SpiceDish Saturday {December}: Christmas Ice Cream

I have an apology to EB of SpiceDish (as well as our fabulous readers!). EB has been so great about getting us new SpiceDish Saturday recipes and I completely missed the boat on this one, waiting until the last Saturday (and last day) of December to post her gorgeous recipe...which she aptly titles "Christmas Ice Cream." December always gets me -- I just fall so behind! In my defense, I kind of celebrate the holiday from Christmas to New Year's so I think it will still work as a great New Year's Eve treat. AND this is a "to file" for next year as well -- you can practice and practice for another 360 or so days now to have it perfectly mastered for next Christmas. 


Oh, and speaking of Christmas, wondering what to do with that Christmas check you got from Grandma? Head over to SpiceDish's Etsy shop, SpiceDish Vintage and pick up a new dish for your daily bowl of ice cream...! It was just recently that I discovered that our dear friend EB also keeps herself busy with a shop of vintage treasures!

Oh fruitcake, the much maligned dessert of the Christmas season. It's become cliché to hate on this lowly confection. When given as a gift, a single bite may be washed down with real star of the season-- egg nog. Rich, delicious, adored by legions of cream swilling fans. How can the fruitcake compete? It can't. Poor cake. In the spirit of “If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!” I've decided to comine these flavors into what can best be simply called “Christmas.” Yes, “Christmas” flavor ice cream. It combines all the flavors of fruit cake and egg nog and tastes, of Christmas. 

Enjoy-

1 cup whole milk 

1/4 teaspoon salt 

5 large egg yolks 

3/4 cup sugar 

2 cups chilled heavy cream 

2 tablespoons dark rum 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1/4 tsp nutmeg 

1/4 tsp cinnamon

4 cloves (whole)

1 pkg crystallized (candied) ginger

1 pkg candied fruits for fruitcake

Bring milk, cloves, several pieces of ginger (to your taste),  and salt to a boil in a  saucepan over medium heat. Turn to low and simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Let steep for 1 hour at room temp.

Remove ginger and cloves. Rewarm the mixture. In a large bowl, whisk together yolks and sugar.  Gradually add about 1/4 cup of the hot milk, whisking constantly. Slowly add yolks and milk to the saucepan whisking constantly. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula, until mixture lightly, coats back of spatula. Place a mesh strainer over a clean bowl and pour mixture through. Add cream, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir until thoroughly combined. Cover and chill completely.  Once chilled, freeze in ice cream maker. 5 minutes before complete add the rum, a few tbs of the candied fruit pieces and a piece or two of chopped up ginger. (These should be added to taste, more ginger=spicier, more fruits=more to chew on).

The rum will keep the custard from freezing completely in the mixer so you will need to transfer it to an freezer safe container and let it harden for at least 4 hours. 

Easy Paper Ice Cream Cone Ornaments

How did it become December 13 already? ugh...well if you are like me with lots of free time on your hands these days (chuckle chuckle) you're probably saying when does she expect me to make my own ornaments. Well these are so super cute and super easy. How About Orange shows us how to make Easy Paper Ice Cream Cone Ornaments with only tissue paper and a paper grocery bag. WOW! Have fun and happy decorating!

SpiceDish Saturday {November}: Salt & Pepper Ice Cream

After a break, the fabulous EB of SpiceDish returns for SpiceDish Saturdays. We are thrilled to have her back. What a treat have EB share some of her fabulously creative ice cream recipes on our blog. 

I don't know if we ever mentioned that Jessie of CakeSpy introduced us (virtually) to SpiceDish when we were first starting the blog -- and we became fast friends. A couple of weeks ago, we met Jessie in Boston while she was on her book tour. SpiceDish met Jessie in San Francisco at the end of October. So, if life is going according to plan, the next meet up should be between us gals at Scoopalicious and the ab fab SpiceDish herself. It seems only natural. We can't wait...for whenever that is!

Until then, we'll take SpiceDish Saturdays. Without further ado, here's SpiceDish!

This recipe may be a little strange to some of you, but it makes perfect sense to me. I had the luck to meet Fabrizia Lanza the olive oil expert a few nights ago at a talk she gave at 18 Reasons here in San Francisco. During her talk, Fabrizia treated us to vanilla ice cream drizzled with a fine extra-virgin olive oil. The fruity/sweet combination really worked! My mind immediately went to salty/sweet and I thought that a few bits of sea salt would really have put the treat over the top. On my walk home I decided that one more element would make it unexpected and perfect: pepper. Peppercorn ice cream actually. I went home, infused cream with rainbow peppercorns, drizzled the final product with a McEvoy Ranch olive oil, sprinkled some pink sea salt for crunch and color and voila! Delicious.


Salt & Pepper Ice Cream

1 ½  cups half & half
1/3 cups sugar
1 ½   tbs mixed color peppercorns- cracked
Pinch of sea salt
3 egg yolks
High quality extra virgin olive oil (for drizzling)
Pinch of pink sea salt (for topping)

Warm the half & half, sugar, pepper and salt in a medium saucepan. Turn off the heat and cover. Let sit for an hour. Set a strainer on top of a large bowl then re-warm the mixture. Whisk egg yolks in another medium sized bowl. Add a few tbs of the warmed mixture to the yolks and whisk. Continue until all of the mixture has been whisked into the eggs then add mixture back into saucepan on a low heat. Stir constantly, scraping the bottom of pan until the mixture thickens and coats your spoon. Pour through the strainer into bowl then cool over an ice bath.  Refrigerate until completely cooled then freeze in ice cream maker.

Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with pink sea salt just before serving.

Thanks SpiceDish! Can't wait to try this one!

Perfectly simple Pillsbury Pumpkin Ice Cream Sandwiches

Start with Pillsbury Perfectly Pumpkin boxed cookie dough.

Just add an egg and butter.

Make teaspoon scoops.

And voila...awesome pumpkin cookies! Just the right amount of pumpkin and spice flavor and for added sweetness I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top before baking.

Wait we're not finished yet....scoop your favorite ice cream in between two cookies. We chose oreo cookie to get some chocolate in there and then simple vanilla bean.

Roll sides in festive sprinkles or sugar

And you get a perfectly simple and festive and yummy ice cream sandwich!

Scoopalicious catches CakeSpy on her "Tour de Sweet"

Me and Bethany at CakeSpy's book signing in Boston

What a fun night to finally get to meet Jessie O of CakeSpy after all these blogging years on her Tour de Sweet! Wow, It feels like eons ago that we started our little ice cream blog and at the same time we found a friend and blogger online who not only is an amazing artist but a baker and blogger too. And on top of all that goodness she has recently published her own awesome book, CakeSpy Presents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life. And that was what led us to finally get to meet. We were super excited that her Tour de Sweet made its way to Boston and stopped at Sweet (how appropriate!) so we immediately saved the date and got our books ready to be signed. So fun to finally meet and so fun to see all her hard work come together in this fabulous book. Congrats Jessie!


And if you missed our interview post with CakeSpy you can  check it out here.