Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to apologize, for I’ve been amiss.

In the past two weeks, I’ve been… well, I’ve been doing alot of things (including eating, but just not posting). I’ve crammed a whole backlog of restaurants and recipes somewhere deep down my guilty conscious. I’ve slapped most of those photos with a photoshop stick. In the end, I decided that it’d only be appropriate to end my hiatus with another ice cream recipe from David Lebovitz. Sometime during my MIA status, I got my hands on The Perfect Scoop. I almost couldn’t fall asleep that fateful night it arrived on my doorstep. Somehow, I’ve only churned the ice cream maker once, and that was for David’s blackberry swirl ice cream.

Oh, and I’d highly recommend buying a copy of The Perfect Scoop. There’s already remnants of dry water droplets and a couple of dogeared pages in my copy.

Originally, I was going to go for Ree Drummond’s blackberry ice cream, but unlike David’s recipe which incorporates the berries into a chaotic swirl, Ree’s pulverizes the berries and turns the whole ice cream purple. She also uses two pints of blackberries, which if don’t know, is quite expensive. Clare saved me the trip to the market and the money because she had a few boxes in her fridge begging to be consumed.

I also settled on David’s recipe because it called for a tablespoon of vodka. So friends, this ice cream didn’t come cheap. If we factor in that one two tablespoons of Grey Goose that I poured in there, that’s…

375 ml Grey Goose bottle = $20
1 ml = $0.0533
2 tablespoons = ~29.5 ml
$0.0533 x 29.5 = $1.57

Okay, that’s not so bad. That’s less than the blueberries… the milk… the cream… the sugar… the eggs. Fine, that’s the cheapest ingredient. I really hope I did that math right because it’d be embarrassing if I didn’t.

What’s so special about this ice cream? You have to read David’s story behind this flavor because it explains it all. For me, it’s how rich and smooth the custard base stays. The vodka actually prevents the ice cream from freezing too hard so that the ice cream scoop delicately drags against a soft mass of creaminess. The berries do get a bit too hard upon allowing the ice cream to further freeze post churning, but let it sit for just three minutes and everything just becomes delectably perfect.

Blackberry Swirl Ice Cream
The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of whole milk
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1/5 cups of heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon

Blackberry Swirl

• 1 1/2 cups of blackberries (fresh preferred, but frozen is fine)
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (or maybe 2) tablespoon vodka

Recipe:

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, sugar and salt. In a large bowl, pour in the cream and set a mesh strainer over the top. You’ll be pouring your custard into the cream later.

In another medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Temper the yolks by slowly pouring warm milk into the them, whisking constantly, and scraping the warmed yolks back into the saucepan. Let the mixture cook over medium heat and be sure to stir constantly. When the liquid turns into a thick custard that coats the spatula, quickly turn off the heat and pour it into through the strainer. You want to make sure that any overcooked eggs (that look like scrambled eggs) don’t make it into the custard. Add in the vanilla and chill in the fridge for at least 8  hours.

When you’re ready to churn the ice cream, prepare the blackberry swirl by letting the berries thaw if they’re frozen until juicy. Mash the berries together with the sugar, vodka, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Set it aside in the fridge as the ice cream is churning.

You’re not going to pour the berry mixture into the ice cream maker, you’re going to wait until your ice cream is fully churned. Then in a pan, layer the ice cream, then the berry mixture, then the ice cream, and so forth so that you get several layers. Let the ice cream sit in the freezer for a couple of hours. Scoop and be amazed.

You can also substitute raspberry in this recipe, and you can omit the lemon juice when doing so.

I’ve found my new favorite ice cream flavor.

I can’t even describe what salted butter caramel tastes like. The closest I could think of is an abrasive ‘dulce de leche’ that has a harsh overtone, but no, that’s not quite right. In fact, I’m licking away spoonful after spoonful, trying to figure out the right words to do this flavor justice.

Hm, now let’s see… I think the easiest way is to describe the experience of eating it.

It’s definitely creamy for one. Not like an orange-creamsicle creamy, but like a caramel pumpkin latte creamy that you get during the brisk days of fall. Digging the spoon into the carton is like digging your feet into sand. The ice cream gives away easily, leaving traces of a rugged trail. It’s as close to soft serve as you can get, but with the consistency of a hardened ice cream. And even when the ice cream melts, it turns into a thick, brown, golden puddle.  When it refreezes, it unexpectedly retains some of its soft creaminess.

