Monday, June 18, 2012

Want $250 to your fave cooking/baking store?

Only 12 more days to enter our 5th Annual Scoopalicious/Cupcake Project Ice Cream Cupcake Contest! Every year the prizes and competition gets bigger and better and with still 12 days to go there are already 18 awesome entries. This year's grand prize....$250 to a baking/cooking store of your choice and lots of other great prizes for runner ups. For entry details and to check out other entries click here.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Recipe: Cider Cider Donut Ice Cream

This post is kind of unseasonal, but my friend Melanie (also my partner at July Twenty Fourth!) is visiting from California and she's the one who suggested this flavor so I thought I'd perfect it and make it for her. Additionally, Husband has been giving me a hard time about the frozen cider donuts taking up room in the freezer. AND it's time to start churning for  the annual summer ice cream party.


Long story short, I present you Cider Cider Donut Ice Cream.


You need: 
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1 cup of boiled cider (see below for procuring this!)
  • 2 teaspoons of flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cider donuts cut into bite sized pieces
How to:
  1. Beat the yolks, boiled cider, flour and salt, and set aside. 
  2. In a saucepan, at medium heat, heat the milk to a simmer. 
  3. Slowly beat the hot milk into the egg yolk mixture. 
  4. Pour the entire mixture back into the sauce pan, and cook over low heat while mixing constantly until the mixture thickens. 
  5. Once thickened, move the mixture from the stove, then pour through a strainer into a clean bowl.
  6. Allow the mixture to cool for a bit and add the heavy cream.
  7. Cover and refrigerate until cool.
  8. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. 
  9. Stir in the donut pieces

(This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite ice cream books: The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More)


How/where to get Boiled Cider:
First of all you need Husband. He is awesome at boiling down cider to syrup. Buuuuut, since I kind of need him here, I'll give you two other options.

Method 1:
While Husband cannot come to your house to do it for you, he has graciously agreed to share his method of making 1/2 gallon of cider into 1 cup of syrup (without burning it like I did the first time!)
  1. To boil down your apple cider make sure you leave enough time. In our test it took about 4 hours to boil down a half gallon of cider into ~1 cup of syrup.Start with a pot that's just big enough to hold your cider. Unless you boil it over, the volume of liquid will only be going down. 
  2. Boil the cider as fast as you can control. Check in on the boiling periodically and try to scrape any cider residue from the sides of the pot (that didn't burn) back into the mix.
  3. As you start getting towards the end, be prepared to spend more time hovering over your mix and stirring. You do want to keep residue from forming on the sides, but the stirring at the end is more for your benefit than for the mix. Slow the boiling rate down considerably as you approach the final volume.
  4. Determining when you are done is the hardest part. Cider molasses at about boiling temperature will be very liquid and flow well, but at some point you'll notice that it doesn't fall or splash like cider/water off your spoon. You'll also notice that if you temporarily crank the heat up, the bubbles will stack on top of each other and the whole mixture will rise up a bit.
  5. At this point, you're done! The syrup is still hot so it will still flow very well. When it cools down it will be a thick syrup. The mixture should also taste sweet. If you really aren't sure, try cooling a bit on a metal spoon and giving it a look and taste.
Method 2:
Buy it. I have never used Boiled Cider but I have seen it at the King Arthur Flour Store. You can also buy it directly from the manufacturer's site, one of few places that still makes it.

Reviewed:
The reviews are in...Husband thinks it needs to be sweeter, which is really weird for him to say. He's usually not into things being really sweet.

Melanie says it's a very strong flavor with a punch to it. "A very strong tart apple flavor," she describes it. "That was yummy," she said when she put the bowl down. "A really, really good cider flavor."

 I don't think I would order a whole dish of this but a seasonal scoop would be really refreshing. It's not that I wouldn't order it because it's bad (it's really very good) but it's strong. It's very cidery -- which is exactly what I wanted to make when I mixed it. I think the donut bits are a really lovely cinnamony taste when you come across them in the cider base, too. (I got my cinnamon sugar cider donuts from Honey Pot Hill Orchard in Stow, Massachusetts...)

Friday, June 8, 2012

Baskin-Robbins Flavor of the month BOGO

I wish they had featured this at Scooperbowl as it sounds so refreshing and perfect for summer. It's Baskin-Robbins flavor of the month Strawberry Lemonade Punch Sherbet. Oh well but here is a BOGO offer for you all to enjoy.

Another indulgent year at Scooper Bowl

 

Thankfully Mr. Weatherman was wrong. Sun brought crowds and fun. 
We met at 5:30 and looks like we weren't the only ones having an ice cream dinner.

Can you guess what the blue one is? We couldn't!

Volunteer scoopers hard at work.

Ben and Jerry's Greek Frozen Yogurt is a hit.

My favorite of the day...SoCo Creamery.

SoCo Creamery can't scoop fast enough.

Now these are diehards. Looks at all those cups.


All for a good cause. My daughter loves her new hat.


I am almost embarrassed to admit all that we tried but that is what you're there for! Some brands offered their tried and true flavors while some ventured out. Sort of felt like every one was serving up Cotton Candy but then again this is an event for kids too and if I had my daughter there that is what she would be eating...not the Mission Fig. I think the booth that inspired and intrigued us the most was SoCo Creamery. I had heard of them before but never actually tried them. They definitely had a crowd and offered up the most unique flavors. 


And drum roll for all the flavors we taste tested (see below). Funny thing is my husband called me on the way home asking what I wanted for dinner. Silly question...we had ice cream!




Soco Creamery
Lemon Poppy Seed (Tina's top pick!)

Salted Caramel (Bethany's top pick!)
Mission Fig
Cake Batter

Passion Fruit Sorbet (SO refreshing)
Malted Milk Ball Gelato
Strawberry Gelato 

Splish splash
Lunar cheesecake (A 1969 flavor revisited! Bethany's second?)
Super Fudge Truffle (worthy of seconds)
Icing on the cake

Hood Bear Creek Caramel
Hood Maine Blueberry and Sweet Cream

Peppermint Stick

Espresso Chip
Rainbow Sherbert (Another very refreshing flavor)

Hunka chunka PB Fudge
Graham Central Station
Rockin Poppin Cotton Candy

Mint Chocolate Chip
Holy Cow

Chocolate therapy (OMG!)
Americone Dream
Blueberry Vanilla Graham Greek Froyo


Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Scooperbowl 30 Starts TODAY!

The 30th Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl starts in a little over an hour!

Tina and I are going to brave the unfortunate forecast of rain tomorrow and attend the Bowl tomorrow Nothing gets in the way of a New Englander and her ice cream!

For those of you in the Boston Area who want to attend, here's the scoop (yes, pun intended)...

Tuesday, June 5 – Thursday, June 7, 2012
Noon – 8 p.m. every day
City Hall Plaza, Boston
Cost: $10
Flavors/Participating Shops: Follow this link!



Even if you can't make it, you can still show your Scooper Bowl pride with official Scooper Bowl gear...AND you'll be supporting a great cause, the Jimmy Fund.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Enter the Ice Cream Cupcake Contest 2012


Wow, we can't believe it's already time for the 5th Annual Scoopalicious/Cupcake Project Ice Cream Cupcake Contest!

Since we've done this for the last four years, the best way to get an idea of what an ice cream cupcake is, is to look back at previous entries.

We've got some great prizes and some great judges this year, so get crackin' and enter by June 30, 2012.

Since Stef at Cupcake Project wrote such a wonderful post with all the information about this event, we are going to send you over there for contest and entry details.

Good luck and cannot wait to see what you all submit!


Come back often to see the entries!

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