Ice Cream Fridays: Honey Peach Ice Cream

Welcome to another edition of Ice Cream Fridays. Every Friday you can look forward to a new ice cream recipe which will hopefully inspire you to break out your old dust covered ice cream maker that is hiding somewhere in a closet (yes, I'm talking about you). Since I'm always looking for inspiration and ideas, feel free to leave me a comment here on my blog or on my facebook page, and let me know what ice cream flavor you would like to see. Who knows, you might just get lucky and it will be featured the following week. 

With only a couple more Fridays left after today's featured post I will be retiring the Ice Cream series for the year. I'm still left with a list a mile long of different ice creams yet to try. So, picking and choosing which one to make should have been hard, but I was getting a little help in the form of a gentle nudge from my friend Sharon and facebook follower Christy. Both of them named Peach Ice Cream as their favorite flavor when I had asked a while back. I love a good peach ice cream as well, but there was only one problem with the execution, the peaches. For the life of it, I could not get my hands on decent tasting peaches. I was looking for bright red peaches, the same ones that as you bit into them the juices are running everywhere and you'd better have a napkin handy. Nope, all I could find for weeks and weeks were great looking peaches on the outside but they were hard as rocks and flavorless on the inside. My husband (the official taste tester and critic for this blog), took it upon himself to try peach after peach in search of the perfect one. Did he ever find it? Unfortunately not, so I ended up having to use some mediocre ones that "worked" since I really wanted to make this ice cream. 

While I was looking for the perfect peach ice cream, I had a couple of criteria in mind. One, it had to be full of peach flavor (this would have been achieved with better peaches) and two, it couldn't just be a vanilla base with peach chunks mixed in. So, after looking at different recipes I had narrowed it down to one from David Lebovitz and one from Dorie Greenspan. I really liked David's concept (he adds sour cream to the mix) but ended up choosing Dorie's version since I had already made a Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream earlier in the year. Dorie's version was different by including honey and I thought it sounded heavenly in combination with the peaches.
Peeled peaches are chopped and cooked with honey until soft, then the mixture is pureed. Meanwhile a basic egg custard is cooked and the peach puree is added to the finished base along with vanilla extract. I went a step further and added ground up vanilla bean to my custard for additional flavor. After a good chilling in the refrigerator, the custard is churned in the ice cream maker, and right before finishing, more diced peaches are added.

This ice cream turned out very well, despite the sub-par peaches, so I can only imagine how incredibly tasty it would be with ripe, juicy ones. I loved the subtle honey flavor that infused the ice cream throughout. My kids were not sure about this flavor when I set out to make it, but every single one of them happily emptied their bowls. I will stay on the hunt for decent peaches, and will definitely make this flavor again. Maybe next year I'll have to have a peach ice cream throw-down between Dorie and David!

Honey-Peach Ice Cream
(adapted from "Baking: From my home to yours")
(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

4 large ripe peaches (about 2 pounds), peeled and pitted
1/4 cup honey
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground vanilla beans

Preparation:

Coarsely chop half the peaches into 1/2-inch chunks and toss them into a small saucepan. Add the honey and bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peaches are soft abut not mushy, about 10 minutes. Scrape the mixture into a  blender or food processor and whir to puree. Set the peach puree aside while you make the custard.

Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar together until very well blended and just slightly thickened. Still whisking, drizzle in about one third of the hot liquid - this will temper or warm, the eggs so they don't curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the remaining liquid. Pour the custard back into the pan and cook over medium heat, stirring without stopping, until the custard thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon; if you run your finger down the back of the spoon, the custard should not run into the track. The custard should reach at least 170 degrees F, but no more than 180 degrees F, on an instant-read thermometer. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and our the custard into a 2-quart glass measuring cup or clean heatproof bowl. Stir in the vanilla and the peach puree.

Refrigerate the custard until chilled before churning it into ice cream.

Scrape the chilled custard into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. While the ice cream is churning, finely dice the remaining 2 peaches, then, just before the ice cream is thickened and ready, add the peaches and churn to blend. Pack the ice cream into a container and freeze it for at least 2 hours, until it is firm enough to scoop.

Lollipop Garden Cupcakes

When I heard that my friend's daughters' 7th birthday was coming up, I offered to make the cupcakes for her party. Looking through a few different books and online I had decided (and after approval of the birthday girl of course) she was going to get lollipop garden cupcakes out of my trusty Martha Stewart Cupcakes book. 

After talking to the birthday girl to find out her favorite colors I went with a yellow/red theme. The cake part of the cupcakes is my go-to recipe for Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes. The frosting is a simple, but tasty, Fluffy Vanilla Frosting that I tinted orange with food coloring. However, if you are looking for a shortcut, feel free to use a boxed cake mix and canned frosting.

