Irish Car Bomb ice cream

Happy St. Patty's Day! We've been trying to think of a dessert to celebrate this holiday of imbibing and claiming faux-Irish heritage. Green beer cupcakes would just be disgusting, so we developed this little number from a couple festive recipes.

It seems that the most popular Guinness-flavored ice cream is the Guinness-Milk Chocolate ice cream from The Perfect Scoop, which we found on Chow. Emeril also has a Guinness ice cream, but it seems unnecessarily hard and doesn't contain chocolate, which helps cut the strong stout flavor (and let's be honest, it's just tastier that way).

For an Irish cream swirl, we made a classic sauce that usually tops bread pudding. We used Paula Deen's recipe because it calls for the most Irish cream out of all the ones we found. It definitely does the trick and cuts the Guinness/chocolate with a great Irish cream flavor, but if we made this again we'd use a little more Bailey's, a little less cream, and maybe a dash more sugar.


Guinness-Milk Chocolate ice cream

7 ounces (205 g) milk chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
Pinch of salt
4 large egg yolks
1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream
3/4 cup (180 ml) Guinness Stout
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Put the chocolate pieces in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.
2. Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer over the milk chocolate, then stir until the chocolate is melted. Once the mixture is smooth, whisk in the cream, then the Guinness and vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
4. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.


Irish cream sauce
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup Irish cream liqueur
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Water, to dissolve cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat heavy cream, Irish cream liqueur and sugar. Mix cornstarch with about 1 tablespoon of water. Stir into the cream mixture and heat until thickened. Add vanilla.

When the ice cream is almost at it's desired consistency, pour the sauce into the ice cream maker while it's spinning. You can also put the soft ice cream into a container, then pour the sauce in slowly and swirl it around manually with a spatula.


Our accompanying cocktail? We just bought Guinness and Baileys for this. Do you have to ask?

Old School Peach Cobbler

This is a great recipe for Peach Cobbler if you don't mind taking the time and making one from scratch... which means NO canned peaches and NO store bought crusts. I made this a week ago for Whitnee and she LOVED it (at least that's what she told me)!!!!!

I got the recipe from family.com and I was looking for an original recipe that used fresh peaches and had a great crust as opposed to just drop biscuits over fruit and calling it a cobbler. This is a flaky pastry enclosing peaches flavored with lemon and orange juice and spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon. DELICIOSO!!!

Get out your Rolling Pin! You'll Need:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup cold water

• 3 pounds fresh peaches - peeled, pitted, and sliced
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions:
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, and salt. Work in the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (Whitnee has a food processor that could also be used to mix the dry ingredients with the shortening but I like using the pastry blender.) In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and cold water. Sprinkle over flour mixture, and work with hands to form dough into a ball. It forms a perfect ball of dough. Chill 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out half of dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Place in an ungreased 3 quart 9x13 inch baking dish, covering bottom and the quarters of the way up the sides. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

In a large very large saucepan or pot, mix the peaches, lemon juice, and orange juice. There's a lot of peaches so I had to use a wok, it was all we had that was big enough. Add 1/2 cup butter, and cook over medium-low heat until butter is melted. In a mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cornstarch; mix into peach mixture. Remove from heat, and pour into baked crust.

Roll remaining dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut into half-inch-wide strips. I just drew a knife down the rolled-out dough and it worked great. The recipe says to weave strips into a lattice over peaches, but I don't know how to lattice so I just layed them over the standard way. Sprinkle it with 1 tablespoon sugar, and drizzle with 1 tablespoon melted butter.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until top crust is golden brown.











MMMMMMMMmmmm, it's start to smell wonderful.
















 This goes best with Ice Cream, maybe Cool Whip too, I'm glad it was a success because I've never made peach cobbler and I was dying to make one. My aunt next door to me growing up used to make it all the time and it was amazing. Sometimes you taste dishes growing up that were so good that you decide you'll try to remake that same taste. I may experiment with other versions in the future but for now this one is GREAT!

My baby liked it...so I'm happy.

