Tickled pink

I run into people all the time who tell me that they hate grocery shopping.  That's such a strange idea to me.  I don't like clothes shopping (don't even get me started on shoe shopping), but I love grocery shopping.  Even the online shopping I do is mostly for food and related stuff (cookbooks, bakeware).  I'm lucky to have such great local places to shop.  Occasionally, though, I'll need to order something that I just can't get here.  (Like the chestnut flour for next week's recipe--no sign of it anywhere around here.  And not enough time to order it.)  My go-to place for baking ingredients is definitely King Arthur Flour.  

I don't order from them all that often--I try to wait until they're offering free shipping or a discount on purchases over a certain amount.  I'll usually restock on some hard to find flours (like Durum) and buy some things in bulk (like yeast).  I usually get side-tracked by something pretty (like cupcake papers).  And sometimes things just jump into my little electronic shopping cart...like when I saw these raspberry jammy bits and bought them several months ago.

Then, as sometimes happens, the jammy bits disappeared into my pantry and kind of got lost in there.  If you saw my pantry (even after I organized it) you would understand. =)  I'm still not exactly sure what reminded me they were in there.  I was trying to think of something other than currants to add to this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, and they popped into my head.  Lynne of Café Lynnylu picked Cream Scones for us to make this week.  My girls--especially Gillian--love scones for breakfast.  But Brianna complains any time I put dried fruit in them.  So I decided that I'd split the dough and put the jammy bits in one half and chocolate chips in the other half, just in case.   

Another change I made was to use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat pastry flour.  (That was a case of something jumping into my grocery cart when I was in the bulk department at Central Market last week.)  And of course, we had to have glaze.  For the chocolate chip scones, I just drizzled them with a simple glaze made with powdered sugar and milk.  I got a bit more fancy with my raspberry scones, though.  I whisked some raspberry sauce into the basic glaze, which made it a lovely pink.  I made the raspberry scones a bit smaller than the recipe indicated, and dunked them in the glaze to completely coat them.  

The verdict?  Well, I thought these were quite yummy.  Gillian ate one and said she liked it, while Brianna was content to eat only the chocolate chips ones.  (G had one of those, too.)  I'll probably stick with drizzling the glaze most of the time, but the raspberry scones were good with the full coating, since the scones themselves weren't all that sweet.  

If you'd like the basic recipe for the Cream Scones, head over to Lynne's blog.  And to see what everyone else did with this week's recipe, check out the Links!

Chocolate for breakfast

I'm taking a short break from my Ice Cream Week (and a half) to bring you these yummy muffins.  This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Bridget of The Way the Cookie Crumbles.  She picked Chocolate Chunk Muffins. When I first read the pick for this week, my first thought was that I was sure I'd made this recipe before.  After all, how could I go three and a half years baking from this book and skip over something with so much chocolate?  Especially since my girls love anything with chocolate chips/chunks.  I looked through my archives, but there was no evidence that I've made these before. 

Like most muffins, these were easy to mix up.  You mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in another (in this case, two others), pour the wet on top of the dry, and gently mix until just barely incorporated.  I used regular Hershey's cocoa powder and 58% El Rey chocolate in the muffins.  For the chunks, I actually used chocolate chips, 63% dark chocolate chips from Guittard.  I loved the texture of the muffin batter--not at all runny.  That was good, because it always seems like when I have a runny batter, I end up with flat tops (on muffins or cupcakes) that bake into each other.  No such problems here!  I ended up baking my muffins for 20 minutes.

The verdict?  Gillian will always love scones more, but these muffins were deemed an acceptable way to start off our Independence Day.  =)  Anything with chocolate chips tends to go over well in this house.  The girls ate theirs plain, but I topped mine with some raspberry fruit butter, which was a very good combination.  I love raspberry and chocolate together.

For this week's recipe, head over to Bridget's blog.  And to see what everyone else thought of these, check out the Links.   Stay tuned for another great chocolate/raspberry combination tomorrow!

Say...cheese?

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  

This is a day to be thankful for all the freedoms that we enjoy as Americans.  I'm also thankful to have working air-conditioning here in central Texas, where it's supposed to be over 100º for the next week.  I came home from work on Friday to find that the temperature in my house was over 80ºF.  Turns out that after almost 10 years (can we really have been in this house for almost 10 years?!), the air-conditioner condenser unit had had enough.  Why do things like this always seem to happen going into a holiday weekend?  Which leads me to the next thing I'm thankful for--a wonderful heating & a/c guy who was willing to come out on a Saturday to figure out what was wrong and fix it.  Otherwise, I'd probably be spending my holiday weekend in a hotel. =)  I haven't appreciated air-conditioning so much in a long time.  (J says it got into the high 80s in the house while I was at work on Saturday, before the a/c was fixed.)