It’s also complex. When it first sits on your tongue, you can taste a strong toffee flavor. Let it linger, and that toffee turns sweet for the slightest second. In the final moment, the ice cream turns bitter, but not bitter enough to remain for the aftertaste. And the aftertaste? Well, it just tastes like pure caramel.

I love the way this custard base chills, getting thicker by the hour until it becomes reminiscent of caramel pudding. I love the way this ice cream churns, so smoothly like silk rubbing against your skin. I love the way this ice cream freezes, a shade darker than the moment before. I love everything about it, from the moment I crack and separate the yolks from the egg whites to the moment the spoon lands into my mouth. Everything about this ice cream is perfect.

Although Clare and Amy can’t see eye to eye with me on salted butter caramel ice cream, I know that Angela, Jenny, and Jungyon can. I gave them a teaser taste the night before this flavor was set to debut and it made my day just to see their eyes widen while marveling at this unknown flavor. And on the night when the ice cream did debut, we killed off a good 90% of it, going back for seconds, then thirds, and even fourths for some (ahem, Angela). Though we couldn’t finish the whole thing, we started right where we left off less than 10 hours later, for breakfast. This was so irresistible that I made a second batch… right after the three of them left.

Thank you David Lebovitz- you’ve made me a very happy girl.

Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream
Taken from David Lebovitz

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I suggest that you check out David’s blogpost above, as he offers his own description and process. He also suggests adding a caramel praline mix, which I omitted because I thought the ice cream was perfect as is.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (500 ml) whole milk, divided
• 1½ cups (300 gr) sugar
• 4 tablespoons (60 gr) salted butter
• scant ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cups (250 ml) heavy cream
• 5 large egg yolks
• ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

Recipe:

In a large bowl, make an ice bath by filling it a third full with ice and adding a cup of water or two. The ice should be floating. Insert a smaller metal bowl, at least 2 quarts, over the ice. Pour 1 cup of the milk into the small bowl. Lay a mesh strainer on top of it and set aside.

In a saucepan, spread 1.5 cups of sugar in an even layer. If your saucepan isn’t big enough and the sugar lays on in a thick layer, that’s fine. Cook over moderate heat, making sure to stir when the sugar caramelizes. This is the tough part because while you don’t want the caramel to burn, you want it to cook long enough so that the nutty notes peek through the sugary caramel. The easiest way to tell when it’s ready is when the caramel begins to smoke and bubble and is on the edge of burning. Take it off the heat and stir in the butter and salt.

You’ll get a seizing reaction where the butter bubbles wildly in the caramel. Gradually whisk in the cream, stirring as you go. If the caramel gets too hard, return it to the heat and continue to stir over low heat until any hard lumps are melted. Stir in the other 1 cup of the milk.

Whisk the yolks in the small bowl and gradually temper the warm caramel mixture over the yolks. Scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan and cook until it turns into a custard like consistency. Scrap the bottom as you stir. The ideal temperature is 160-170F, and a good indication is when it coats the back of a wooden spoon evenly.

Pour the custard through the strainer into the milk that’s in the ice bath. Add the vanilla and then stir frequently until the mixture is cooled down. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours or until thoroughly shilled. The mixture will actually get thicker as it chills.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Note: While David suggests using la creme de la creme of salts (fleur de sel), I am too cheap to splurge $12 on a carton of salt so I stuck with seasalt. If this is what salted butter caramel ice cream tasted like with sea salt, then I can’t even fathom what fleur de sel does to it. In other words, good sea salt should be sufficient.

Let me spare you the pain from figuring this out yourself-

All mint are not created equal.

You’d think that’d be common sense right? After all, why have spearmint, peppermint, chocolate mint, and the likes if they’re all going to taste the same? I guess what I’m trying to say is, sometimes, you need to prepare yourself for disappointment.

A couple of weekends ago, my aunt gave my mother a mint plant. We My mother delicately set it into a small pot on our porch and within a week, it spouted leaves. I was so excited! One sunny afternoon, I even sat next to the pot, tracing the veins with my eyes and marveling at all that rich greenness.

Mint ice cream is one of those ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ flavors. For me, it’s beyond a ‘love it’ and as someone who believes that ice cream is a perfectly sensible choice for that question, “What three foods would you bring if you were stranded on an island?”, it’s difficult for me to label a flavor as my favorite. But there; I’ve done it, and mint gets the crown. You can’t ask me why it’s my favorite because any mint lover will tell you that it just is.

