I wrote about The Ultimate Frozen Dessert
I was making the gelato for my annual ice cream party. As a rule, I make the ice creams/gelatos/sorbets in advance of the party and don't taste them again until the party. However, my dear friend Lisa was visiting from Colorado and she wanted a tasting since she is never around for the party, so I let her, as long as we didn't leave much of a mark. We tried a few of the flavors and I asked her what her favorite was...black raspberry gelato. As I had tasted it too, I had to agree that it was pretty darn good.
So then I did the unthinkable (especially since I still have tons of ice cream to make for the party) -- I suggested we each have a dish of it. But first, I had to call my parents to see if they had more berries for me to take from them, so I could remake the gelato for the party. Thanks to my parents for looking in the freezer to check -- they do have another quart! So...Lisa and I dug in.
This gelato is not only gorgeous but it is amazing. It's rich and sweet, while at the same time being light and refreshing, if that is possible.
I do suggest you try it.
Husband, if you are reading this, I know you will want to be in charge of the actual "Let's Try It!" post, which means that all of our lucky readers will get to see how liquid nitrogen ice cream turns out for Scoopalicious. Readers, stay tuned for our own experiences sometime in the future.
Someone I know that works in a restaurant -- or is that someone I know that knows someone who works in a restaurant -- told me that they use liquid nitrogen to make their ice cream and the liquid nitrogen makes the ice cream super creamy. I wish I knew who told me this, because I would for sure have them be a guest blogger, but since I don't, we'll have to use this very well done video from Food Science with Dr. Kiki Sanford on 5min.com:
At the beginning of July I posted The "If-This-Is-A-Small-I-Don't-Want-To-Know-How-Big-The-Large-Is" Ice Cream...
Unfortunately I never got a good picture of the "small" that showed the true size -- remember in the last post I was just fighting to keep the ice cream on the cone and out of my lap.
In the name of science, Kevin decided to fork over the $3.95 and get the large -- what a sport. At right, you can see what we got back with our nickel when we handed over four dollars. The large looked to be about a pint of ice cream and weighed in on the postage scale at over a pound.
So I lied. I said "If-This-Is-A-Small-I-Don't-Want-To-Know-How-Big-The-Large-Is," but truth be told, I did. I wanted to know. And now we do.
We've posted about this topic in the past but none have had a fun Infographic for this same important question. In honor of National Ice Cream Month, Ultimate Coupons created this fun graphic based on "what does your favorite ice cream flavor say about your personality?" and we thought it'd be fun to share. Funny according to this chart I am a "romantic" (mint chocolate chip) and my husband is a "wildcard" (Rum Raisin). I was amused by his chuckle at that one. Must admit it's the other way around but still fun none the less. As Ultimate Coupons says, it's as accurate as reading your daily horoscope, but lots of fun to read. Check out what your favorite flavor says about you."
Someone once suggested I make grape ice cream. I did some research but was hard pressed to find recipes. I read somewhere that the reason it's hard to find good recipes is that natural grape, when used in recipes, isn't so much a flavor as a sweetener. It kind of makes sense, seeing as a lot of recipes that avoid sugar use grape juice as a sweetener.
I did try to make grape ice cream -- though I don't recall it very well -- which goes to saying that it wasn't that memorable -- I think I used grape juice concentrate and it came out very mildly flavored and pretty sweet.
I hate throwing stuff away, but this ice cream was too "chewy" and chunky -- it actually had clumps of gelatin in it! In fact, when I took it out of the bowl to put it into the ice cream machine, it was actually pretty solid -- kind of like a grape mouse.
Either way, I'll have to try this one again. Or should I? Have I not learned my lesson about gelatin and ice cream?
Last year, after finding out on their Harper Collins bio that Bruce Weinstein and co-author Mark Scarbrough live in the small county in Connecticut where my mother grew up, I emailed them just to say hi and let them know what a big fan I am.