I felt like a big wimp, complaining so much about the lack of air-conditioning.  After all, we didn't have a/c when I was growing up.  It was fairly hot and humid in Pennsylvania in the summer, and I can remember plenty of nights when we would lay in bed at night with all the windows open, just hoping for some breeze.  But as several people pointed out to me, it may have been hot then, but we didn't have high temperatures over 100º for days on end.  The ways we try to beat the heat are still the same, though--fans, minimal cooking, and lots of frozen treats!  I admit it, I let my girls eat popsicles for breakfast on Saturday morning. =)

Today, though, I've got more ice cream for you.  My Ice Cream Week is running over the week-long time frame by a bit (and there's at least one more post to come), but you can never have too much ice cream, right? =)  Today's flavor happens to fit the patriotic theme for the day--red and white in the ice cream, though I had to find a blue dish for it to complete the theme.  (You could probably add blueberries; I just don't like them.)

When I first got my copy of Jeni's book, I read all the way through it.  Then I went back and started a list of the flavors that I wanted to make.  It didn't take me long to fill a page in my notebook.  Some of the choices were obvious ones, like the Salty Caramel and Darkest Chocolate in the World.  The Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk one was high on the list as well, since I had a ton of strawberries in the fridge.  Brianna asked me to make the Milkiest Chocolate in the World, since she wanted to try it when we were in Columbus, but they were out of it.  What surprised me was the recipe that ended up next on my list.   Young Gouda Ice Cream with Vodka-Plumped Cranberries.  Cheese in ice cream?  I really like Gouda--and cranberries--so I figured, why not? 

The verdict?  I admit, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from adding cheese to ice cream.  I did figure that the creaminess of the Gouda would work out okay.  What I ended up with was something that reminds me a lot of cheesecake.  I guess that shouldn't be that surprising.  It's really good, but really rich.  The tart cranberries are a nice contrast to the richness and creaminess of the ice cream.  Now I'm eager to experiment with some of the other unusual recipes in the book.  

If you'd like to give this one a try for yourself, I recommend that you get your hands on a copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  To get started, you can find the recipe for Jeni's Vanilla Bean ice cream here at Food & Wine.  To make the gouda version, omit the vanilla bean.  Increase the salt to 1/4 teaspoon and the corn syrup to 2 tablespoons.  After whisking the milk mixture into the cream cheese, whisk in half a cup (about 2 ounces, or 60 grams) of young Gouda or another creamy cheese.  Proceed with chilling the mixture and churning it.  Dried cranberries are plumped in simple syrup with a couple tablespoons of vodka added.  They're layered in with the ice cream as it's packed into a freezer container.

Stay tuned for my next Ice Cream Week post, on ice cream cones!

Pop goes the strawberry

I mentioned a while back that my dad was very cool and got me a Sur la Table gift card for my birthday back in February.  It was an ends-in-a-zero birthday, so the gift card amount was pretty nice. =)  I spent a little of it, but have been carrying the card around in my wallet for quite a while, not knowing what else to buy.  My bakeware collection is pretty extensive already, and I hadn't come up with anything else that I just had to have.  

We've been making lots of ice cream because it's ridiculously hot every day here.  The girls were also bugging me to make popsicles, and the June Bon Appetit issue has lots of cool frozen treats (not ice cream) that I want to make.  I have an inexpensive little popsicle mold, but it doesn't hold very much.  I was debating getting a new one when I ran across something in the back of a recent Cook's Illustrated magazine--a review of the Zoku Quick Pop Maker.  I quickly decide that this was what to spend the rest of my gift card on!  Normally, I might not have bought something like this, since it seems a bit expensive just to make popsicles.  But birthdays and gift cards are for things you wouldn't necessarily buy for yourself, right? =)

Like the canister for my ice cream maker, the pop maker has to be frozen ahead of time--about 24 hours ahead, to make sure it's completely frozen.  I managed to make what I hope is a permanent spot for it in my freezer.  Once the unit is frozen, you insert the sticks, pour in your popsicle mixture (2 ounces per pop) and wait 8-10 minutes.  Voila!  The first time we just tried it with some strawberry yogurt thinned with a little milk to make it pourable.  I had a little trouble getting those out--not sure if I left them in too long, if the mixture wasn't right, or if it was just because it was the first batch.  Since then, I haven't had any trouble.  For the second round, we just used some orange and grape juice (not together!).  It's so cool that you can go from wanting to make an ice pop to eating one in ten minutes!

