Photo by ArtsySF and used with her permission.

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Sunday, March 30, 2008

Ben & Jerry's Photoshop and Bacon Ice Cream


If you have never been to Fark.com you are missing something great. The website has a ton of different tabs each containing user submitted news items with snappy headlines. The users on the site also hold Adobe Photoshop competitions. On Saturday March 29th, they held a Photoshop competition for new Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream flavors. Before you click the link, I must warn you that some of the flavors are adult themed. Fark Photoshop Contest.

This picture for bacon ice cream may seem amusing, but those of you who read David Lebovitz’s blog will know he recently posted a recipe for candied bacon ice cream.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Basil Blueberry Anise Cinnamon Sorbet

So this one is a real mouthful to say. After the Blueberry Crema Ice Cream recipe I had leftover blueberries. I have wanted to do a sorbet for a while. My daughter is allergic to soy, milk, and eggs. She cannot enjoy almost everything I make for this blog. This is not as tragic as it sounds because she is not quite 17 months old. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to make something she can eat. I wasn’t sure that this flavor combination would be pleasing to her because it is very complex, but she loved it.

This was a fascinating recipe to develop. As I layered in the flavors the profile changed drastically. I made a 1:1 simple syrup and it was too sweet and needed lemon juice to even it out. 1 tablespoon of basil was not enough, but two made it the dominant flavor. 3 teaspoons of Sambuca added almost no perceptible licorice flavor. Adding the cinnamon made it taste too acidic. A fourth teaspoon of Sambuca brought everything into balance. After chilling and freezing, the basil flavor was still dominant and the anise flavor showed up nicely. If I didn’t tell my wife that there was cinnamon in it she never would have noticed. Once I told her, she could taste it. I like when this happens. The cinnamon melds perfectly into the background. Having tasted both with and without the cinnamon I can tell you that it would be missed if it were omitted.

How would I serve this? Perhaps as a standalone dessert after an Asian meal or as a foil to a richly flavored lemon ice cream. There is potential for sandwiches using ginger snaps for the cookies. I don’t think it would work as a palate cleanser, but it might work as part of a cocktail with lemon infused vodka.

Basil Blueberry Anise Cinnamon Sorbet:

1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons rough chopped Thai basil
2 star anise
Scant ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
4 teaspoons Sambuca
12 ounces blueberries

Bring the water, sugar, basil, star anise, lemon zest, salt and cinnamon to boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then take off the heat and steep for 10 minutes.

Add the blueberries, and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes to allow the blueberries to give off their juice and really get soft.

Remove saucepan from the heat and pick out the star anise. Stir in the lemon juice and Sambuca. Puree the fruit. This is the time to adjust the taste if you desire. Strain through a fine mesh sieve.

Let cool to room temperature the refrigerate over night. Freeze.

Monday, March 17, 2008

New Books

It was my birthday this weekend and I got a number of ice cream related gifts. My in-laws gave me some paper quart containers and some cookie/ice cream molds were making ice cream sandwiches in different shapes. Sandwiches are coming soon.

Mrs. Fellow gave me two new frozen dessert books. They are Frozen Desserts by Caroline Liddel and Robin Weir and The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. Both are filled with exciting recipes and great new ideas. The Frozen Desserts book contains all sorts of technical details on ice cream making. I look forward to making recipes from both and will give them more thorough reviews in time.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Cinnamon Ice Cream

This is one of my all time favorites. I go to this recipe about 10 times a year, which is a lot considering how much I try to vary what I make. This recipe may seem a little tamer considering some of my other offerings, but there is no substitute for great cinnamon ice cream. You don’t need to use the bay leaf, but imparts a nice depth of flavor. It really isn’t perceptible on its own, but you know if it is missing.

Why do I mix the cinnamon into a paste before adding it to the base? The answer is that when cinnamon is added to the milk/cream it tends to clump into little balls that are wet on the outside, but dry inside. This makes for very bad ice cream because the cinnamon does not get distributed evenly throughout the base and leaves little depth charges of powder that ruin the taste and texture. By creating the paste you avoid this pitfall.

Although it is great by itself, there are a number of additives you use to vary the flavor. My wife likes it when I imitate the Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie ice cream by adding oatmeal cookies and chocolate chips. Toasted almonds also work well as do chocolate chunks and/or raisins. It is a wonderful accompaniment to apple or pecan pie served with calvados caramel from Emily Luchetti’s A Passion for Ice Cream.

