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...)

I Scream 2009, Part I

It's been more than a month that I have had to recover from the Great American Ice Cream Event of 2009, aka, I Scream 2009, my annual ice cream party.

This is going to have to be a four part post, as you'll be tired by all my writing in one. Fifteen flavors per post, and the winners in the fourth. Stay tuned!

This year's party brought a great group of guests (which woulda been better if Tina could have made it!), 45 flavors (44 by me, and one from a guest -- yes, I am gaga about ice cream), and tons of great raffle prizes -- after the $15 Kohl's sale on the Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker, we even bought one of those to raffle off! You can see the raffle table at left -- and above it is the super cool "B" cutout Husband bought just for me! (Photo by Jennifer Wickman.)

Here's part one...as always, I am going to try to get up some good recipes, but if I am taking too long, feel free to bug me if you want a certain recipe.

1. Amanda's Summer Garden Party (Strawberry Basil Sorbet) -- back by special request. You can see the recipe here.
   
2. Arianna's Snap Crackle Pop (Rice Krispie Treat) -- I tried this one twice. Once I made a marshmallow recipe without eggs, and to me it tasted like frozen whipped cream. The next time I made a egg based marshmellow base. Both times I didn't like how the rice krispie treats got soggy. Not a fan, so unless you *really* want it, I am not going to try to remember the recipe and post it. I'll try to figure out how to unsog them and master this recipe.
   
3. Ashu's Tango with the Mango (Mango Pistachio) -- I wasn't thrilled with this one. I altered the recipe from The Kitchn. Maybe if I hadn't altered it, I would have liked it!
   
4. Batter Up (Cake Batter) -- yum! One of my favorites. You can find the recipe here.
   
5. Caffeine Makes You Go Bananas (Caramel Coffee Banana) -- This was a mistake turned right. My first couple of coffee recipes just weren't working. This kind of burned so it was caramely. Whatever...when you make caramel, turn it into ice cream. I added bananas and voila!
   
6. Caramel Coffee with Charlie and Lucy (Caramel Coffee with Two Kinds of Peanuts -- chocolate covered peanuts and circus peanuts) -- Same as above, second try still didn't work. This time I added the circus peanuts and the chocolate covered peanuts I had lying around.
   
7. Crazy Sister Liz (Coffee with Salted Walnuts and Marshmallow and Caramel Swirl) -- Kevin's coworker (and our friend) Melissa suggested this one. Apparently her sister invented this to top ice cream. As Melissa tells it "She may be crazy, but boy can she put an ice cream creation together. My sister worked at White Mountain Creamery when if first opened in the 80's. This was one of her favorite concoctions. Obviously the toppings weren't made into the ice cream, but I think they'd be better that way: coffee ice cream, salted pecans, ribbons of caramel and marshmallow." I can't tell you what I thought, though...I am not a fan of coffee.
   
8. Crowley's Coffee N' Donuts (Coffee N' Donuts) -- Another one of Melissa's brilliant ideas. Wonder why no one thought of this one before...Aptly named for Massachusetts's recent famous cop, Sargeant Crowley.
   
9. Daveed's Bella Nutella (Nutella) -- Used the basic peanut butter ice cream recipe from Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book, replacing the peanut butter, with, what else? Nutella.
   
10. Double Your Pleasure (Fresh Mint with Thin Mints) -- This was actually made with fresh spearmint, which I didn't think of as I was making it. I have a jungle of spearmint in the backyard, which I thought I would use. I think it would have been better with mint mint.
    
11. Ears to You, Betsy! (Corn) -- It wasn't bad...but I won't make it again, probably. Also from Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.
12. Elvis's Coronary (Peanut Butter Banana) -- Peanut Butter Ice Cream. Macerated bananas mixed in. 'Nuff said.
    