For the latest round, I was inspired by one of the ice cream flavors I made recently.  It was for Roasted Strawberry-Buttermilk Ice Cream from my latest cookbook.  (Yes, I'm obsessed. How could you tell?)  It calls for roasting sliced strawberries in the oven (with sugar) and making a purée which is then added to the ice cream base.  I made the ice cream, and found that it had a mild strawberry flavor.  I wanted to increase the amount of strawberry, so when I put the freshly churned ice cream into a freezer container, I layered in some of the extra purée.  That wasn't the best idea, since the purée ends up kind of icy--though it's an interesting contrast to the creamy texture of the ice cream.  But as I was eating it, I thought that it would be great as a popsicle.  So I made a double batch of the purée, chilled it thoroughly, and pulled out the Zoku.  Since the girls weren't home when I made these, I put the finished pops in small ziploc bags and stored them in the freezer.

The verdict?  Definitely a hit with the kiddos.  Okay, with Brianna at least, since Gillian fell asleep in the car on the way home and hasn't tried one yet. =)  It's hard to go wrong with strawberries and sugar.  The purée also has some acid--in the form of lemon or lime juice--to perk it up.  I'm sure we'll be making more popsicles with the purée, as well as coming up with other fun things to put in the Zoku.  I've found a couple of lists to get us started, from Bon Appetit and Fine Cooking.  If you'd like to try my strawberry ones, here's what I ended up doing.  And stay tuned for more from Ice Cream Week!  (which may end up being more than a week, at the rate I'm going)

Roasted Strawberry Purée

(adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home)

680 grams (24 ounces) fresh strawberries, hulled and cut into thick slices

140 grams (2/3 cup) granulated sugar

juice of 2 limes (or lemons, if you prefer)

Preheat your oven to 375ºF.  Place the strawberries in a 13"x9" glass baking dish.  Sprinkle the sugar over the berries and gently mix the two together.  Roast the strawberries for about ten minutes, until they are just tender.  Transfer the strawberries and syrup to a tall, narrow container and add the lime juice.  Purée with an immersion blender until smooth.  Chill thoroughly before adding to ice cream base or making popsicles.  

I made this double batch because I wanted a lot of purée to play around with.  You can also halve the ingredients and roast the strawberries in an 8" square baking dish.  You can also purée the mixture in a food processor or blender; I just didn't want to wash mine.

Note: This post was not sponsored in any way.  I just happen to like the Zoku and wanted to tell you about my experiences with it.

Quite a mouthful

I've been making ice cream for a long time.  I got my first ice cream maker shortly after college, and it served me well for a long time.  But it finally died, and I got a new one about three years ago.  I've actually used that one a lot more, in part because it came with two freezer canisters.  One has a permanent spot in my freezer.  Whenever I take it out, I replace it with the other one.  Well, this weekend I went a little crazy and crammed both canisters into the freezer so I could make more than one flavor on the same day, in anticipation of my Ice Cream Week plan.  

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe fit nicely with my plan.  Spike of spike.does.stuff picked Sour Cream Chocolate Cake Cookies for us to make this week.  How's that for a long recipe name? =)  I wasn't originally sure if I was going to make these, but then I read the P&Q.  Several people mentioned using the cookies to make ice cream sandwiches.  Perfect!  Amazingly enough, with all the ice cream and cookies that I've put on this blog, I've never actually put the two together.  It's about time. =)

I can understand why the cookies turn out cake-like, because you end up making more of a batter than a dough.  You cream butter with regular and brown sugar, then add vanilla and melted chocolate.  Next in are a couple eggs.  Then you alternate adding dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, cocoa powder--no spices in mine) with sour cream.  I used my #40 disher to scoop out the cookies, and ended up with 45.  I baked them for 12 minutes.  Once the cookies were cool, I paired them up and froze a bunch of them before making the sandwiches.  

