Aug 2009
Mmmm, double chocolate mint ice cream.
August 27, 2009 09:50 Filed in: In the kitchen | Chocolate
While the ice cream maker was still cranked (so to speak) after my experiments with salted butter caramel ice cream and chocolate sherbet, I forged ahead with Double Chocolate Mint ice cream from Joanna Farrow’s big beautiful book Ice Cream and Iced Desserts
.
This book is pretty, somewhat oversized, and filled with plenty of recipes and gorgeous photos of ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, granitas, ice cream desserts, and exotic frozen treats like Indian kulfis. I love paging through it and plotting which of them to make next. I’m reasonably sure I got it off a bargain shelf ages ago, so I feel a little smug at having such a lovely book for cheap. The cover alone is worth leaving it on your coffee table, with peachy pink scoops of ice cream snugged together in a transluscent bowl made of ice and rose buds, against a pale aqua background. Beautiful! Someday I’ll make that ice bowl with the real rosebuds.
This recipe called for chopped fresh mint leaves, which I was not inspired to use. Although I love the smell and flavor of fresh mint, and inherited from my mother an appreciation for lovely sprigs of mint in iced tea and lemonade, I am not a fan of chewing and swallowing actual mint leaves. Their roughness gives me the willies, like fingernails on a chalkboard for some people. Plus, I didn’t think the youngsters in the house would appreciate picking mint leaves out of their ice cream. Gummi bears, cookie dough blobs or chocolate chips yes ... mint leaves, no. So I opted for crushed candy canes (yes, leftover from Christmas! and a reasonable substitute for the crushed mints called for in the recipe) and about 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Along with the usual ingredients -- dark chocolate, eggs, milk, whipping cream -- the result was delicious! Smooth and creamy, with just the right balance of chocolate and cool mint. I might be partially responsible for the fact that it didn't last long.
.This book is pretty, somewhat oversized, and filled with plenty of recipes and gorgeous photos of ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, granitas, ice cream desserts, and exotic frozen treats like Indian kulfis. I love paging through it and plotting which of them to make next. I’m reasonably sure I got it off a bargain shelf ages ago, so I feel a little smug at having such a lovely book for cheap. The cover alone is worth leaving it on your coffee table, with peachy pink scoops of ice cream snugged together in a transluscent bowl made of ice and rose buds, against a pale aqua background. Beautiful! Someday I’ll make that ice bowl with the real rosebuds.
This recipe called for chopped fresh mint leaves, which I was not inspired to use. Although I love the smell and flavor of fresh mint, and inherited from my mother an appreciation for lovely sprigs of mint in iced tea and lemonade, I am not a fan of chewing and swallowing actual mint leaves. Their roughness gives me the willies, like fingernails on a chalkboard for some people. Plus, I didn’t think the youngsters in the house would appreciate picking mint leaves out of their ice cream. Gummi bears, cookie dough blobs or chocolate chips yes ... mint leaves, no. So I opted for crushed candy canes (yes, leftover from Christmas! and a reasonable substitute for the crushed mints called for in the recipe) and about 1/2 teaspoon of peppermint extract. Along with the usual ingredients -- dark chocolate, eggs, milk, whipping cream -- the result was delicious! Smooth and creamy, with just the right balance of chocolate and cool mint. I might be partially responsible for the fact that it didn't last long.
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Summertime, and the livin' is icey.
August 04, 2009 12:54 Filed in: In the kitchen | Chocolate
I’ve been bitten by a lot of mosquitos this summer, but it’s the ice cream bug that bit me the sweetest. Ever since I froze up a batch of salted butter caramel ice cream, which I discovered at David Lebovitz's internet kitchen in Paris, ice cream has a semi-permanent place on our summer menu, and the ice ceam maker lives next to the fridge instead of collecting dust in the crawl space.
The butter caramel ice cream could be the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but one cannot live by caramelized sugar and fleur de sel alone (although it's tempting!). After the success of that first attempt (success = everyone who ate it went "WOW"), I threw a wrench into my summer fitness plans and forged onward with David’s chocolate sherbet. He is extremely generous in sharing actual recipes on his site, and this one did not disappoint! As usual I tinkered with it slightly, using everyday Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder (instead of the recommended Valrhona or Askinosie, both difficult to find around here without much telephoning and driving longish distances, which I am mostly too lazy to do) and Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, always easily available at the grocery store. Appealing though it sounded, I omitted the shot of coffee liqueur, worried that it might not appeal to the younger palates in the house. ("But," you might understandably argue, "it's good to reserve some treats for the adults exclusively, non?" I heartily concur! But in these early efforts, I can't leave anyone out.)
