Recipe: Cake Batter Ice Cream

A while back we posted a recipe for a very simple but amazing cake batter recipe. We got feedback from someone who said we should be careful because cake batter is meant to be cooked, and we should be aware of the possibility of Salmonella. Though I probably should be, I am not too worried about Salmonella and I love the original recipe. However, when making ice cream for 30-40 guests, I have to say I am a little more anxious about it, so I made a very good recipe by cooking the base.

For the recipe I used the Vanilla Ice Cream #1 (Pure and Simple) from Bruce Weinstein's The Ultimate Ice Cream Book: Over 500 Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, Drinks, And More as a guide, but I changed it up a bit.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup of sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup Yellow Cake Mix (though I am sure other flavors would work well too!)
1 cup skim milk
2/3 cup half and half
1 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Beat the sugar into the eggs until thickened and pale yellow. Add the cake mix.

Bring the milk and half and half to a simmer in a medium sauce pan. Once simmering, remove from stove and pour the milk mixture into the egg, sugar and cake mix and beat until well mixed. Pour the entire mixture back into the sauce pan, and cook over low heat while mixing constantly until the mixture thickens. The mixture may start to "bake" -- if this happens, take it off the stove immediately, and 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 according to manufacturer's directions.

For an extra treat, I added rainbow sprinkles to the ice cream semi-frozen ice cream (about five minutes before I was ready to remove it from the ice cream maker.) Eat immediately or transfer to another container and freeze.


For another cake batter recipe that looks amazing, visit EB at SpiceDish.

I Scream 2008

One guest gives the ice cream table a thumbs up.

Back in August I had my annual ice cream party. Since this is my one big chance to make all the ice cream I want, I usually go a little crazy, and this year was no different (the people voted and next to the winners is their ranking -- as you will notice, there were a lot of ties!):

Ice Creams

1. adam’s sweet cream kit-kat (4)
   
2. arianna’s avocado (from the Food Network)
   
3. chitra’s chocolate
4. craig’s cocoanut chip
5. desousa’s durian fruit (found here)
   
6. ernie’s cookie ‘n’ cream (4)
7. fragolino rocks
8. jesse’s fluffernutter (3)
9. kevin’s peanut butter sink
10. lambic raspberry (here's a good site)
    
11. ‘lexis mahon’s lemonade meringue (2)
12. lisa’s white chocolate cranberry cookie
13. mom and dad’s raspberry patch
14. patrick’s starburst jelly bean vanilla bean
15. rackle’s vermont hippie crunch
16. red hot sarah’s cinnamon (here's the kinda recipe from when I made this before)
    
17. rosemary peach
18. sarah and john’s candied bacon (2)
19. scoopalicious cake batter (2)
20. shioka’s chocolate guinness
21. shirley, ashu’s temple
22. steve’s duck sauce fortune cookie
23. strawberry rhubarb (1)
24. vanilla bean (4)
25. veronica’s coffee cheesecake

Sorbets

1. meghan and ross’s blueberry and red wine sorbet
2. shirley, anisha’s temple sorbet
3. snyder’s strawberry rhubarb sorbet (4)

So yes, I made 25 ice creams and 3 sorbets for a total of 28 flavors. Guests also brought some this time:

1. dan and ashley’s garlic goodness
2. carley's chocolatey goodness
3. liam’s great bowl of ginger (3)

So yes, Baskin Robbins, we caught up! Our own 31 flavors!

Lisa's White Chocolate Cranberry Cookie.
Who is Lisa and what kind of name is that?

Here's what you might be wondering...the names. How were they named? There were two ways. If a guest suggested the flavor (or even better, made it themself) it was named after them. Aternatively, if a guest's name had good aliteration with a flavor, then that was grounds for personalization as well. (By the way, Lisa is a dear friend I went to college with, but I didn't really get know her until we remet on the elevator at Houghton Mifflin. She loves these cookies by King Arthur Flour, so I made it into an ice cream for her.)

Gosh, where to begin about this? My favorites? Well, I loved loved loved Snyder's Strawberry Rhubarb Sorbet that I only made by accident and I don't ever ever choose sorbet over ice cream. How did I make it by accident? Well, I had to have a certain amount of pulp for the ice cream. Mine was too much and too watery, so I drained out two cups of liquid. Now WHAT am I going to do with two cups of strawberry liquid? A-ha! A lightbulb went off...sorbet! I am a sucker for Fluffernutter, Oreo and Cake Batter ice creams, so Jesse's Fluffernutter, Ernie's Oreo, and Scoopalicious Cake Batter were winners in my book.