As for the ice cream flavors, I made The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World (another impressive title) from my new cookbook.  (Some are also filled with Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream, but that's another post.)    For the chocolate ice cream, you first make a chocolate syrup, using coffee, cocoa powder, sugar and bittersweet chocolate.  I'm used to chocolate recipes calling for coffee or espresso powder to enhance the chocolate flavor.  We don't usually have coffee on hand, though.  Rather than turn to instant espresso powder the way I usually do, I tried something new.  I've read on several blogs about Starbucks VIA instant coffee.  So I picked some up at the grocery store.  Since I needed half a cup of coffee, I used half the packet in half a cup of water.  It worked well, but the finished syrup tasted strongly of coffee, more than I wanted it to.  I'll definitely use the VIA powder again, just less of it.  For the chocolate, I used one of my favorites, Scharffen Berger 62%.  (I would have used 70%, but didn't have any.)  I used Scharffen Berger for the cocoa powder as well.  

The verdict?  The ice cream sandwiches were a big hit with the girls.  The cookies worked great, since they don't get super hard, even when frozen.  Since I had a lot of cookies, I also sandwiched some with chocolate-hazelnut spread and took them to a friend as a treat.  They were quite well received.  

If you'd like to try the dark chocolate ice cream, you can find the recipe here.  For the cookie recipe to make these yummy sandwiches, head over to Spike's blog.  To see what everyone else did with this week's recipe, check out the Links.  And don't forget to check back for more of Ice Cream Week!

Ice Cream Week!

I have to admit, I'm a picky eater.  I've definitely gotten better about it as I've gotten older, but there are still a lot of things that I don't like to eat.  This is a big contrast to my husband Jamie, who eats just about anything.  Fortunately, one of the few things that he won't eat is very high on my list as well.  Coconut.  Neither of us can stand it.  I don't like the flavor or the texture.  And I'm sensitive enough to it to be able to pick it out even when it's not obvious to others.  Yuck. =)  If my children ever learn to like coconut, it won't be because they got it at home, because I don't let it in the house.  Almond Joys that come home in trick-or-treat bags?  I immediately take them to work.  I break open filled chocolates before eating them because I don't want to risk biting into a coconut one.  I once had one of my employees request German Chocolate Cake for his birthday.  Now I try to honor all requests, so I did make it, but I took the leftover coconut to work along with the cake so it wouldn't be in the house any longer.  

So why all this talk of coconut hatred?  Well, I got a new cookbook about a week ago, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  When we were on vacation in Ohio recently, we had a chance to go to one of the Jeni's shops.  The ice cream was fabulous, and I was excited to learn that she was about to release a cookbook.  I ordered it as soon as we got home.  There are lots of wonderful flavor combinations in the book, but I was also excited to read about some of the stuff in the back of it--various mix-ins and sauces.  The one that immediately caught my eye was the Chocolate Bombe Shell.  Basically, it's homemade Magic Shell!  I mentioned this to a couple people at work and was disturbed to find that they had no idea what I was talking about.  It's not that the flavor of Magic Shell is that great, but the texture is so cool.  And now I can make it at home with my favorite bittersweet chocolate.  There was only one problem--the ingredient that makes it magic is coconut oil.  No!

But then I read further and learned that there are a couple types of coconut oil out there.  Virgin, or unrefined, coconut oil does taste like coconut.  Blech.  But the refined version isn't supposed to taste or smell like it.  I admit, I remained skeptical, but I went to Whole Foods and found a jar of refined coconut oil.  I was excited when I got it home and found that it actually didn't seem to have anything to do with coconut--no smell or taste of it!  

Of course, I also needed some ice cream to put it on.  The first Jeni's flavor I tried was vanilla bean.  I actually found the recipe online before my book got here.  The one pictured here, though, is one of Jeni's signature flavors, Salty Caramel.  I never used to make or eat a lot of caramel things, but then I discovered how much better caramel is with salt added.  Mmmm.

The basic approach in these recipes is to use cornstarch for thickening, rather than egg yolks.  I don't have anything against egg custard ice creams, but it's nice not to have to worry about "orphaned" egg whites.  Jeni also uses corn syrup and cream cheese in most of her recipes to make the texture similar to what she creates in her commercial kitchen.  I highly encourage you to get a copy of the book, but you can also find the basic technique online, since Jeni did an article a while back for Food & Wine.  The main difference for the Salty Caramel recipe is that the sugar in the recipe is first heated to make a dry caramel.  Then the cream, milk and corn syrup (2 tablespoons, rather than 1 1/2) are added and the recipe proceeds as usual.  Half a teaspoon of salt is added to the cream cheese before the liquids are whisked in, and the recipe uses 2 teaspoons of vanilla rather than a vanilla bean.