I haven't yet made too many flavors, but wow, I was blown away by their raspberry gelato recipe -- though I actually used black raspberries and admittedly a few more than the two cups the recipe called for (I told you before, my parents had an overwhelming crop of both black and red raspberries this year!) -- It was amazing. I would gladly take all of my parents raspberries and make pint after pint of this gelato.
I have also tried the marscapone gelato recipe, which was also very good, but I found myself a little disappointed since I was trying in vain to reproduce Perry's cannoli ice cream, which I still can't buy around Boston. The Ultimate Frozen Dessert marscapone gelato was very good though -- I was just hoping it would be a magical reproduction of the flavor I so desperately love.
I can't wait to make more recipes from their book. I honestly don't know why it took me so long to add it to my library.
Thanks again, Bruce and Mark...we love building our Ultimate collection (we have The Ultimate Peanut Butter Book
Happy Vanilla Ice Cream Day!
When purchasing Jeni's book, I don't think I knew what I was in for -- there are some very unique and daring flavors!
I decided to try out her Riesling Poached Pear Sorbet. I didn't know at the time, but this is one of her signature flavors, so it was a good one to start with. Um, it may be a good one to finish with. I may never make another recipe from that book since now I am addicted to the sorbet and I want to make it all the time. My husband thinks it is too sweet, but to me, it's perfection. I am not a big drinker, but I do love my Riesling. And lately, when making baby food, I always steal some of Violet's cooked pears. I love cooked fruit, but I particularly love cooked pears. (On an unrelated note, here's another great recipe for poached pears.) Anyway, the Riesling and cooked pears is a perfect combo to me.
I pretty much followed Jeni's recipe but might try something different next time, too, because there are two things I don't like to do that I was supposed to do in this recipe (one of which I already avoided -- see line item number 1 below):
, I put the mixture through the food mill
instead. I don't think this made a difference, especially since you then push the mixture through a sieve.
This is how it goes...we do our company games where someone inevitably gets hurt in a mean game of tug-o-war, then we eat a good old BBQ picnic lunch and then the rolly carts loaded with ice cream comes out and two fun and friendly teens with awesome summer jobs of scooping ice cream all summer serve us their to-die-for ice cream. And we can go back as many times as we'd like.
Unfortunately they can't fit all 40 flavor in these carts so our choices are limited but we have some great options. My first picks: Mocha Almond Fudge and Mint Oreo (pictured below). There is something about Mint ice cream that isn't green. I know it doesn't alter the taste but the natural aspect of it is so refreshing. As I've said before Mint is my favorite and this was great. The Mocha Almond Fudge was well, exactly that with just enough almonds and fudge not to take over the taste of the mocha ice cream. Well both flavors did not disappoint. My partner in crime on the 3-par course chose good old Chocolate and Kahlua Crunch as pictured on the top. I couldn't go back for seconds but I did taste test his. The chocolate is sooooo good. Oh I forgot to mention we also get fudge, marshmallow, caramel, sprinkles, and this keg of whipped cream that I wanted to take home but I couldn't get away with it. I did have to dip into the fudge a little.I grew up in Connecticut on a main street (actually, Main Street) and while we had a nice sized yard, it wasn't huge by any means, but what we always had was a garden and a very large patch of raspberries. (This season alone, my parents have picked 59 quarts to date.)
When I was younger, I don't think I appreciated the raspberries we had, in all their varied presentations. We had raspberry shortcake, crisp, muffins...yes, it did feel a bit like Forrest Gump, except with raspberries.
In all seriousness though, living two hours away from where I grew up, I realize what a special thing these raspberry plants (and my parents) are!
What brings me home during the summer, even when I can't be in the same state as my parents, is the common summer treat of vanilla ice cream with sugared raspberries (to bring out the juices). To me, there is nothing that says summer more than this.
In honor of mom's birthday (yesterday) and dad's birthday today (and to a lovely visit these past few days), here's a shout-out to a summertime tradition and a family treat...
