Am I dense? Or is it this recipe?

I hate to come back to this blog on a negative note, but with two kids under three, I don't make a lot of ice cream anymore.

When I do make ice cream, I want it to work.

Twice, I have used chocolate ice cream recipes from Scoop: 125 Specialty Ice Creams from the Nation's Best Creameries and been super frustrated. The ice creams tasted great when I made the base, but they were so darn thick they just spun and spun in the ice cream maker, not getting cold, just attaching to the dasher.

Is it me? Am I doing something wrong? I know I did do one thing wrong this time but I can't imagine it would have been the result of my base refrigerating into one gelatinous blob. My mistake (and yes, I know the saying ab out blaming one's tools, but I also know as a graphic designer, I think they made a poor design mistake...) was that I missed adding the heavy cream at the beginning. Why? Because when they list the first step, they try to be all fancy with their design and bold the first couple of words and first ingredient. It pulls that first ingredient out of the list of other ingredients and combines it with the action...at least it does for me.

I have attached a screen shot from the Amazon preview of one of their other recipes for you to see what I am talking about.

See, don't you miss the cream? Maybe it's me. But to me the design just doesn't work in that way.

But I digress because I did add the cream, albeit later, but that shouldn't make much of a difference because my dear favorite ice cream authors in The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More add the heavy cream at the end all the time and they never have gelatinous bases!

The first time I made a chocolate recipe from this book, I looked at the base and I thought it was just too dense. I have a note in the book that I added an extra half cup of both whole milk and heavy cream and it worked out just fine.

However, this time, I thought to myself that maybe it would work, maybe I should give it the benefit of the doubt. Nope. I even tried stopping the churning a couple of times to push the mess back down with a spoon. And you know what happened? The ice cream froze to the side (finally) but ended up freezing too fast that the dasher got stuck and wouldn't turn anymore.

I want to love this book. The concept is great. I just can't see how these recipes made it into the book. Did someone not test them? Did someone leave out some liquid in the typesetting of the book?

Again, maybe it's me. I have taken quite a hiatus but I would like to think ice cream churning is like riding a bike.

I'm interested to see if anyone else feels this way about the book.

And I am sorry, Jackie, your present is to come because I just don't want to give you a solid block of frozen chocolate. In the meantime, you can tell me what your favorite flavor is.

Irish [Ice] Cream

In her last post, Tina worried that the Bailey's Coffee Creamer in ice cream might have issues freezing. Since the creamer is alcohol-free though, I thought it actually might be a good answer to "adult" flavored ice cream because sometimes it's hard to freeze ice cream with too much alcohol content.

It froze ok (as opposed to not at all with some alcohol based ice creams) but my ice cream was kind of icy rather than super creamy. I figured I'd write about it even though I don't have time to make edits to my recipe and retry it before St. Patrick's Day, so what I'll do is share the recipe with a follow up of what I would try if I make it again.

I used the fat-free Original Irish Cream (which I think may have contributed to the iciness -- it was more like "ice milk"...remember that stuff?!) but I thought I would try that since the press release we were emailed announcing it and offering us free samples said "BAILEYS® Coffee Creamers is excited to announce the launch of new fat free versions of two of their most popular flavors, The Original Irish Cream and French Vanilla." I'd never tried the "fat" versions, but what the heck...they were excited about the new fat-free ones so I'd give them a whirl.

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
2 cups Bailey's Original Irish Cream Fat Free Coffee Creamer
1 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Whisk the three eggs in a bowl until pale yellow. Bring the Bailey's Coffee Creamer to a simmer on the stove. Once simmering, remove from stove and pour the hot cream into the into the whisked egg. Whisk until well mixed. Pour the entire mixture back into the sauce pan, and cook over low heat while mixing constantly until the mixture thickens. Once thickened, move the mixture from the stove, then pour through a strainer into a clean bowl. Allow the mixture to cool for a bit and add the heavy cream.

Cover and refrigerate until cool.

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions.

So here are my thoughts. If I made this again, I'd have to color it green. White for St. Patty's?! What was I thinking? I'd also try the "fat" version for a little more creaminess and less iciness.

Here's what my friend and I thought. Neither of thought it tasted very much like Irish Cream. The flavor just got too diluted out with the extra ingredients and I think it was lost in the freezing -- freezing always mellows flavor. My friend thought it tasted "nutty," almost hinting at "pistachio." I kept thinking it reminded me of cake cones. You know, the flat bottomed ones they serve soft serve in? I don't know if that's the right name but that's what I found to call them when I looked them up. Anyway, I don't really find those cones have much flavor, so the ice cream was almost like a sweet cream ice cream with no particular flavor of its own. As for the iciness, my friend said "I know what you mean about it being icy but it's really not that bad." Very diplomatic friend! She's a good one!

Shamrock Shake and Irish [Ice] Cream

Truthfully though, I'm saving my creamer for Tina's shakes! Last night, my friend and I tried making Tina's Shamrock Shake with the Fat-Free Original Irish Cream Creamer (since I didn't have Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream in the house we couldn't make the Muddy Leprechaun -- and yes, T, I LOVE the name!) and we loved it! Who would have thought that coffee creamers make the perfect shake!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

There's always room for Jell-O...Except in my Ice Cream

So I was getting ready for my ice cream party and Kevin reminded me that he has a diabetic friend coming to the party. Out of my thirty-some flavors, I had none that were sugar-free. (As my friend Lisa watches me type, she says, rightly so, "Yeah, why would you? Cuz who wants sugar-free ice cream?") She should go ask Alice. Alice is Kevin's diabetic friend.

Anyway, this sparked something in my head that reminded me I had wanted to try making ice cream with Jell-O. So I went out and bought sugar-free jello, used one og my recipes but replaced the sugar with Jell-O, made some adjustments to keep it from tasting too aspertamey, and put it in the fridge to cool. I won't bore you with the details because it didn't work.

I went a couple of days later to churn it and...I had a creamsicle flavored Jell-O mold. And it wasn't very good...

I don't really know why I thought this would work and didn't think about the fact that it would jell as gelatin does, but it might be the thirty flavors I had made in a period of weeks and my head wasn't on straight.

Anyway, this is one of those things: let well enough alone. Jell-O is awesome alone, as is ice cream...

Buuuuuut, I have heard there are some good Jell-O recipes that use ice cream...maybe we'll feature some of those soon!