Cinnamon Ice Cream

1 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 bay leaf
2 cups milk
2 cups cream
4 egg yolks

1. Put 2 TBS of milk into a bowl with the cinnamon and mix until it is a paste. If you think it is still too thick, add a little more until it thins some.
2. Put the milk, cream, bay leaf, and half of the sugar into a pot and bring to a slight simmer stirring occasionally.
3. As the milk and cream are heating, place the egg yolks into a bowl with the sugar (and salt if using) and beat until it is a pale, frothy liquid.
4. Once the milk/cream mixture is simmering, remove them from the heat and temper the egg mixture by adding a small amount of the hot milk/cream and stirring thoroughly. Repeat this process a couple of more times to ensure that the eggs have warmed up. You should use about 1/3 of a cup of hot cream mixture in total. Then pour the complete egg mixture into the cream pot.
5. Return the pot to the heat and stir constantly until the custard reaches 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the cinnamon paste.
7. Cool the custard to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight.
8. Freeze in your ice cream machine. Don't forget to remove the bay leaf before freezing.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

I Made It Work!! Well Almost…


After a bunch of batches I have come as close as I can to a successful alternative base. Rather than use cream and whole milk, this ice cream relies on skim milk and Crema Mexicana.

Crema Mexicana is the Mexican version of sour cream. Similar in consistency to crème fraiche, Crema Mexicana is more flavorful than regular sour cream. You can find versions of it in any Hispanic food store.

The inspiration for this recipe has come from a recipe I once found for sour cream ice cream. The recipe was awful – nothing more than sour cream, milk, cream, and sugar. It was not meant to be a stand-alone dessert. In order to make it cravable on its own, I decided to add blueberries to the base. Anyone who has had a traditional blintz knows that blueberries and sour cream are a great combination.

The fat content had to be adjusted in the base. Ice cream lives and dies based on fat content. Usually the rule is the more the better. Unfortunately, when I made this recipe using cream, there was too much fat in the finished product. A 16 oz can of Crema Mexicana has more fat than a traditional ice cream base. When mixed with the cream and frozen, the mouth feel was smooth and silky, but coated the tongue and was not easily wash away. This created a bad mouth feel.

The solution was to switch to skim milk. This returned the texture to normal, but I have two problems that I can’t work out. Both are rather minor. Perhaps some one has a remedy? First, although the residue is no longer on the tongue after swallowing, it remains on the spoon. I think this is the nature of the Crema Mexicana and probably cannot be avoided. It really is a very minor point, but I consider it a flaw.

Second, there is a bit of iciness. It is very fine grained. I doubt that most tasters would even notice. The usual solutions for iciness are to cook down the fruit before freezing (as I did) and to splash some water on the inside of the pan where the base is being made prior to adding the cream. I couldn't do this because there is no cream and the Crema Mexicana never gets heat. Maybe it should.

Both of these flaws are very minor. Most people won’t even notice them, but the ice Cream Fellow did. I was tempted not to post the recipe until it was perfect, but I would rather rely on you, the reader to tell me what I am doing wrong so I can work on new ideas.

Speaking of new ideas, I froze 12 oz blueberries that I had left over. I am thinking about a sorbet. Does anyone have a suggestion?

Blueberry-Crema Mexicana Ice Cream

16 oz blueberries
Juice and zest of one lemon
1½ cups sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups skim milk
16 oz. Crema Mexicana

1. Place blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and ½ cup of sugar into a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 20 – 30 minutes stirring occasionally. You will know when this is ready when the berries have given up most of their juice and the pan looks like a big sloppy liquid mess with some blueberries floating around in it. Puree the blueberries until to a smooth texture.
2. Put the milk and ¾ cup of the sugar into a pot and bring to a slight simmer stirring occasionally.
3. As the milk is heating, place the egg yolks into a bowl with the remaining ¼ cup of sugar and salt and beat until it is a pale, frothy liquid.
4. Once the milk is simmering, remove it from the heat and temper the egg mixture by adding a small amount of the hot milk and stirring thoroughly. Repeat this process a couple of more times to ensure that the eggs have warmed up. You should use about 1/3 of a cup of milk in total. Then pour the egg mixture into the cream pot.
5. Return the pot to the heat and stir constantly until the custard reaches 175 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Strain the warm custard through a sieve into a bowl. Strain the blueberry puree into the custard. Pour in the Crema Mexicana. Stir with a whisk until thoroughly blended.
7. Cool the custard to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight.
8. Freeze in your ice cream machine.