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| Froot Loop Ice Cream (©MilkMade) |
The MilkMaid: The logo is the result of a gchat conversation between some MilkMade friends. Instead of a heart, <3, we double scooped, ,<00, and thought it would serve as a perfect logo. We'll know we've made it when Google turns it right side up.  |
| S'Mores Ice Cream (©MilkMade) |
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| EVOO Ice Cream (©MilkMade) |
Two ways to celebrate....eat or make ice cream!
Back in February I posted about ice cream bread. It's now July and you probably want to be eating ice cream, not turning on the oven and making bread with it -- well, you can file this one for later.
Using Friendly's Fudge Berry Swirl Frozen Yogurt. (I wanted to use Cherry Garcia*, but the store didn't have any, so I tried something somewhat similar.) I tried the recipe as is (equal parts ice cream and self rising flour) but I found it a bit dense -- more like a scone. I thought maybe it was the frozen yogurt that made it dense, but it looks like even the photos on the original post came out very scone-y looking.
I decided I wanted to try something a bit different the next time I made it. Using the same frozen yogurt I had used to make the scone-y ice cream bread, I tried again and made it this time with 4 parts melted ice cream (um, in my case, frozen yogurt) and 3 parts self-rising flour
, baked it at 350° for about 30 minutes as suggested...much better. It rose better and was much moister.
My daughter Violet is 11 months old now. I say this because before she was born we got a gift certificate in the mail to hold an ice cream social at SONIC. Violet being my first baby, summer came and went, but we never made it to Sonic. Fall came, and in October I gathered my husband, Violet, and six dear friends, and we headed to Sonic. It was our first time to SONIC and I was under the impression that in addition to the car service, there was also a seating area. I was wrong, and felt badly for having dragged my friends to an outing that had us sitting in two separate cars while we enjoyed ice cream, which is partially why I saved this post until the spring when the weather would be more promising for an outdoor gathering between the cars. However, what a great group I was with. There were four adults (Claudia, Yenny, Kevin, and me), one teenager (Veronica), three kids (Rebecca/8, Alex/6, and Sammy/5) and one baby (Violet) -- all girls except for Kevin (He loved it. The girls love him!). We parked next to one another, and I climbed out of our car and into the car with Yenny, Rebecca, Alex, and Sam) and Claudia and Veronica joined Kevin and Violet. We placed our orders, the girls (and I) watched excitedly as our food was delivered by carhops on roller skates and then we spent the next hour enjoying our frozen treats and scrambling between the two cars. The weather was a bit cold but we were still able to enjoy the experience nonetheless.
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| Kevin enjoys his SONIC shake. |
I was hanging out with my daughter and my dear friends from high school the other day, and mango ice cream came up. (Really, when does ice cream not make it's way into my conversations?) I said I really wasn't a fan.
My dear friend Nicole works in Newton. For the past few years we have been meeting pretty much weekly to go for a walk. Nicole is six months pregnant and keeps threatening to stop working when the baby is born. I am selfishly saddened by the fact that she won't be so close for our regular walks, and this was compounded when she took me to the new gelato place by her work. What?! We can't go for gelato weekly?!
Seems like times have changed in our house. Once Peanut Butter was a staple but now it's Nutella, the european sensational chocolate hazelnut spread that is becoming popular here in the states. So what got it started was the whole "can't bring peanut butter to school" issues. Seriously where were the kids with peanut allergies when I was in school. But it's my understanding that Nutella is made from tree nuts and kids with allergies shouldn't have that either so hopefully this sticks around. I digress because this has nothing to do with ice cream but really it does link up here. I sadly haven't made much ice cream these days. Working full time and two kids makes it difficult to find the time but when I came across this super simple recipe for Nutella Ice Cream on the Chocolate and Zucchini blog I thought this was a keeper. Now I haven't tried it yet but it's next on my list. My daughter is obsessed with Nutella and ice cream too so I have a feeling this one will fly out of our freezer. And with only two ingredients....its not expensive to make and I have a feeling really good!
Enjoy!
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