Cake and Ice Cream!

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter (@cliophineas), you'll know that last night, I was utterly thwarted in my attempt to sew a Bombshell swimsuit. I've cleaned and organized the whole Craft Lounge but there's no sign of my mysteriously vanishing swimsuit elastic. The last time I mysteriously lost something, it turned up 2 years later out of nowhere. Egad.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've blogged about any baking or cooking projects. And since I spent most of last Saturday in the kitchen for Phin's birthday feast, I thought I should put these two tried and true recipes out there.

Phineas is not a big cake lover, and we had decided that root beer and creamsicle floats would be his birthday dessert. But since his family - um, all of them - decided to come for dinner at the last minute I thought we should have cake, too. So, I pulled out Patisserie at Home by Will Torrent, an Xmas gift from Phin.  

The Chocolate and Beer Cake is fast becoming a favorite thanks to a combination of ease and awesome results. It's a super moist loaf cake that, thanks to the addition of some dark chocolate, has a gooey fudgy bottom layer. All it really needs is a dusting of powdered sugar and maybe a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

Chocolate Beer Cake

Don't be fooled by this cake's humble looks. It is a real winner - moist, tender and chocolaty. Thanks to it's moistness, this cake is just as good after a few days, although I doubt that it will last that long if you make it.

Chococolate and Beer Cake by Will Torrent 

(here for metric recipe, below for those who prefer cups and degrees)

1 stick salted butter
1/2c lager, like Stella Artois

1c self rising flour
1/3c cocoa powder
1/2tsp baking soda
2/3c sugar
1/3c milk
1 egg, beaten
1tsp vanilla
1 1/2oz dark chocolate broken into pieces
Preheat oven to 350 and grease loaf pan lined with parchment. Warm butter and beer in saucepan on low until butter melts. Set aside. Sift flour, cocoa and baking soda together. Add sugar, milk, egg, vanilla, chocolate and beer mixture. Stir to combine. Bake for 50 min until a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 5-10 min in pan before turning out.

Since we had ice cream and Orange Fanta leftover, Phin and I had post-work out creamsicle floats on Sunday afternoon. Homemade ice cream really is delicious. I used David Lebovitz' Philadelphia Style Vanilla recipe. Since it has no eggs, the hardest part is remembering to freeze the core of the ice cream machine a day in advance.

Day after ice cream floats.

You can find the recipe here. I like to churn the ice cream about 1-2 hours before I plan to use it so that it has a bit of time to firm up in the freezer. It's creamy and loaded with vanilla flavor. 

Have a great weekend - I hope there is something sweet involved!  We're off to a house warming pool party today.

Berry Bounty

So, I mentioned that Phin and I went strawberry picking over the weekend. It was hot and sweaty work, but very rewarding. Farm-picked, ripe, local berries smell and taste unbelievably good. In fact, they taste like strawberries, unlike the mutant-sized cardboard-like berries that you can get at the supermarket most of the year.

Fleeting berry perfection

Just look at these perfect jewels!

Anyway, given that berries that are picked when they are actually ripe have a very fleeting shelf life, both Phin and I had big and immediate plans for our berry hoard, which also included raspberries and blueberries that we bought at the farm stand.

Phin's lovely Bumbleberry Tart!

Phin made a Bumbleberry Tart. I helped by making a Pate Sucree crust, which he filled with a freshly made blueberry compote and then topped with a crown of fresh berries. No recipe was used.

Since it's officially summer, I decided to pull out the ice cream maker. Last year I made, but did not blog about, Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream. So, here it is.

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream!

1lb strawberries, hulled and chopped
1Tbsp vodka (or other liquor)
3/4 c sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Optional 1 cup sliced berries to mix in at the end 

Stir sugar and vodka into the strawberries and leave it macerating for an hour. Or do like I did and stick it in the fridge overnight. Puree the strawberry sugar mix with the sour cream, cream and lemon juice. Chill thoroughly and churn according to you ice cream maker directions, adding in the optional berry slices near to the end. Do your best to resist eating all the ice cream right out of the machine. Fini!

This recipe, which is from my favorite ice cream book, The Perfect Scoop, was designed for mediocre, supermarket berries. So using perfectly ripe and flavorful berries made this ice cream explode with strawberry flavor. And the sour cream adds just the right tang to make sure it's not cloying.

After a very sweaty 5k trail run at a historic farm nearby, this was dinner last night. Seriously folks, I ran a personal worst 5k time. It turns out that I like the idea of trail running much more than I actually like running cross country, but what really did me in was the heat even though I was well hydrated. Live and learn. Ice cream was the perfect tonic.