So, I decided to make my own fresh mint ice cream after enough leaves had grown. As with the other 99.9% of ice cream that I’ve made, this is another recipe from David Lebovitz. I’m still waiting to get my hands on a copy of The Perfect Scoop because I just always seem to miss it by a copy or two when I visit the Strand bookshop.

David actually just blogged about this, three days after I had churned my own quart. His is creamy gold with specks of quality chocolate while mine is green with frugal chocolate shavings. His scoops are solid, sturdy, and strong while mine are miserably melting in 90 degree weather. But let me defend myself. First, I like my mint ice cream green and a good dose of chemically induced greenness or what we call ‘food coloring’. Second, I ran out of chocolate so I had to use the five (yes, literally five) chocolate chips that I had left. Third, David is just that legit.

But no matter how green my ice cream looked or how smoothly it scooped out of the container, my freshly churned mint ice cream just tasted… off. It tasted nothing like the Turkey Hill mint chocolate that I’d go through gallons of each summer. Where was that sweet yet cool taste that I was so used to? My version was refreshing, but in a sharp way that felt like a pinch.

And that’s the disappointment I was referring to. I covered the container and threw the ice cream into the back of my freezer. Then a few days later, when I had exhausted all the other ice cream flavors in my fridge, I revisited the mint. And you know what? It was surprisingly better. The mint lost that “pinch” and somehow mellowed out.

Still, it wasn’t the same mint that I was used to from the store brought cartons. Part of it might be that my tastebuds automatically crave that manufactured mint taste or that its just not used to the herbaceous tones from fresh mint. Then again, mint ice cream never fails at those mom and pop shops where they also make their own ice cream (UNLESS IF THEY’RE LYING!!). So I came to the conclusion that…

I USED THE WRONG MINT!

When I do get my hands on some chocolate mint or mint that I know is destined to work, I’ll try this again. But until then, you can try it and let me know how it turns out for you.

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream
David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients:

1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
pinch of salt
2 cups packed (80 gr) fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks

Recipe:

In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, sugar, half of the heavy cream (1 cup) and salt. When the mixture begins to steam, add in the mint leaves. Remove from the heat, cover, and let it stand for an hour. It’s important that you wait at least an hour so that the mint flavors are infused into the cream mixture.

After an hour, remove the mint with a strainer while pressing down gently but firmly on the leaves to extract as much flavor and color as possible. If you really want it green (like me), add a couple of drops of green food color. Once the flavor is squeezed out, discard the mint.

Pour the remaining heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer over the top. (Do NOT pour the mixture into the cream just yet…) Then, rewarm the infused milk. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, then slowly pour some of the warm mint mixture into the yolks, tempering them. Whisk constantly, and then scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

Cook this mixture until it thickens and coats the back of a spatula (around 170F). Be careful as you don’t want to get scrambled eggs! When it reaches this custard consistency, immediately strain it into the cream. Let it cool in the fridge thoroughly, preferably overnight.

Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. While the ice cream is churning, add chopped pieces of chocolate or drizzle melted chocolate. The churning will mix/break up the chocolate naturally, spreading them equally throughout the ice cream.

These cupcakes deserve a decent post. But honestly, I’m sorta shocked by how absolutely dang good this Grey’s Anatomy finale is. It’s even making my hands shake from the anticipation. It’s a show that I’ve been following since season 1 and like most shows, the appeal faded away by the third season. Yet, once you make that commitment, you can’t really let go. You can’t neglect it. You can’t just drop a show that you’ve been watching for three seasons. That’s like dropping a course midway through the semester. This season finale, however, has been the redeeming holy grail of all those failed episodes.

It’s commercial break right now, so let me tell you why I baked these. One night, as I was watching David Muir on ABC news, I thought to myself, man, I really want a cupcake.

That’s it. That’s the only reason why I baked these.

Sorry that the paragraph preceding this was a bit sparse. The show had resumed. We’re back to a commercial break now. Anyway, I ended up eating only like three of these cupcakes. Just THREE! And over the span of 3 days! Anyone who knows me would be proud. I brought the rest of them to work and saved a couple for Patrick. He said that it beat the cupcakes he’s had from Magnolia!