13. Gail's Chipwich (White Chocolate Ice Cream with Chocolate Chip Cookies) -- Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and cookies 'n' cream are all-time favorites these days, but it is rare that you find actual baked chocolate chip cookies in ice cream. Well, thanks to Gail, we did! Awesome Gail suggested this one. Cookies were made from the New York Times recipe, which I accidentally let sit for 72 hours instead of 36. Patience? Nah. I enjoyed cookie dough for three days! Ice cream base was White Chocolate Ice Cream from Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.
14. Grandma's Black Forest Cake (Chocolate Cherry Cake) -- In honor of my late Grandma Schlegel's black forest cake. This ice cream adaptation is one of my next recipes to post. Promise! Used Amy's Kitchen's awesome Frozen Chocolate Cake. Also keep your eyes peeled for Tina's review of the Orange Cake with chocolate ice cream!
    
15. Heather and Lisa's Big Apple (Apple Butter) -- Had an extra jar of apple butter lying around -- once my husband mentioned he liked apple butter, and I think I over bought it for him...Recipe from...you guessed it: Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.

Stay tuned for part two of the series!

Hope you enjoy the glowing picture at right of me and Team Wickman! BE sure to note the other awesome present from Husband...the banana split tee! Thanks to Jenn Wickman for this photo as well!

Turkey Hill Holds Virtual Ice Cream Party on July 29

Turkey Hill is so thoughtful -- they're holding a huge ice cream birthday party for me...don't tell them they are three days off -- I know they worked so hard to organize it...Oh, wait, no, I think it's just a big party for everyone!

This Wednesday, July 29th, Turkey Hill's blog, Ice Cream Journal, is holding an online ice cream party...Grab your favorite Turkey Hill Ice Cream (preferably one of their limited edition flavors) and head over to Ice Cream Journal at 8 PM EST and to chat with other Turkey Hill lovers and comment about your flavor!

Visit their blog for more info on the shindig...

I'm interested to see how this goes -- I've never been to a virtual ice cream party.

If only I weren't hosting book club...

Ice Cream Party Spectacular

I can't believe its been two weeks since the madness of frantically making ice cream for a bunch of three year olds. Funny thing is I am not sure if the adults were more excited than the kids. Man, you should have seen the size of some of the sundaes created. In the end I made eight flavors, had 10 toppings, and way too many leftovers. I think this may become an annual tradition but only if people promise to bring some home. The Cake Batter ice cream has been calling my name every night since last Saturday which is not a good thing around here.

In retrospect I wished I had little score cards so everyone could rate each flavor but I didn't so here is what I think are the results. Seeing as the container with the least amount of ice cream left was Oreo Cookie I think that takes first place. I did get a comment that it had more cookies than ice cream so I'll lay off the Oreos next time, but it still seemed to go. And it was actually the one flavor I was able to send out the door with them. The next popular was the Peanut Butter Cup, although hard as a rock, and third place prize would probably go to the Cake Batter, which is my personal favorite out of the bunch.

Also, because a three year old can't comprehend that we are not having a cake on her birthday, just ice cream, I had to honor her wishes and get her a princess cake to blowout her big three candles. I made the mistake of showing her a cake book with this crazy Barbie cake and she instantly became obsessed and had to have it. So here I am 8am the morning of her birthday jamming her Barbie in the cake and piping ribbon. Oh what moms will do for their kids. But I had to share because I think the thing is hysterical. If you could have seen me and my husband fighting about how Barbie should be properly jammed in the cake you would have laughed. So we not only enjoyed plenty of ice cream but had the joy of Barbie to go with it.

So this posting isn't all together so informative but what I learned from having an ice cream party is...start churning a few weeks prior or have two freezer canisters to speed up the process. Second, take all ice cream out of the fridge at least 10 minutes before as some of mine was a hard as a rock and difficult to serve. Third, watch the amount of mixins put into the base of your ice cream. I found my peanut butter cup and oreo had more candy and cookies than ice cream. And lastly, send leftovers home with guests!