out... as in, I didn't even measure it out and forget it on the counter this time... I totally missed it as a component of this recipe.

Somehow it still came out awesome... moist and spicy and totally addictive.

And the chocolate ice cream... so tasty! The caramel and mini M&M's made for a serious sugar rush.

OK, that's it for now. I'm going to try to get some pics posted next week of our vacation to Northern Ohio and (according to my kids) the most awesome amusement park EVER!



Please visit the awesome ladies' websites for the recipes, or find yourself a copy of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

Daring Bakers: Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.


You can see from Sunita's how-to and recipe (on her blog) that this is a thin chocolate cake first layered with cream filling and then rolled jelly-roll style. The cake is sliced and then used to line a bowl. The "bowl" of cake is then filled with ice cream and fudge. The cake is inverted and voila! An extra fancy ice cream cake.


I decided to forgo the fudge filling and do a Neapolitan theme instead. For the strawberry ice cream I blended some vanilla ice cream with strawberries in the food processor... so easy!

This was a great dessert! I loved the cake and whipped cream layer, I might have to make that by itself next time.

I can't help but thinking my cake kind of looked like a mutant-cake-monkey.



If you'd like the recipe, please visit Sunita's blog. She has a most-excellent pictorial how-to as well.

OK, can't wait to see what next month's Daring Bakers Challenge is. Hopefully it will be as fun and tasty as this one.

TWD: Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie

This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe falls squarely in the "wouldn't-have-picked-this-one-on-my-own" category. Thankfully, Spike of spike.bakes would have, and in fact did, select the Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie.


I think I'll whip up a lifetime supply of these little coconut-shortbread crusts because I don't ever want to eat ice cream without one again. This crust was seriously awesome!


I guess you can tell that I didn't follow the recipe exactly. The filling was supposed to be chocolate ice cream blended with ripe banana (with sliced bananas on the bottom... you can kind of see mine, I think?), but I wasn't feeling the chocolate/banana ice cream combo for some reason. I decided to forgo that in favor of homemade cinnamon ice cream.


(Thank you David Lebovitz and your lovely book, The Perfect Scoop, for the fantastic ice cream recipe.)

And thank you Spike for choosing this recipe. You'll find the recipe on Spike's blog or in Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

I thoroughly enjoyed this and I'm glad I cut the recipe down to 1/4 batch and made it in two mini pie plates. I've already got enough junk in my trunk, thank you very much!

TWD: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream

You won't find Burnt Sugar Ice Cream on the menu at your local ice cream truck.


Nope, not there.

Too bad. This ice cream has "best seller" written all over it.


I know. It doesn't look like much. Humble. And brown. But boy, does it ever taste delish! Perfectly caramelly with just a hint of "burnt".

Burnt in a good way. Burnt with the teeniest, tiniest hint of bitter to balance the sweetness.

Thanks so much to Becky of Project Domestication. Becky picked today's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe.


OK, that's it, folks! If you'd like to try this, please check out Becky's blog or find a copy of Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

Malted Milk Ice Cream:Yes, Daring Bakers: Not so much...

No oven = no Daring Bakers.

But that doesn't mean we can't make ice cream!


I like to think I'm not the type to follow trends. But there is one food blogging trend I simply couldn't help getting caught up in. Yes, folks, I could not resist the ice cream from "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz.

Oh sure, I've picked up the book more than once in the bookstore. I leafed through the pages, admiring all of those mouth-watering ice cream photos, chuckling at the witty stories. But no, I resisted! "I already have too many cookbooks" I told myself. Plus, I'm too cool to follow trends, right? (Right?)

But then, after about the fourth time of tempting myself, drooling over the book, I came across a recipe for Malted Milk Ice Cream.

What?!??!

Malted. Milk. Ice Cream?!?

There went my resistance (and supposed coolness). Out the window.


I did not pass go, I did not collect $200. No, I proceeded directly to the cash register at Borders and then the grocery store (how handy, it's right next door!) to pick up missing ingredients.

People, I am here to tell you, David knows his ice cream!


This ice cream is so good you may need a few minutes to yourself to recover after the first bite.

My normally reserved husband, who's typical comment gets no more exciting than "it's good" even said "this is really good".

So there you go. Ice cream instead of cake. You can find the recipe------> here, at the Amateur Gourmet site (along with a cute and funny musical ode to this ice cream).