The cupcakes were baked in golden yellow paper cups, and after cooling I frosted them before rolling them carefully in red sprinkles. The leaves were cut out of airheads candy, but I'm sure you could use pretty much any kind of green taffy or fruit leather. The final touch after the leaves get inserted was to stick in a lollipop as the flower.

I thought they turned out really cute and the birthday girl was excited about them as well.

Happy Birthday Janessa!

Lollipop Garden Cupcakes

(Print this Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 recipe of your favorite cupcake, baked

1 recipe of your favorite vanilla frosting (tinted to desired color to work with sprinkles)

Sprinkles (any color will work)

Lollipops

Green Taffy or Green Fruit Leather

Directions:

Using an offset spatula, spread buttercream or frosting on cupcakes, smoothing into dome shapes. Place sprinkles in a small bowl. Gently press each frosted cupcake into sprinkles, rolling it around so entire surface is coated. Insert a lollipop into the center of each cupcake. Then, using a paring knife or kitchen shears, cut leaf shapes out of green taffy strips. Press one leaf into each cupcake next to the lollipop. Refrigerate 30 minutes to allow frosting to set.

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

If there was a perfect combination of lemon and more lemon than these cupcakes would be it. As a proclaimed citrus and especially lemon and lime fanatic, these little clouds of heaven were a dream come true for me. I loved everything about these little cakes and would not change a thing. Modeled after traditional Lemon Meringue Pie it has everything and more packaged in a compact size.

The cake part was light and fluffy with the faint scent and taste of lemons. The lemon curd on top is the little component that will smack you with intense lemon flavor through and through. It is smooth, creamy and oh so lemony. And to top it all off, you have "marshmallow fluff" in the form of a 7-Minute frosting which represents the meringue of a regular pie.

I started the process by making the lemon curd which needs to chill for a while in the fridge. I was hesitant as I had read a few reviews for this particular recipe and people had problems getting the curd to get thick. This was not the case here. I just kept stirring the lemon, sugar and egg mixture over a double boiler until it got thick enough to coat the back of a spoon which took almost 20 minutes.

The cake is just a plain vanilla batter with the addition of lemon zest, lemon juice, and buttermilk. This  transformed it into a light cake with the subtle taste of lemon.

The frosting of this cupcake is a 7-Minute frosting which I have used on my Coconut Cupcakes, S'mores Cupcakes, and Snickerdoodle Cupcakes before. The only difference was that I got to use my kitchen blow torch to lightly toast the meringue.

This cupcake will be made for many more occasions to come. In fact I will be trying out different combinations, as you can make any kind of citrus curd along with adding the zest and juice from different fruits to the batter to change things up. I'm looking forward to trying this with limes, grapefruits and even oranges.

Martha Stewart and her fabulous cookbook Martha Stewart's cupcakes has not had one disappointing recipe so far.  Her instructions are precise and easy to follow. Yes, many of her cupcakes are more time consuming than opening a boxed mix, but if you are willing to invest just a little bit more, you will get results that blow you and everyone else lucky enough to try the goodies, away.

So if lemon meringue pie, cupcakes, or anything else lemon makes you as happy as me, then go ahead and buy her book or check out the RECIPE on her website.

Toasted Coconut Custard Tart

This is the story of the  Tart that was almost not meant to be. It certainly cost me a few more gray hairs, that's for sure. I wanted to make this Coconut Custard Tart for our 18th wedding anniversary since my husband loves desserts with coconut (hence the Perfect Party Cake he chose for his birthday). I picked this dessert out of Dorie Greenspan's book; Baking: From My Home to Yours since none of her recipes have disappointed me so far. Plus, when I saw sweet tart crust filled with a smooth coconut studded pastry cream and topped with a rum infused whipped cream I was pretty much in love.

The day started out well and I was cruising along with my sweet tart dough. It's practically flour, powdered sugar, butter and one egg yolk, pulsed in a food processor until it all comes together. The dough is then pressed into a tart pan with a removable bottom, which is then put in the freezer for a bit before baking. Once my dough went into the freezer I started on the custard. It is pretty much a standard custard with milk, egg yolks, sugar and cornstarch with the only exception being a pinch of coriander. The mix gets cooked until thick, then you add butter, dark rum and vanilla. Toasted coconut gets folded in and the custard gets chilled until ready for filling.

This is when my perfect baking process started to go awry. I put the pastry lined tart pan in the oven and set my timer for 25 minutes. I guess I had forgotten to press start after I had set my timer and didn't realize my mistake until I smelled something burning. Yes, you guessed it, the sweet tart dough was a loss.