The verdict?  The chocolate shell is just amazing.  I can't believe how easy it is to make.  And it's been very tasty on a variety of ice cream flavors, including the Salty Caramel.  I've made several caramel ice creams, and I think this one may be my favorite.  Jamie liked it a lot as well.  The girls didn't try this ice cream flavor, but they both liked the chocolate shell.  We'll definitely be making both again.  And I can't wait to try more flavors from my new cookbook.  I've decided that this is going to be Ice Cream Week here in Di's Kitchen, so watch for more to come.  I'm not going to publish the Salty Caramel ice cream recipe here, but you can find Jeni's Vanilla Bean one here to get you started.

Chocolate Bombe Shell 

(adapted from Jeni's)

170 grams (6 ounces) bittersweet chocolate (I used El Rey, a mix of 58% and 70%), chopped

30 grams (2-3 tablespoons) refined coconut oil

Place the chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on 50% power for 2 minutes, then stir until the chocolate is fully melted.  Add the coconut oil and stir until smooth.  

Words with kids

Several months ago, I treated myself to an early 40th birthday present and got an iPod touch.  I admit, that was partly because Jamie got one for Christmas and I saw how cool they are and wanted my own.  (And then I followed that up by treating myself to an iPad 2 once I got my annual bonus.)  I'm still on the hunt for good apps, both for cooking & baking and other stuff.  Several of my twitter friends introduced me to Words with Friends, which I really enjoy.  Brianna, of course, has been looking for any excuse to get her hands on my iPod, so she kept asking if she could help me with my games.  I finally gave in and let her play her own game against Jamie.  It's always interesting when she asks me about the meaning of some of the words that he plays.  Being of sound mind, I put a dictionary on my iPod, too, so now she can just look things up for herself.  She also likes to do the math to figure out how many points she'll get for a particular play.  For those who currently have games going with me, I have to admit that B has been playing some of my turns against you, too. =)

Gillian has her own word thing going on.  She's at that age where she hears things but doesn't always understand them.  It's often quite entertaining when she repeats what she thinks she's heard.  I'm sure many of you have heard young kids singing, for instance.  One of my all-time favorites was listening to G singing Bon Jovi--"You give love a bandaid, bandaid!"  Lately, though, she seems to be saying things to see what she can get away with.  I had to have a conversation with her the other night after she and B were in the bathroom, and I heard her tell B to "get off the freakin' step!" (We keep step stools in all the bathrooms.) And it was all I could do to keep a straight face one night when I heard her say something under her breath when she was mad about something I asked her to do.  I wasn't sure if I'd heard her right, so I asked her to repeat what she'd said.  She hesitated, and then told me "Bandit!" 

Sometimes there are interesting words in cooking and baking, too.  When I got my most recent issue of Bon Appetit, a couple things caught my eye.  One was the assortment of frozen desserts--I have my eye on the Peach-Vanilla Cream Pops, but that will be another post.  The other, which was the first thing I made from the issue, was the Strawberry Conserve.  Conserve--that's a term you don't hear all that often.  I looked up a definition for it, which was "a sweet food made by preserving fruit with sugar; jam."  The article says that since the recipe doesn't use commercial pectin, you end up with "a conserve of soft berries in a barely set syrup."  The conserve is pretty easy to make and gave me a great excuse to buy some pretty half-pint canning jars.  I doubled the recipe, which gave me 4 small jars of strawberry syrupy stuff.  Basically, you macerate strawberries with sugar and lemon zest.  Then you cook the strawberries briefly to soften them, and then remove the strawberries and simmer the liquid until it thickens into a syrup.  

The verdict?  Well, I've made two double batches so far, and if I can get my hands on some more good strawberries, I'll probably make some more.  It'll last for about a month in the fridge, so hopefully I can enjoy some strawberry goodness for a lot of the summer.  I was surprised by how wonderful the conserve was, especially since it had such a simple ingredient list.  We've had it over pound cake and on top of ice cream.  I even made my own fruit-at-the-bottom yogurt by topping it with some plain Brown Cow.  If you find yourself with a surplus of strawberries, I recommend giving this recipe a try.  You can find the recipe here at Bon Appetit.