Flavor #71 - Slow As Molasses Ice Cream Sandwiches

I found a recipe for an old fashioned New England Molasses Cookie and knew it would go well with Vanilla Ice Cream. It is a simple, old-timey treat.

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon hot water
2-1/2 tablespoons dark rum, such as Gosling's
3-3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1-1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened, plus more for baking sheets
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark molasses

This is one sticky cookie batter. Start be mixing the rum and hot water in a bowl and set aside. Then mix the flour, baking soda and spices in a large bowl. In a third bowl, or better yet, in your mixer, mix the butter and sugar four about 4 minutes until creamy. Add about a third of the flour mix, the rum mix and 1/2 a cup of the molasses. Once suitably mixed, add another third of the flour mix. Finally, add the last of the flour mix and the remaining 1/2 cup of molasses.  If the mix seems too liquid, add more flour then chill for at least an hour.

The recipe I had suggested rolling out the dough and using cookie cutters. I just balled it up and placed them on the cookie sheets.

I used a vanilla ice cream as the smooth nature of the vanilla contrasts so well with the spiciness of the molasses cookie. I would think coffee might go well here too.

Enjoy!

Flavor #70 - Turbo Twix

Now that Halloween is behind us, I can say with confidence that I managed to avoid digging in to the kids Halloween stash this year. However, what I saw did inspire at least one new flavor - Coffee Ice Cream with bite sized Twix mixed in.  This also gave me a chance to use my updated coffee ice cream recipe.

1 1/2 Cups of Heavy Cream

1 1/2 Cups of Milk

3/4 Cup of Sugar

1 Pinch of Salt

1 1/2 Cups of Whole Coffee Beans

4oz of Twix Bites

Add all of your ingredients, except the Twix, to a sauce pan and heat until it steams. Do not bring to a boil. Take the mixture off the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes then strain the coffee beans out of the mixture. You will notice a significant loss of liquid as the beans will soak up almost a whole cup! Chill the mix before you add it to the machine. On the transfer to the hardening container, add the Twix bites. I've noticed making coffee ice cream using this method that you will end up making a much smaller batch with the loss of the overall amount of milk and cream lost in the coffee beans. However, the coffee flavor is much improved!

Enjoy!

Flavor #69 - Cranberry Orange Sorbet

Cranberries have been a part of the local cuisine here in New England dating back to the Native Americans. there are cranberry bogs all throughout southeast Massachusetts and have played a big part in the local economy. Most of the time, the bogs don't look line much.

But once the berries are ready for harvest, the farmer will flood the bog and rake out the cranberries, which will float to the surface when they are ripe. 

For years, cranberries were something you only had at Thanksgiving while cranberry juice was considered something you only drank while on a diet. Now, these bitter little berries are everywhere, except in your freezer for desert.

It took me a while before I found a cranberry recipe I liked as I was looking for one where I did not have to over sweeten with sugar to compensate for the tartness of the berry. This is the problem I have always had with cranberry cocktails, there is so much sugar in the drink. The orange juice makes for a nice sweet contrast. Still, there is a lot of sugar in this sucker!

5 Cups Washed Fresh Cranberries

1 1/2 Cup Sugar

1 1/2 Cups Water

1 Half Cup Orange juice

1/8 Cup Lemon Juice

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/4 Cup Light Corn Syrup

All the lot into a sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a low boil. Wait for the cranberries to pop before taking the pot off the stove. Cool the mixture before adding it to a blender. make sure the top is on tight before you liquify the mix or else your entire kitchen will look like a scene from Dexter. Once the mix is liquified, strain the solids out of the mix and chill until you are ready to place the mix in your machine.

I've found a few things that sets this sorbet apart. First is how the initial taste is that of the orange followed by the weaker bitter cranberry after taste. The second thing is how creamy this sorbet is with its texture. I attribute this to the corn syrup in the recipe.

Enjoy!

Flavor #68 - White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream Pie

As it turns out, October was not a very prolific month for me when it comes to producing new flavors. I expect to be making a fair amount of new flavors the next two months, as well as going back to some old favorites with all the holiday parties on the horizon.

This recipe is one that I took from the folks at Bi-Rite Creamery in San Francisco.  I have featured their book and recipes in the past and have been looking forward to making this one for some time now.

2 Cups of Heavy Cream

3/4 Cup of Milk

5 Egg Yolks

1/3 Cup of Sugar

5 oz of White Chocolate

1/4 Teaspoon of Vanilla

1 Pinch of Salt

1 Pint of Raspberries

1/3 Cup of Sugar

24 Golden Oreos

1/4 Stick of Melted Butter

I found it easiest to start with the pie crust. Stick all of the Oreos in a food processor and chop them finely, drizzling the butter as you go. Dump the mixture in a 9" pie plate and mold them into place for about a 1/4 inch crust all the way around. The combination of the butter with the Oreo filling will keep the crust in place. Place the pie plate to the freezer to harden.

Wash the raspberries and place them in a sauce pan with the sugar on medium high heat, stirring consistently until the raspberries are in a jam-like state. Take the mixture off the heat to cool before transferring to the food processor (I like the nutri-bullet for fruit) to puree the raspberries. Heat again over medium heat until you have a smooth paste and strain into a small bowl to get the last of the seeds out. Set the raspberry mixture in the fridge to cool.

As for the ice cream, start by taking the white chocolate and chopping it into a fine powder eventually putting the white chocolate in a small mixing bowl. Mix your ice cream base with the cream, milk, sugar and salt in a sauce pan until it steams. Slowly add a ladle full of the warm cream mixture into the bowl of egg yolks so the eggs do not cook. Add the egg mixture back into the sauce pan, stirring so the eggs do not cook until the custard coats the back of your spoon. Strain the custard mix into the bowl with the white chocolate. The heat from the custard should melt the white chocolate. Stir the mixture to begin to blend the two together. Clean the sauce pan, the strainer and the spoon and re-add the custard and chocolate mix in the sauce pan over medium heat so the white chocolate blends smoothly with the rest of the mix. Strain the mix again and let it cool for a few hours in the fridge. Add the vanilla to the mix when the mix is cool, otherwise you risk the vanilla flavor getting steamed out.

When the mix is cooled, put it in the machine to process. When it comes out of the machine, add a small amount of ice cream to the pie plate and cover it with a small amount of the raspberry, doing this repeatedly until the pie plate is full. It will take some practice adding the layers and smoothing out the pie without mixing up the two ingredients too much. I have found it is best to place the raspberries in the middle and smooth things in a circle from the inside out. But even if it looks like a mess, it is still a tasty mess! You can eat this straight away or return it to the freezer to harden for a few hours before digging in.

What I love about this flavor is how the white chocolate blends so well within the mix. Regular chocolate won't mix the same way. The reason being that white chocolate is not really chocolate as it is a blend of dairy products and sugar that resembles chocolate. It also explains why there is such a low quantity of sugar and milk in the overall mix. The white chocolate and the raspberries go remarkably well together, so well, that when we were doing an initial tasting as it was all coming out of the machine that I know the pie will not be around for long.

Enjoy!