My recent daily ritual...press snooze 3 times and then get up and make sweet cinnamon toast for my daughter. I know I know...sugar for breakfast makes me a bad mom but its a light sprinkle and it brings back great memories of my own mom making me cinnamon toast. It has become one of her favorite things but what's not to like so when I saw this recipe on Epicurious it totally caught my eye. Plus I too love anything with cinnamon in it. And did you know...when added to food, it inhibits bacterial growth and food spoilage, making it a natural food preservative. Perfect for ice cream...makes the goodness last that much longer!
One reviewer reminds us of the time it takes but also how worth it it is..."First off, the recipe is time consuming... that being said, it is one of my top crowd pleasers. I can only manage to make it a few times a year but everyone who has tried it begs for more! It is amazing how all the qualities of warm buttery toast get infused into the ice cream. truly unique and special."
Enjoy!
(the following is an Epicurious recipe)
2 cups whole milk
2 (3-inch) cinnamon sticks
5 slices firm white sandwich bread
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon molasses
1 cup heavy cream
Bring milk and cinnamon sticks to a boil in a 2-quart heavy saucepan, then remove from heat and let steep, covered, 30 minutes.
While milk steeps, put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 300°F.
Cut 3 slices bread into 1/4-inch cubes and transfer to a bowl. Quarter remaining 2 slices and pulse in a food processor to make bread crumbs. Whisk together butter, brown sugar, and ground cinnamon in another bowl. Drizzle 3 tablespoons butter mixture over bread cubes and stir to lightly coat. Spread in 1 layer in a shallow baking pan. Add bread crumbs to remaining butter mixture and stir to evenly coat. Spread crumbs evenly in another shallow baking pan.
Bake bread cubes and crumbs, stirring occasionally and switching position of pans halfway through baking, until golden brown and crisp, about 25 minutes total. Cool in pans on racks, then transfer bread crumbs to a bowl.
Return milk to a boil, then pour over bread crumbs and let stand 10 minutes. Pour milk through a fine-mesh sieve into saucepan, pressing hard on solids, then discarding them.
Whisk together yolks, granulated sugar, molasses, and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Return milk mixture to a boil and add half to yolk mixture in a slow stream, whisking until combined well. Add yolk mixture in a slow stream to milk in saucepan, whisking, then cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thickened and thermometer registers 170 to 175°F (do not let boil).
Remove from heat and immediately stir in cream, then pour custard through fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl. Quick-chill custard by setting bowl into a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stirring occasionally until cold, about 15 minutes. Freeze custard in ice cream maker until almost firm. Fold bread cubes into ice cream, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden, at least 2 hours.
Cooks' note: Though the toast is crunchiest the first 2 days after it's made, the ice cream keeps 1 week.
[Scoopalicious is celebrating National Ice Cream month with a Post-A-Day throughout the month of July!]
I guess that wasn't the most creative of names, but I am trying! I had this yogurt that I made my Donvier yogurt maker that was just not the right consistency so I thought to make it into frozen yogurt. Perfect idea. I didn't waste the yogurt and made a fairly healthy treat of cinnamon frozen yogurt (see right), that even my husband liked!
On another note, I had little bit of a fun experiment last week. I wanted to draw ice cream at the studio last week. I bought an Haagan Daz Vanilla and Almonds Ice Cream Bar at the store next door but soon realized that I had to run out and that I wouldn't be able to draw the ice cream bar before I left. Luckily living recent weather has dumped a lot of snow in New England and I decided to bury the ice cream (box, wrapper and all) in the snow. When I came back four hours later I had about a half an hour of drawing time! (The drawing wasn't worth showing!) In addition to the snow freezer I made, I am sure the chocolate shell kept the ice cream a bit in tact too, because as soon as I cracked the shell, the ice cream was a soupy mess...Long story short, snow makes a good freezer in a pinch, though I am sure our ancestors figured this out well before I did!
Here's the outcome of the red hot cinnamon and cherry ice creams. The red hot cinnamon was made too close to the book club starting time and didn't get enough time to freeze harder -- before I got to take a picture, it was too soupy. The cherry was more photogenic as you can see on the left.
2. Cleaning the dasher (a.k.a. paddle). I hate it. I don't know if it is just the dasher on my Cuisinart, but I find it so hard to get all the ice cream from it when transfering to another container. There are so many nooks and crannies. I find my self fighting the dasher, the melting ice cream, and time. Not so fun. In the end I lose some of my ice cream to melted puddles in the kitchen sink. Overall I love my Cuisinart, but I would be interested in feedback on other machines.