This one cooks up quickly -- there are no eggs in the recipe and, hence, no need for lengthy cooking and thickening time. Just boil, cool and freeze. A bonus: without eggs, this frozen treat is lower in fat. And remember: when you add darkdark chocolate to anything, you're lengthening your life ... or at least, not shortening it. For real. Just eat, enjoy, and live longer. The liquid chocolate tasted exactly like delicious pudding, and I could have sipped it in large quantities straight from the pan.
Once the milk mixture is boiled, chopped bittersweet chocolate is added. Alas, the Ghirardelli chocolate I used was not the stuff for this job. It added slightly funky flavor and grainy texture that, thankfully, no one detected but me. (I love cooking for my family -- they never notice my mistakes!) I recently bought a number of 70%-ish dark chocolates, including Valrhona and several Trader Joe's varieties. I found that Trader Joe's Swiss dark chocolate was the tastiest of them -- smooth, chocolatey and delish, and not a trace of bitterness or funk. That's what I'll use next time.
Regardless, the chocolate sherbet was gobbled UP by the me and family and given positive reviews, audible to the adult human ear, even by teenagers, who I had previously believed only express their approval non-verbally by eating everything under cover of night and leaving their dirty dishes on the counter as proof of enjoyment. Or at least as proof of consumption. It is gratifying, indeed, to know my efforts are appreciated!
I went ahead and ordered David's book Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments
, so between ice cream recipes I had already torn out of magazines, such as lavender and toasted almond, mango lime ice, roasted pistachio, and David's scrumptious sounding concoctions -- Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry, Fresh Fig, Pear Caramel, Roasted Banana, Mocha Sorbet, Milk Chocolate Guinness (you heard me...Guinness and chocolate) -- I'm going to be busy cranking ice cream AND stepping up my workouts. It will be worth it.
The butter caramel ice cream could be the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but one cannot live by caramelized sugar and fleur de sel alone (although it's tempting!). After the success of that first attempt (success = everyone who ate it went "WOW"), I threw a wrench into my summer fitness plans and forged onward with David’s chocolate sherbet. He is extremely generous in sharing actual recipes on his site, and this one did not disappoint! As usual I tinkered with it slightly, using everyday Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder (instead of the recommended Valrhona or Askinosie, both difficult to find around here without much telephoning and driving longish distances, which I am mostly too lazy to do) and Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, always easily available at the grocery store. Appealing though it sounded, I omitted the shot of coffee liqueur, worried that it might not appeal to the younger palates in the house. ("But," you might understandably argue, "it's good to reserve some treats for the adults exclusively, non?" I heartily concur! But in these early efforts, I can't leave anyone out.)
This one cooks up quickly -- there are no eggs in the recipe and, hence, no need for lengthy cooking and thickening time. Just boil, cool and freeze. A bonus: without eggs, this frozen treat is lower in fat. And remember: when you add darkdark chocolate to anything, you're lengthening your life ... or at least, not shortening it. For real. Just eat, enjoy, and live longer. The liquid chocolate tasted exactly like delicious pudding, and I could have sipped it in large quantities straight from the pan.
Once the milk mixture is boiled, chopped bittersweet chocolate is added. Alas, the Ghirardelli chocolate I used was not the stuff for this job. It added slightly funky flavor and grainy texture that, thankfully, no one detected but me. (I love cooking for my family -- they never notice my mistakes!) I recently bought a number of 70%-ish dark chocolates, including Valrhona and several Trader Joe's varieties. I found that Trader Joe's Swiss dark chocolate was the tastiest of them -- smooth, chocolatey and delish, and not a trace of bitterness or funk. That's what I'll use next time.
Regardless, the chocolate sherbet was gobbled UP by the me and family and given positive reviews, audible to the adult human ear, even by teenagers, who I had previously believed only express their approval non-verbally by eating everything under cover of night and leaving their dirty dishes on the counter as proof of enjoyment. Or at least as proof of consumption. It is gratifying, indeed, to know my efforts are appreciated!
I went ahead and ordered David's book Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments
, so between ice cream recipes I had already torn out of magazines, such as lavender and toasted almond, mango lime ice, roasted pistachio, and David's scrumptious sounding concoctions -- Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry, Fresh Fig, Pear Caramel, Roasted Banana, Mocha Sorbet, Milk Chocolate Guinness (you heard me...Guinness and chocolate) -- I'm going to be busy cranking ice cream AND stepping up my workouts. It will be worth it.