Essence of Strawberry...mmmmmm

And everything tastes better when served in a pretty champagne glass, no?

You Scream, I Scream: Wow, it's Hot

Boy was it steamy in the Northeast on the first full day of summer! 

Thanks to Dr K for sending me this ecard! So true! LOL

One of the truly great and often overlooked things about being an adult, IMHO, is having the autonomy to decide to skip dinner and go right for dessert. I've been known to have ice cream for dinner on really hot days. Last night, I even made my own.

My first batch of ice cream for this summer is Gianduja Gelato from The Perfect Scoop. Those of you who are more recent readers may not yet fully appreciate the epic nature of my love of nutella. And peanut butter, but that's a different post.

If you are not familiar with Gianduja, it hails from Torino, Italy and, flavorwise, is that same nutella-like mix of hazelnuts and chocolate. Yum. Last year I made a peach and a strawberry ice cream from this book (somehow I didn't blog about them), but this is the first time I've made a custard based ice cream (with eggs) rather than a Philadelphia style ice cream. Some people fear making custard, since there is a risk of ending up with nutella-flavored scrambled eggs (ewwwww!!!). But as long as you temper the eggs by slowly adding some of the warm custard while whisking and keep stirring the custard while it thickens, you should be fine. Just don't rush.

Gianduja Gelato

1 1/2 c hazelnuts, toasted and with skins removed
1 c whole milk
2 c heavy cream
3/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 oz milk chocolate, chopped
5 large egg yolks
1/8 tsp vanilla

Chop nuts finely in a food processor. Heat the milk, 1 cup cream, sugar and salt in a saucepan until nearly boiling.  Add nuts and let steep off the heat for 1 hour. Heat the remaining cream and pour over the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Pour the hazelnut mixture through a strainer into a saucepan squeezing the nuts to extract all the liquid. Discard nuts. Rewarm. 

Temper the egg yolks with the hazelnut mixture and then add eggs into saucepan. Stir constantly over low heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Pour the mixture through a strainer and into the chocolate. Add the vanilla and cool in an ice bath.  Chill thoroughly and churn according to you ice cream maker directions.

Be patient with your egg yolks!

To up the chocolatey-ness, I also added "stracciatella" or chocolate shreds to the gelato. I generally don't like chocolate chips in my ice cream - they get all hard and cold. But by melting some semisweet chocolate (5oz) while you churn your ice cream, and then pouring it in in a long stream at the very last minute of churning, you get thin shreds of chocolate throughout. Delicious!

mmmmmmm...dinner!

The only thing I plan to do different next time is use fresher nuts (Whole Foods rather than pre-bagged supermarket nuts) so the flavor is even more intense. 

Happy Friday, everyone!

Mmmmmmmango....

Mangoes are my all time favorite fruit.

That said, I don't think I have ever cooked with a mango. Occasionally I'll add them to a salsa or tropical salad. But my overwhelming sentiment is: why mess with perfection? Most times in my house, mangoes are devoured enjoyed slightly over-ripe, leaning over the sink and with juice running down my chin and occasionally my arms, too (attractive mental image, no?). If you have never enjoyed a mango this way, or wouldn't know how to eat one, I've created a handy slideshow, demonstrating the "hedgehog" method of eating a ripe mango.

"Mango Hedgehog"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Anyway, thanks to an article in the NY Times dining section heralding the arrival of mango season, last night I decided to break out my ice cream maker and actually try out a recipe.  The recipe itself is for Mango-Rosewater Lassi, an Indian yogurt-based drink. However, I felt the need to make some changes. First, I don't really care for rosewater. To me, it tastes like old ladies. Not that I've been tasting any old ladies lately. It reminds me of my grandmother's special occasion hand lotion. So, I replaced it with limoncello.  The other changes I made include using greek yogurt (2%) rather than regular and hacking up the mangoes haphazardly (I object to recipes that make you dice something into neat little cubes only to chuck it into the blender and puree it). And I followed the recipe's suggestion to put the lassi in my ice cream machine and make frozen yogurt out of it. So, here is my version:

Mango Frozen Yogurt

2 cups hacked-up-any-old-way ripe mango
1 1/2 cups plain greek yogurt
1/2 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tbsp limoncello
Pinch kosher salt
Combine the mango, yogurt, milk, sugar, limoncello and salt in a blender. Purée until smooth. Chill. Churn in ice cream maker for 10-15 minutes. Store in freezer. Makes about one quart.

Tangy frozen goodness.