Since I was determined to make my husband this dessert I set out to re-make my tart crust. Everything came together perfect, just like the first time. This time though I didn't mess up my timer and the crust was baked to perfection. I took it out and set it on a rack to cool. After about half an hour when I returned to un-mold the crust, the sides came out off the tart pan great but when I tried to slide it off the removable bottom tray the whole crust crumbled apart on me. There was no saving this one. At this point I was ready to just call it a day and admit defeat when my middle child told me that I could get it done and "3rd times a charm".

So for the third time in one day I made the sweet tart dough. From now on I can most certainly bake this tart dough in my sleep. Finally I had reached success. Everything came together at last. The crust was beautiful, the filling delicious and the topping of whipped cream along with a little more rum, vanilla and powdered sugar plus more toasted coconut turned this into anything but your grandma's coconut cream pie. Success after all and at least my husband is certainly worth the effort after 18 years. Happy Anniversary Honey!!!

David Lebovitz's Vanilla Ice Cream

Just like a great brownie or chocolate chip recipe, everyone needs a great homemade vanilla ice cream recipe in their repertoire. I'm sure a lot of people are saying now that you can buy ice cream at the grocery store so much easier and cheaper, and I'm here to tell you that you are absolutely correct. Sure you can get any mass manufactured pumped full of air ice cream at the store. Sure it is definitely cheaper than making it homemade but I challenge you to try this recipe and I'm sure you will never go back unless it is 2:00 am and you really need your ice cream fix.

I have made a few homemade ice creams over the years. As with many things you make or try out, the ice creams were good especially fresh out of the ice cream maker but, once I put the ice cream in a container and froze it for a few hours it turned hard as a rock. I own a few ice cream books since we eat a lot of it during the summer months. Anything from a rich ice cream to a refreshing sorbet or Granita is loved and eaten in our house. We like it all, probably because it gets really, really hot here during the summer months and any kind of cooling confection is welcome.

On my quest for the perfect ice cream I kept stumbling on this David Lebovitz guy.  After further examination I was intrigued and decided to order his book: The Perfect Scoop. When it arrived I spent several hours drooling over all of the scrumptious recipes. I was so torn of what to make first but Vanilla won out. I settled on the custard style vanilla but David also has a recipe for the quicker Philadelphia style (which is egg-less) in his book. He also recommends adding a little bit of alcohol to the finished custard before freezing it in the ice cream maker which will help with the texture once totally frozen and will prevent it from hardening too much.

I decided that Frangelico was the perfect accompaniment to my Vanilla Ice Cream but I could see this with any other liqueurs or even brandy. This is most definitely the BEST ice cream I have EVER made homemade.  The flavor and texture are incredible. I served this ice cream with our Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies and it was decadent. This recipe will be a staple from now on in my freezer and I can't wait to try some of his other recipes in the book. So if you really love delicious ice cream, order David's book (you won't be disappointed) or you can find his recipe for Vanilla Ice cream HERE.

Split Level Pudding

For our second BWD: Baking with Dorie Challenge, it was my pick once again and I decided on Split Level Pudding on Page 384 and 385 in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours .

I found it quite hard trying to decide which recipe we should make next since everything in the book looks and sounds so delicious. I finally settled on the Split Level Pudding and was really looking forward to this recipe. I have been baking up a storm lately so making a pudding appealed more to me. Plus, pudding had been a childhood favorite of mine, and a good homemade one always brings back fond memories.

The ingredients of the pudding were straight forward with most of the items already in my pantry and refrigerator. Unfortunately, I found the process of making the recipe nothing short of complicated and I have made quite a few puddings in my life. Growing up in Germany we didn't have Jell-o type puddings and everything was the kind you had to cook. Most of those were a pre-mixed cornstarch powder which you added sugar and a little milk to form a paste which in turn was added to boiling milk. So when this version called for the food processor I should have been leery and followed my instincts. However, I did  follow the recipe almost exactly to the very end which is when I decided the mixture wasn't going back into the food processor and I used a whisk to add the butter and vanilla.


While the pudding was delicious, creamy and eaten by everyone in the house, there are a few things I would change if I made this pudding again. I would leave my food processor alone and  sift the cornstarch and salt, then add the sugar and egg yolks and give it a good whisking. Also instead of slowly adding the hot milk/sugar mixture to the other ingredients in the food processor, I think you can just add the cornstarch mixture slowly to the hot milk while whisking until everything comes to a boil.
The pudding says it makes 6 servings but even with small 6 ounce ramekins I found it to only make 5 portions unless you want to have very very thin layers.

It is a great pudding especially if you try to appeal to both chocolate and vanilla lovers. The texture is smooth and the pudding is creamy. The chocolate layer calls for bittersweet chocolate but I could see this with anything from milk to semi-sweet chocolate. And as far as flavoring the custard part I guess the sky is the limit and most flavors from coffee to almond or coconut would work as well as the vanilla. I will make this pudding again, but next time I will try my simplified method.

