Buy 1 Get 1 - Baskin Robbins

Signs of the times...more coupons! I am a big fan of Brad's Deals and came across this coupon today and of course wanted to share. It's for their super creamy 31 Below concoctions, your favorite candies and cookies blended with rich and creamy Soft Serve. So head on down to Baskin Robbins by 6/21 and Buy one "31 Below" and get one free.....enjoy! Don't forget to print the coupon.

Reminder: Cupcake Project/Scoopalicious Second Annual Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup

Just a reminder that the Ice Cream Cupcake Roundup ends in five days.

To get you excited, (especially if you haven't concocted your own to enter yet), here are some ideas:

1. Check out the entries from last year.
2. Check out the recent ice cream cupcakes made by out Roundup co-host Stef (of Cupcake Project) -- while you are there you can also check out some other pretty exciting cakes, such as Honey Baked Ham Cupcakes.
   
3. Check out the post I did earlier this month for my very sweet Cake Ice Cream Cupcakes.
4. Read below for my Shirley Temple Cupcakes:

As you can tell, I love Shirley Temples. I have made two different Shirley Temple ice creams (one and two) and once even tried a sorbet.

This time, I made ice cream cupcakes. The base was a white cake, a recipe I got from my sister:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1.5 cups self-rising flour
1.25 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar using an electric mixer on medium for about 3 minutes. Beat in four eggs, one at a time. Combine the two flours separately, and add half to the batter, mix, then add 1 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Add the rest of the flour a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Line muffin tins with cupcake papers and fill each 0.75-full with batter. Bake 20-25 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

I filled mine about 1/3 full with batter, as I wanted to leave room for the ice cream.

I piled on some homemade lime ice cream from Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More (this is my bible of ice cream making).

Finally, I whipped up some butter cream to which I added some grenadine.

0.5 stick butter, at room temperature
0.5 stick margarine, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Using a hand mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and margarine about 3 minutes, or until light and creamy. Add the confectioners' sugar, 0.5 cup at a time, beating about 2 minutes after each addition, until light and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract.

I then added about 3 tablespoons of grenadine.

The result? Very limey ice cream with very very sweet frosting. Not very Shirley Temple-y. They were good, but would never be my first choice for a dessert. Mostly because I don't think I am a huge lime fan.

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The Ice Cream Machine - Cumberland RI

How in the world does a homemade ice cream shop less than 10 miles away from me, rated one of the best in RI, go unnoticed? Sad I know but I luckily had a brainstorm this Mother's day. 

So its Mother's Day and I tell my husband all I want to do today is get ice cream...one simple goal and if didn't happen he knew the trouble he could be in, especially since I am pregnant too! And that's what we did after unsuccessfully trying to fly a kite. When all else fails, head to the ice cream shop and I had a grand idea... to head to a place we've never been together as a family, The Ice cream Machine. 

For some reason I never think to go to this awesome homemade ice cream hangout not far from home, The Ice Cream Machine in Cumberland RI. They have almost 60 amazing homemade flavors, famous ice cream pies, and huge servings. It's rated one of the best in RI and that you can tell by the very long lines. 

Wow, so many flavors and so hard to decide. I finally made a decision to go with Brownie Batter and Mocha chip with hot fudge and whipped cream. I was very intrigued by the brownie batter because I have never seen that flavor anywhere and it was one I was actually going to attempt to make myself since I love Cake batter. How different can it be?! And I also love coffee ice cream (its a RI thing I think!) so the Mocha Chip was always on my mind. It's always that or Mint Chip. Unfortunately in this picture the whipped cream covers up all huge scoops of ice cream this delivered but you can see how yummy it looks and that it was. I was SO happy! The brownie batter was super smooth and as expected tasted like the batter I like to lick right off the mixer and it actually had chunks of homemade brownies and the mocha chip had just the right amount of coffee flavor, not too strong, and rich chocolate chunks. The neat thing is, is that the site tells you the ingredients for each flavor so I can try to replicate...if that is even possible. Or at least get some ideas. Definitely check out menus from your favorite ice cream huts....they truly inspire new ideas in the kitchen.