What was I most proud of this year? Scoopalicious Cake Batter, Veronica's Coffee Cheesecake, and Rackle's Vermont Hippie Crunch. Why? Well, Veronica's Coffee Cheesecake and Rackle's Vermont Hippie Crunch I was proud of because I really had no idea where to begin with either of them, but looking through some books and combining some recipes, I was able to come up with some pretty good ice creams. If I can remember how I made them, I will be sure to post the directions. And the Cake Batter impressed me because a while back Tina made a really good Cake Batter Ice Cream but then there was some speculation from a reader about the possibility of Salmonella because of the uncooked cake batter. So I cooked it. And it still came out really well. I will for sure post this recipe because I did actually write it down! Cake Batter without the Salmonella -- who wouldn't want to remember that recipe?

Here my parents taste some ice cream.
Meghan is enjoying some in the background as well.

Surprises? I hate ginger in general, but I actually liked Liam's Ginger Ice Cream. And Sarah and John's Candied Bacon...um, really good! Who knew?! Thanks David Lebowitz! Not a surprise? Didn't really like DeSousa Durian Ice Cream or Ashley and Dan's Garlic Ice Cream, but I do have to shout out to cousin Dan and his girlfriend Ashley because they put in quite an effort making that ice cream knowing it might not be a big hit!

Oh, and another surprise, we went through about 700 of the 3,000 tasting spoons! I thought we'd never go through them -- at this rate it will only take about four years!

A group enjoys ice cream and conversation,
while my brother-in-law scoops away.

Whew! Guess that's the scoop. Going to try to post some of the recipes but please let me know if there are particulars you would like to see -- we'll see if I can find them, direct you to the book they were from (if I remember) or post it!

Images courtesy of Rachel Distler, Rachel Distler Photography. For more images of the ice cream soiree, please visit here.

We've Been Featured!

We are so excited to be featured on the fabulous serving-ice-cream.com! They emailed us a while back, asking for an interview and finally we got our act together and answered. This is really the only "behind the scenes" look at the Scoopalicious team, so if you are interested in history, you can find your answers here! Can't believe we never thought to ask ourselves these questions to share with our lovely readers...but alas, serving-ice-cream.com has, so enjoy!

Here is the full interview.

Taste Testing Part II: Popsicle Shots/Breyers Free Double Churn

Unfortunately my husband isn't as creative as Bethany's with the dry ice but regardless I thought I'd take a shot and have some fun too and then dig right into the treats that Josh over at Unilever was so generous to send us. Check out Barbie...she's waiting for her prince in shining armour to come save her from the ice cream monsters.

Faced with the tough decision of what product to try I thought I'd choose one that was fun, Popsicle Shots, and the other that suited a low cal option, Breyers Free Ice Cream. I don't know about you but after way too many ice cream cones this summer (& margaritas!) I've been leaning towards the calorie conscious options lately. Not by choice really but by the forcing of the button on my jeans. Not pretty, really.

So as you saw in a past post, Bethany and I decided we'd each get a different flavor of the Popsicle Ice Cream Shots to see what these cool treats were all about. I opted for the Cookie Dough flavor and here's what they were like. Well ya know when you break a stuffed animal apart or your dog chews it open and all little foam pebbles fall out....well that's what these shots look like. Very interesting..and cool and airy. They are definitely different and not something I would spoon up if I am craving a rich scoop but something I would get for the kids or a party. I actually used them like sprinkles on my daughter's ice cream and she thought it was so fun and loved them. As Bethany stated too, they were a bit frozen so the flavor didn't come through as I had imagined...next time I will let them sit for a few minutes as you should do with any ice cream. All in all...they are okay but a Mom is not the target audience for these so I think its okay they are not at the top of my list..because my three year old sure got a kick out of them.

Next in the icebox, Breyers Free Double Churn Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. So I generally will not go for a light option for the fact of if I am going to eat ice cream then go for it. But as I stated, one too many cocktails and cones this summer has led me to the low cal options(won't last long believe me). I will admit I was very skeptical about an ice cream that was Fat Free and Sugar Free. BUT wow this ice cream is super creamy and has great flavor....of course, its Breyers. Yes, it does have a little bit of that fake sweetener after taste but honestly if I hadn't seen the package I wouldn't have ever known. I would definitely buy this again. The texture of the chocolate ice cream is creamy and smooth and it offered chunks of brownie throughout that had wonderful flavor. I'll keep this one on the grocery list.

Thanks again Josh and Unilever...its was great to try new frozen treats and something I'd go back for.

We Have A Winner!

Congratulations to EB of SpiceDish! She was chosen at random to win some Scoopalicous treats as a celebration of our hundredth post! And Happy Blogiversary to EB!

Photo by Petr Kovar on stock.xchng.