Check out Grapefruit's and Elizabeth's pages to see what they thought about this pudding and what new and interesting things they came up with.

For our next BWD in two weeks (the 29th of March) it is Grapefruit's pick with Gingered Carrot Cookies on Page 162. So if any of this has peeked your interest and you want to join the fun with us next time, just shoot me or Grapefruit an email and we'd be more than happy to have you.

Split-Level Pudding

~Makes 6 Servings~

For the chocolate layer:

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1/3 cup heavy cream

For the vanilla layer:

2 1/4 cups whole milk

6 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature

2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Chocolate shavings for decoration (optional)

Getting ready:

Have six ramekins or pudding cups, each holding 4 to 6 ounces, (1/2 to 3/4 cup), at hand.

To make the chocolate layer:

Put the chocolate in a 1- or 2-cup glass measuring cup. Bring the heavy cream to a boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for 30 seconds, then gently stir to blend. Divide the chocolate ganache among the cups and set aside.

To make the vanilla layer:

Bring 2-cups of the milk and 3 tablespoons of the sugar to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. While the milk is heating, put the cornstarch and salt into a food processor and whir to blend. Turn them out onto a piece of wax paper, put the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and the egg yolks into the processor and blend for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the remaining 1/4 cup milk and pulse just to mix, then add the dry ingredients and pulse a few times to blend.

With the machine running, very slowly pour in the hot milk mixture. Process for a few seconds, then pour everything back into the saucepan. Whisk without stopping over medium heat - making sure to get into the edges of the pan - until the pudding thickens and a couple of bubbles burble up to the surface and pop (about 2 minutes). you don't want the pudding to boil, but you do want it to thicken, so lower the heat, if necessary.

Scrape the pudding back into the processor (if there's a scorched spot, avoid it as your scrape) and pulse a couple of times. Add the butter and vanilla and pulse until everything is evenly blended.  

Pour the pudding into the cups - depending on how warm the chocolate ganache in the bottom of the cups was, you might find that it runs up the sides of the cups and forms a lacy circle around the pudding. If it does, it's pretty; if it doesn't, the chocolate will be a surprise. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of each pudding to create an airtight seal and prevent a skin from forming.

Refrigerate the puddings for at least 4 hours.

If you'd like, scatter chocolate shaving over the tops of the puddings just before serving.

Adapted from: Dorie Greenspan

Nanaimo Bars

I first read about Nanaimo Bars on a few Food Blogs. Ever since I laid eyes on this amazing looking confection I knew I had to go ahead and make it for my family. The Nanaimo bar is a Canadian dessert. It is a no-bake bar that is named after the West coast city of Nanaimo in British Columbia and since the Winter Olympics have just concluded, I figured what better way then to honor our Canadian neighbors with this recipe.

The Nanaimo Bar consists of 3 distinct layers. A wafer crumb-based layer with graham crackers, almonds and coconut, topped with a layer of vanilla custard flavored butter icing and finally a chocolate layer from melted chocolate. Many varieties are possible by using different types of crumb, flavors of icing (e.g. mint, peanut butter), and types of chocolate. Two popular variations on the traditional Nanaimo bar involve mint flavored icing or mocha flavored icing.

This bar is beyond delicious. It is fairly rich, so small squares are perfect. My family could not get enough of these and I will make this Canadian piece of perfection for years to come!

Nanaimo Bars

(Print this Recipe)

Ingredients:

Bottom Layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

5 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 egg, beaten

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup almonds, finely chopped

1 cup sweetened coconut

Middle Layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder or vanilla pudding powder

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups confectioners sugar

Top Layer:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Directions:

Line an 8"x8" baking pan with parchment paper, leaving a couple of inches hanging over on each side, set the pan aside.

For the bottom layer combine butter, sugar and cocoa powder in a double boiler and heat until melted. Slowly drizzle the hot mixture into the beaten egg, whisking constantly until thickened and glossy. Stir in the graham cracker crumbs, almonds, and coconut. Press the mixture firmly into your prepared baking pan.

For the middle layer cream together the butter, the heavy cream, custard or vanilla pudding powder, vanilla extract and confectioners sugar until light and fluffy. Spread over bottom layer.

For the top layer melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over low heat. Take off the heat source and let cool for a bit. Once cool but still liquid, pour over middle layer and chill in refrigerator until set, about an hour.

Lift the bars out using the piece of parchment with the overhanging edges and place on cutting surface. Cut into small squares using a knife dipped into hot water. Store uneaten bars in a cool place or refrigerator.