And as for my counterparts, my daughter had the strawberry (with M&Ms of course!) that was super refreshing, creamy and full of fresh strawberries and the hubbie loves his rootbeer float. All in all it was a fab Mother's day and I know it won't be another 15 years til I get back to the Ice Cream Machine. This place is awesome and I have all summer to go through 60 homemade flavors!

Hershey's Premium Ice Cream at Hogie's Sweet Shop in New Hartford, Connecticut

Ok, so I just lost a huge part of this post, so bear with me as I try to rewrite it. I am wondering if I should reconsider where I write my posts so this doesn't happen!

Ok, but that isn't about ice cream, it's about Blogger, so back to the ice cream post.

A few weeks ago when visiting the fam, on our way home from dinner at Blue Sky Foods , we stopped at Hogie's Sweet Shop on Main Street in New Hartford.

My family is a great hope with this blog by the way...they often seem to suggest stopping at an ice cream shop for the goodness of the blog. Thanks family! And a special thanks to Arianna for always remembering her camera and for the awesome photos!

You'll notice that Hogie's has one of those freezers in the front where you can see the kinds of ice cream to choose from. I love those. I am such a visual person, I love to see what I am choosing. However, oddly enough, only some of the ice creams were in the front case, the rest were in the back. This was kind of frustrating. I mean, I almost rather all were in the back. I want to see all of my options or none of my options.

Though the little shop looked like a place that would carry homemade ice cream, it actually carried Hershey's Ice Cream. I was looking forward to trying it, because I had always seen small cartons of Hershey's Ice Cream at the bodega by my old studio, but I had never tried it.

Ater some heming and hawing over their extensive menu (see further down in the post), I finally decided on Cherry Chocolate Cordial (black cherry ice cream with thick chocolate fudge and real black cherries with cherry filled chocolate hearts.). The ice cream was creamy and rich, and I love the combo of cherries and chocolate. A kiddie cup was even enough for me!

As you can see in the menu at left, not only do they have an extensive listing of flavors, but they also had some pretty unique ones. I decided to head over to the Hershey's site to give you a glimpse of some of Hershey's more unique flavors. Please keep in mind Hogie's only carries some of these. Hershey's has quite an extensive collection of flavors and even Hogie's long list of flavors is only a fraction of what Hershey's offers:

1. Royal Red Velvet Cake (Classic baked red velvet cake blended in a cool cream cheese ice cream with vanilla créme.) -- YUM. Wish they had that. This brings back fond memories of the first time I ever had red velvet cake (thanks Christina -- it was amazing) and the yummy red velvet cupcakes at Stacey and Clint's wedding. Couldn't stop eating those!
2. Sinfully Amazing PB Pie (Rich peanut butter ice cream filled with peanut butter cups, peanut butter flakes and mixed with a delicious chocolate pie crust.) -- Too bad Husband missed out on this one. This sounds almost as good as the Peanut Butter Pie I make from the New Basics Cookbook.
3. Playdough (Bright yellow vanilla ice cream with hot pink and blue sugar cookie gems.) -- Ah, they had this at Hogie's, but the name just turned me off. It reminded me too much of eating, well, play dough!

Gosh, that is only the beginning...

Looking at the Hershey's site and being a huge cake/cake batter ice cream fan, I was disappointed to see that Hogie's didn't carry either Birthday Cake (cake flavored ice cream with a whipped cream spiral and confetti cake pieces) or Birthday Batter (ultimate cake batter ice cream exploding with sprinkles)...OMG, if they had carried both, I would have had a scoop of each...heaven!

Something else that is important to note (and I am not sure if I ever mentioned this before in an older post) but Hershey's Ice Cream is not related to Hershey's Chocolate. In fact, Hershey's Ice Cream says this right on their site. The thing that interests me is that they are both from Pennsylvania and their logo is pretty similar. I wonder if they were ever related?

One final note about Hogie's: they don't have a website. From the web searches I did, it seemed to me they have two locations (Main Street in New Hartford and Willow Street in Winsted) but neither have much of a web presence at all.

Would I go to Hogie's again? Sure! Would I buy a carton of Hershey's Ice Cream if I saw it again? If I could find those fun flavors!

Note: All ice cream flavor decriptions are taken from the Hershey's Ice Cream Site.