Yum. Now, be forewarned, this is not "fro-yo" or an ice cream substitute. If you are into overly sweet frozen treats, this will probably be too tangy for you. But if you are a fan of the way frozen yogurt used to be - tangy, not overly sweet, adult-tasting, like yogurt that has been frozen - then this is for you. Honestly, I could see myself replacing the sugar with honey and eating this for breakfast during a heatwave. Mmmmm...

Anyway, I plan on using this recipe throughout the summer for a variety of fruits. The only other change I'll make, aside from the honey, is that I will probably increase the amount of fruit to three cups, depending on the fruit that I'm using. And if I wanted to make this more Indian tasting (not that I've been tasting any of them either) I would add a dash of cardamom.

High Octane Ice Cream

 

Friday and Saturday were warm enough that I was inspired to try my hand at another flavor of ice cream. Coffee is Phineas' favorite, so that was next on my list. Also, it would serve my other goal of perfecting a recipe for an ice cream base that I could use for a variety of flavors.


The starting point for this recipe is the vanilla ice cream I made over Labor Day. If you recall, I thought it wasn't creamy enough. So this time I increased the amount of cream and reduced the amount of milk. Then it was on to the coffee. After surveying a bunch of recipes, there seems to be 3 different ways to add coffee flavor: using instant coffee or espresso, using strong brewed coffee, or steeping whole coffee beans in the ice cream base. I decided to go for the bean approach since steeping seemed to work very well for the vanilla ice cream.

Coffee Ice Cream

1 vanilla bean

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

3/8 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon Cognac

1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans

So, I basically brought my milk, cream, sugar and salt to barely a simmer, added in the coffee beans, vanilla and cognac, popped on the lid, turned off the heat and let the whole thing steep for 90 minutes. I strained out the beans and vanilla before refrigerating overnight and then churning for 15 minutes.

On Saturday evening, Phin and I tested the ice cream. The bean method made for a very richly coffee flavored ice cream. Yum! And the creaminess was much improved from the vanilla version. It didn't occur to me until late on Saturday night, as I tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep, that this was also a very highly caffeinated ice cream. Doh! Next time, I'll use decaf beans!

You Scream, I Scream: A Swan Song for Summer

File this under the "Duh" category...

In addition to not doing very much sewing this summer, I also didn't do very much cooking or baking. It was just too darned hot. Then, about a month ago, the NY Times published several articles in the dining section about ice cream and making it at home. Like I said: duh. Why not make cold food! Double duh. Anyway, Phineas procured an ice cream machine, and my first two test runs took place this weekend. In honor of my trip to Tulum, I decided to make vanilla and chocolate (without the Mayans we would have neither flavor), using the vanilla beans that I bought in Mexico.

I used the NYT recipes for Bittersweet Chocolate and for Roasted Hazelnut Vanilla, but omitted the steps involving the nuts to make a plain vanilla. Both are "Philadelphia Style" ice creams, meaning that they do not contain egg yolks. This makes the recipe much easier to execute than if I were to make a custard-based ice cream (tempering egg yolks with hot cream is always a risky proposition).


The method is pretty easy. Cook the cream and other ingredients, chill in the fridge, churn in your machine until it looks like soft serve (15 min or so) and let the finished ice cream solidify in the freezer. Here's how it went:


Vanilla - I think leaving out the hazelnuts left my ice cream lacking some richness and creaminess. It reminded me more of an "ice milk" - a flashback to the late 80's/early 90's. The recipe calls for a 2:1 ratio of milk to cream, but I think I will reverse that ratio next time in order to get a richer ice cream with a creamier texture. That said, for very vanilla-y flavor, this ice cream delivered in spades.


Bittersweet Chocolate - This recipe is pretty perfect as is. I think the most important element is to use good chocolate: I used a bittersweet valrhona. I also used a cognac instead of rum and vanilla sugar (ordinary sugar stored with a few vanilla beans left over from another project) instead of plain. I am pretty pleased with the rich and creamy ice cream I ended up with.

Mmmmmmmm... ice cream

I'm sure there will be a few more weeks for me to experiment with my ice cream maker before the cool weather really sets in, and Phineas has already requested that I make coffee ice cream for him. I also want to try frozen yogurt. Then I will be able to get back to baking and my mac+cheese experimentation, which I never completed before the warm weather set in. Stay tuned for more goodies from the kitchen as I say goodbye to summer. Speaking of which, here are a few last pictures from my vacation. I think the looming clouds paint an accurate swan song for the warmer months.

Orpheus and I spent lots of time snorkeling - he is a natural in the water

Calliope and Linus with a stingray

Orpheus with Stingray