They’re soft, they’re fluffy, and they’re amazingly chocolaty. I was surprised at how light they were! Devil’s food indeed.

Devil’s Food Cupcakes
Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Recipe:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of your cupcake tins with paper liners. Melt chocolate in a microwave in 30 second waves so that you don’t burn it. In a bowl, stir baking soda into the boiling water; stir this mixture into chocolate. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate large bowl, cream butter and sugar until the mixture is light and pale yellow in color. Add eggs, one at a time, and continue to mix until thoroughly incorporated. Add flour and buttermilk, alternating between small amounts of each, and blend well.

Add the melted chocolate and vanilla to the batter, and stir well. Pour the batter into the paper cups, and bake for around 30 minutes or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from the oven, and allow them to cool briefly in the muffin tin before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely. Ice, and serve.

Frosting:

I’m gonna let you do some research here because I didn’t use Martha’s chocolate ganache (I don’t just have corn syrup randomly in my pantry!). However,  this is the frosting that I used. I only used a few chocolate chips and compensated with some cocoa powder. Deeelish!

Sorry about the rush, didn’t realize that this was a 2 hour finale!

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Photo du jour: It’s FRED & WILMA!

If you don’t like Guinness, you won’t like Guinness ice cream. Here are some reactions that this ice cream illicit-ed.

Clare: Uh [squirms and makes a face], I think I’m going to stick to your olive oil ice cream.

Alex: Man, this is really good! It’s Guinness?! I’ve never had Guinness!

Patrick: Ew, what the heck is this? You can have the rest of it.

Me? I thought it beautifully captured everything that I love in Guinness- the silkiness, the brief moment of bitterness, and the creaminess. I admit, it does get a bit of getting used to, but the recipe, taken from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, capitalizes on the fact that ice cream is just too sweet in general.

But beer in ice cream you ask?! Well why not? If you can make mint, olive oil, and sesame ice cream, why not beer then? Alice does write that only malty or light beers (ie pale ales, pilsners, lagers) are suitable for ice cream making as the other types, particularly those heavy in hops, are too bitter for ice cream.

How about the affogato you ask? Affogato, literally defined as downed in Italian, is a simple dessert consisting of a scoop of ice cream and a shot of espresso. Amazingly, I never encountered it until Angela and I stepped into this little coffeeshop in Christchurch, New Zealand. I’m not sure why I ordered an Affogato, not knowing what it was, but when it came, it smelled heavenly. It was like putting two of my favorite things together in a tiny cup.

I’m also not sure why I decided to make affogato with this particular flavor of ice cream, but in my mind, I’ve always imagined coffee and Guinness complementing each other really well. They’re both bitter and dark but in different ways. In this case, the ice cream sweetens up the Guinness and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the two paired up. I was so tempted to actually use coffee along with the beer in the custard, but luckily I didn’t.

So if you don’t like Guinness or even beer, I’d skip on this one. But if you’re curious, it’s worth the effort to make half a quart because I’ve never seen this flavor in any ice cream shop. Or, if you’re like me, you’ll make it because it’s the last Guinness in the house and I prefer my Guinness on tap- not in a bottle.

Note- I should kick myself for substituting 1/2 cup of the cream for whole milk because had I just stuck to the recipe 100%, the ice cream would have frozen beautifully. Because you do pour in a whole bottle of beer after the custard thickens (which dilutes it), you need all the cream for it to remain soft and ice-creamy. My ice cream did freeze up well, but definitely not as creamy as it potentially could have.

Guinness Ice Cream
Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

Ingredients:

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large egg yolks
1 11 to 12oz bottle of Guinness

Recipe:

In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, and salt and bring to a simmer over medium heat. In medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks to break them up. Pour the hot cream mixture slowly over the egg yolks, tempering them by whisking constantly. Transfer the mixture back into the saucepan and cook slowly over medium heat and stir constantly. The mixture will thicken and when it hits about 175-180F on a cooking thermometer, take it off the heat. If you don’t have a thermometer, take the custard off the heat when it begins to only slightly thicken on the back of a spoon. The mixture will continue cooking from the heat within the custard and you do NOT want the yolks to overcook. Strain the custard to remove any bits of cooked egg into a separate clean bowl.

Stir the Guinness into the custard mixture. Refrigerate for at least 4 (preferable 12) hours. Freeze according to your ice cream machine.

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Photo du jour: