Showing posts with label ice cream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ice cream. Show all posts

Two ingredient Five-Spice Peach Ice Cream

I had an almost serious thought about how ice cream is made. Much like that fruit-at-the-bottom yogurt concept where it is just plain yogurt + jam, I thought I might try to add a finished jam (five spice peach) to the two-ingredient no-churn ice cream base. These no churn recipes are for the extra lazy. Taste-wise, you're much better off making an actual custard base for ice cream for a more balanced taste that doesn't taste overly dairy-like. The prep time is so short that from start to finish, you could be eating this ice cream in about six hours (what it takes for the mixture to set in the freezer).

Photo-wise, it doesn't look that interesting. And since the jam is essentially pureed peaches with sugar, pectin, and spices, there aren't visual orange peach bits in the ice cream. I think the "five spice peach jam" comes from the Food in Jars cookbooks.

This has the texture of an ice cream; but it lack the body and flavor depth that an egg-based custard brings to the dessert. Maybe it could be plated up with some grilled peaches. That'd be a dashing display.

Makes: 1.5 quarts

Ingredients

1 pint organic heavy cream
One 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1 pint peach jam

Directions

In a large bowl, whip the heavy cream to soft peaks (about 10 minutes) with an electric whisk. If you do this step by hand it takes much longer and requires serious upper body strength.

Once soft peaks have formed, whisk in the sweetened condensed milk. Then stir in the peach jam. Make sure you break up the jam so that it is evenly distributed.

Put the ice cream mixture into quart containers and freeze for at least six hours.

Two Ingredient Strawberry Ice Cream

You know when you've spent too much time on Instagram or Pinterest when your tired brain thinks that Buzzfeed's Tasty videos are onto something with their "2 ingredient' ice cream recipes. Then you actually try them out and find that the ratio of dairy to everything else is too high. This strawberry ice cream tasted a lot like strawberry-infused cream than an actual strawberry ice cream, despite having mixed in 2 lbs of strawberries into the batch.
The Foodening Blog - Two Ingredient Strawberry Ice Cream
While this is a no-churn recipe, you do need a food processor or blender.

Tasty's recipe ratio:

1 pint heavy cream, beaten to soft peaks
One 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk

And, strangely, that is it for their "two ingredients". I put in more than their suggested amount of mix-ins into this batch. Tasty only uses 1 cup of chopped strawberries. I can't imagine how bad their ice cream tastes.

To this, I added 1 lb frozen strawberries (coarsely chopped in the food processor) plus 1 lb fresh strawberries, an additional half cup of organic granulated sugar to balance out the tartness of some of the strawberries.

And even with that, it didn't really have that strong strawberry flavor.

The flipside to this is to make an actual churn-based recipe and make a vanilla custard base, like what Alton Brown would suggest.

This batch made 2 quarts. While just tasting like frozen strawberry-infused ice cream, it lasted less than a week. What can I say. I really like ice cream.

Watermelon Coconut Ice Cream

I'm not sure this even qualifies to be an ice cream since it lacks dairy as a main ingredient. This is something else to do with the watermelon that is ultra-low in calories and high in awesome. I could easily polish off a watermelon by myself. Watermelon granita is how I enjoyed it last year. This summer, I think I can start to experiment a little more.

Makes: 1 quart

4 c seedless watermelon, cubed
1 can full-fat coconut milk (at least 70%), shaken, not stirred
1/4 c raw honey
juice of 1 lemon

Blend everything together in a food processor. Pour into a 9" x 13" baking dish. Place in freezer until set. Scrape everything out and place frozen bits into the food processor. Purée until smooth. Scoop into a freezer-safe container and chill until set, about 3-4 hours.

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

It was debatable between Martha Stewart's or Alton Brown's recipe for this, about which method to use. Frankly, while the number of eggs I would have to sacrifice for a quart of delicious ice cream would be about the same, Alton Brown's would have had me hatch open a jar of peach preserves for two tablespoons of the stuff. The closest to preserves (not jam) that I have is peach marmalade which I picked up from Portland Nursery's apple tasting event last fall. While I am tempted to make the AB version, it wouldn't couple well with other uses of ice cream such as in rootbeer floats or ice cream sandwiches. And, the way June is looking at the moment (very cold and wet), it doesn't look like there'll be locally grown peaches at the farmer's markets any time soon.

Since I wasn't about to sacrifice two beans for this, I used one vanilla bean plus one tablespoon of vanilla extract. Also, refrigerating the "custard" overnight didn't seem to make the ice cream churn any faster in the ice cream maker. Leftover egg whites freeze really well and can be used later in other recipes.

Don't toss the vanilla bean pod parts after you finish making the cream base. Wash the bean pod clean and set aside to air dry. When the pod is completely dry, immerse it into honey or sugar to make vanilla honey or vanilla sugar.

Ingredients

1 vanilla bean
2 c. whole milk, chilled
6 egg yolks
3/4 c. organic granulated sugar
2 c. heavy cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Pour milk and cream into a heavy-bottomed pot. Split the vanilla bean down the middle and use a knife blade to scrape out the tiny black seeds. Add the seeds and the pod to the milk/cream mixture. Bring to a boil then turn off heat and let the pod steep for 30 minutes.

2. In a large bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar until the yolks become thick and pale yellow.

3. Temper the egg mixture by gradually adding 1/4 cup of the hot cream and whisk to combine. Repeat until the cream mixture is thoroughly incorporated into the egg mixture. Whisking or beating with an electric mixer with a balloon whisk attachment.

4. Pour liquid back into the pot and heat until it thickens. When the liquid is able to coat the back of a spoon, turn off the heat and let cool on the stove.

5. Using a fine mesh sieve, pour the cream mixture into a container large enough to accommodate it all. Cover and let chill in the refrigerator until the liquid temperature is 40 degrees F, or chill overnight.

6. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Float me

The original recipe comes from Alton Brown. I didn't have peach preserves so I might just have to make another batch to see what it tastes like. I'd imagine it'd be slightly sweeter. Last weekend it was pretty warm. I think southern California pretty much skipped spring and hopped along into early summer. I thought I'd make a rootbeer float, except I didn't have any ice cream.. ooh, but I did have the ingredients (half and half, heavy cream, sugar, vanilla bean) and an ice cream maker. 

It's a rather easy recipe: 

2 cups half and half 
1 cup heavy cream 
1 cup sugar, minus 2 tbsp 
1 vanilla bean, halved with seeds scooped out 

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine all ingredients and cook to simmer (do not boil). 

I don't have a cooking thermometer to tell me when the mixture has reached 170 degrees F, so another way to tell that it's done cooking is to see if it coats the back of a spoon like a thick creamed soup. When it does, turn the heat off. 

Strain it into a container and refrigerate for at least 10-12 hours. Alton says that the mixture won't set in an ice cream maker, and that part is pretty much true. There aren't any coagulants like cornstarch in the mixture to help it set or thicken. Anyhow. 

Once the ice cream gets to the soft serve stage, scoop it all out to a clean container that can hold 1 qt of liquid and freeze it until firm. It seems like a rather long process just to make a rootbeer float, but it's well worth it and very tasty. I'm not sure I would have liked the peach preserves flavor in my rootbeer float. 

Hehe. That's an experiment for another day.