TWD: Vanilla Ice Cream

I'm in with the 29% of folks who call vanilla their favorite ice cream (number one flavor, baby!). So I was pretty psyched when Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu decided on Vanilla Ice Cream for this week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe. Thanks Lynne!

Of course, there are probably as many ice cream flavors as there are stars in the sky (Viagra ice cream, anyone?). But plain old vanilla is just fine with me.


There's something about just-churned, home-made ice cream that almost brings a tear to my eye... it's a thing of beauty, isn't it?

And when it tastes as good as Dorie's, well, you might as well bring on the cryin' towels. This ice cream was so rich and flavorful. My kids and I did a side-by-side taste test with the local "best" vanilla ice cream and the "best" suddenly tasted "bland".


Sigh.....

Please do yourself a favor and check out Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking, From my Home to Yours", or stop by Lynne's blog for the recipe. You'll thank me (or rather, Dorie), I promise.

OK, see you next week!

P.S. I can't help but wonder, what does Viagra taste like anyway?

TWD: Honey-Peach Ice Cream

Hey everyone! We just got back from vacation. As soon as school ended, we jetted down to Texas for my sister's wedding and a little sight-seeing. I've got a wee little wedding cake to share and some trip pics, but I'll post them later in the week.

Right now, we've got some Tuesday's with Dorie to talk about. Tommi of Brown Interior selected Honey-Peach Ice Cream for this week's recipe. Thanks, Tommi!


Based on the discussion on the TWD forum, I opted to steep my peaches, er, nectarines, in my hot milk/cream mixture. I wanted the fruit flavor to really shine through.


It looks a little gunky, I know, but a quick pass through the strainer and all was well.

I cooked all of the nectarines, and also pureed the whole batch because I, like apparently lots of other folks, don't like chunks of icy fruit in my ice cream (too ouchy on the teeth.) There were still a few small pieces.


And how was it?

Good! ...nice and fruity tasting. I couldn't really detect the honey flavor, though. I'm looking forward to trying it with some perfectly ripe, tasty peaches (the selection of peaches at the store this week was not good).

OK, that's all folks! Thanks for stopping by and if you'd like to see the recipe, please stop by Tommi's site above, or check out Dorie Greenspan's book, "Baking, From my Home to Yours".

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Valentino

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

It's fitting that February's Daring Bakers challenge is a cake recipe. It's the perfect choice since this just happens to be my one year blog-o-versary. (Yeah me! I've managed to say a lot about nothing for a whole year!!) Doubly perfect, since the Daring Bakers was the first baking group I joined back in March of last year.

I guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic about my journey with the Daring Bakers. Most recipes I've adored (my favorite was the Danish Braid), some not so much, but in all cases I've learned and grown as a baker. Thanks so much to Lis and Ivonne for starting this wonderful group and letting us all come along for the ride.

OK, on to February's challenge... a flourless chocolate cake aptly named Chocolate Valentino.



We bakers were to pair our cake with a home made ice cream of our choice. I couldn't resist flavoring my ice cream with my new best friend, browned butter. I found this recipe on Epicurious, but omitted the peanut brittle. I wanted pure, unadulterated browned butter heaven.



We got our cake, we got our ice cream. Let's get this party started!



The verdict? This was my first flourless chocolate cake and I didn't quite know what to expect. The texture was... ethereal. (Do you ever think you know the definition of a word, but when you go to use it, you're not sure? I looked up the definition of "ethereal" and it said "exceptionally delicate", which perfectly describes this confection.) I don't know how, but somehow it held together. I guess it was magic! As mentioned in the recipe notes, it tasted exactly like the chocolate I used, which was a mixture of semi-sweet chocolates. It was definitely tasty, but I might use some milk chocolate if I made this again, since I prefer it.

And the ice cream? It was incredible. Fantastic even.


It was perfect for my blogoversary. (I guess I need to go find something to give away, since that appears to be customary.) Until then, the recipe will have to suffice.

I have included some of Wendy and Dharm's notes at the bottom.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling, butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment (see notes below for pan size).
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater, beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter.
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. (I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't check until it was 170 F on the instant read thermo. D'oh! It still tasted good and I didn't sense any burned chocolate taste.)
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Note on recipe - the recipe consists of 3 simple ingredients and how you interpret them is part of the challenge. The simplicity of this recipe gives credit to the ingredients much in the same way of French baguette.
-This recipe comes together very quickly with a hand mixer.
-This is a very decadent cake that will sink a little as it cools but will still hold its shape.
-Very dense and fudgy cake that tastes divine.
-The top forms a light crust kind of like a brownie
- Use your favorite chocolate – the finished cake will taste exactly like the chocolate you use. Be creative with your chocolate, if you like a sweeter cake use milk chocolate or a combination of the semisweet and milk chocolate. If you like bittersweet chocolate use that and add sweetness by mixing the semi sweet with bittersweet. If you are daring, try white chocolate. (Dharm used all bittersweet and Wendy used a half bitter/half semi sweet chocolate).
- A higher cocoa percentage increases the bitterness of the chocolate.
-Equipment - it is optional to use a heart shaped pan. For a real Valentino, bake it in a heart shaped pan or cut it out into a heart shape. You may use any shape pan that gives you an area of 50 square inches - 6x8 or 7x7. An 8” spring form pan works with great results as do smaller pans or ramekins.
-An instant read thermometer is highly recommended.

Please stop by the Daring Bakers blogroll to check out the other delicious creations. See you next month!

Lime Sherbet

My oldest son loves lime sherbet and I've been wanting to try a homemade version for quite a while. I finally got in gear and found a recipe online, which I modified a bit. Thanks to the Limeade, it doesn't get any easier than this. No juicing or zesting limes required!


Easy Lime Sherbet

1 C. cream
2 C. 2% milk
1 C. Limeade frozen juice concentrate, thawed in the refrigerator
3-4 T. sugar, to taste
3 drops green food coloring

Combine all ingredients and whisk until well mixed. Turn on ice cream maker, ensuring first that the canister has been in the freezer long enough to freeze the liquid inside. Slowly pour Limeade mixture into ice cream maker and churn until thick. Freeze sherbet until solid and enjoy!

A couple of comments... I tried it with 3 C. whole milk in place of the cream and 2% milk but didn't like it as well. This sherbet tends to be a little on the dry side, and the whole milk makes it drier. If I try this recipe again, I might try increasing to 1-1/2 cups cream, while cutting down to 1-1/2 cups milk to see if it makes it creamy at all. Also, the green food coloring isn't a must, but if you don't use it, the sherbet is a very pale yellow color.

TWD: Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte

I just want to get this out of the way before we get started... I have no idea how to take good photos of ice cream. Is there some special refrigerated room that professional ice cream photographers know about that the rest of us don't?


Anyway...

This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe, Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte, was chosen by Amy of Food, Family, and Fun. Thanks Amy! This was my first ice cream torte and it was exciting to see it come together.

The verdict? I thought it was OK. I like chocolate, and I like raspberries, but I'm not a big fan of them together. (I know, I'm weird. I don't like watermelon either.) The ganache and ice cream were really delish on their own, though. I could see changing up the flavors a bit and trying this again... maybe using mint ice cream, for example.

Hubby enjoyed it, he ate two pieces in one sitting.

Since my pants are busting at the seams lately, I halved the recipe and used a 5-inch pan.

Which reminds me that I wanted to share some information about what size pan to use if you want to halve a recipe that uses a round pan. They aren't exactly half on the nose, but they're pretty close.

The first number shows the original size round pan and the second number shows what size pan to use for half a recipe. So, in the first case for example, if the recipe calls for a 14 inch pan, half a recipe would use a 10 inch pan.

Whole : Half
14 : 10
12 : 9
10 : 7
9 : 6
8 : 5 or 6
6 : 4

OK, that's all for now... up next week? Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters. I'm guessing they're going to be fantabulous.

TWD: Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

I’m grateful that Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity chose Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream for this week’s Tuesday's With Dorie recipe. It forced me to dig through my cluttered, overcrowded cupboards and find my ice cream maker, which I bought years ago and used once. I forgot how easy it is to use and how fantastic the end result is. A hearty "Thank You", Dolores!

My initial impression of the ice cream was that it had a noticeably tangy sour cream taste. Once I got used to that, I decided I liked it very much. Hubby wasn't too excited though, he turned up his nose when I mentioned the sour cream part.

I didn't have enough blueberries, so I subbed some pluot (a plum/apricot conflaguration).


I cooked the fruit with sugar and lemon...


added heavy cream and sour cream, then whizzed it in the blender…


then let the ice cream maker work it's magic.


How easy is that? Washing the dishes was the hardest part.


So, there you go! Next week’s recipe is Granola Grabbers... perfect for back-to-school.

If you'd like to try this ice cream, you can find the recipe at Dolores' site mentioned above, or better yet, pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan's book "Baking: From my Home to Yours".