Riesling ice cream and wine coolers

Wine Month – Riesling

We tried out Fritz Windisch Selzer Osterberg 2006 Riesling. It’s a very sweet, florid and fruity Riesling with notes of honey, sweeter than many of the others that we’ve had previously. However, we only learned this after drinking it; the purchase was made solely because the label looks the most German.

German wine doesn't get a whole lot of play, so we feel compelled to give a shout out to Gewürztraminer, another sweet white, mostly because it's fun to say (ge-VURTZ-tra-mee-ner).

We're big fans of the Wine Cellar sorbets (thought not the $8+ per pint price tag), so when we found this recipe for Riesling ice cream it seemed like the perfect desert with which to celebrate wine month. Riesling ice cream sounds like it should be difficult, but in actuality only has a few ingredients and the prep goes pretty quickly. We used this recipe from Epicurious but opted out of the anise cookies, because anise is gross.

• 1 1/2 cups cream
  
• 1/2 cup half and half
  
• 2/3 cup sugar
  
• 4 large egg yolks
  
• 1 cup late harvest Riesling wine

Bring 1/2 cup cream and 1/2 cup half and half to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Whisk sugar and yolks in medium bowl to blend. Whisk in hot cream mixture. Return mixture to saucepan; stir over medium-low heat until custard thickens and leaves path on back of spoon when finger is drawn across, about 4 minutes, do not boil. Strain into bowl. Mix in wine and 1 cup cream. Chill custard until cold.

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to covered container (ice cream will be soft) and freeze. (Can be prepared 1 week ahead.)

After trying this, we realized that we should just make our own frozen wine treats and save the money. The ice cream is great - sweet and very creamy, much more so than the Wine Cellar sorbet. It tastes strongly of the Riesling (in a good way) and keeps the fruitiness of the wine, with a buttery aftertaste. A little sprinkle of cinnamon is a nice compliment.

In addition to making a wine ice cream, we tried some cocktails too. If this wine seemed easy to sip on its own, in a mixed drink it became downright gulpable.

The first drink we tried was like juice for adults. It’s called the Hot Springs:

• 1 ½ oz wine
  
• 1/2 oz pineapple juice
  
• ¼ oz maraschino liqueur
  
• dash orange bitters

Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. We added a maraschino cherry.

This drink was gone in the blink of an eye. The usual cocktail packs a few ounces of high-proof spirits that slows most tipplers down. But the Hot Springs is sweet and simple as a country lass, and just as easy:

The second drink we tried was also easy but not nearly so tasty. We tried making our own White Wine Cooler. Just dissolve ½ tsp of superfine sugar in soda, add wine and ice. This drink could also be called Blasé Blanc. Watered down, sweet, and fizzy, we could bottle this up and sell it to teenagers. Hm, without Zima there is a hole in the market…

Kick-Off Sunday

Flash floods, tropical humidity, and air-conditioning -- that's right, Fall has begun. We'd taken the summer off from baking and drinking -- well, just baking -- and so we decided to start off with a few very seasonal selections. But like the weather, we ended up with a little more Summer than Fall. In fact, we didn't even bake.

Instead we went with a Stovetop Apple Cranberry Crumble, from The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge, everyone's favorite Connecticut homemaker. You'll see more from this book in future posts, since it's the one with which we first started off teaching ourselves how to bake. Here's what Abby Dodge promises in the book:

Nice, eh?

Well, we took a few liberties with ours, outlined below.

Filling:
3 tbs butter
5 apples (aprox. 2 lbs), peeled, cored, and thinly sliced - We used Golden Delicious, but any medium-tart apple will work
3/4 c cranberries (Abby calls for frozen or fresh. We couldn't find any of either in our outer borough, so we improvised with the Craisins in our cupboard)
1/2 c light brown sugar
3 tbsp flour
1tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (we grated our own from whole nuts)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

Melt butter in 10- to 11-inch skillet. In a bowl, combine apples, cranberries, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then add to butter. Add vanilla and salt to the skillet mixture and toss until well blended. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring until the sugar is melted and the apples begin to carmelize (about 5 min). Cover and reduce heat to low, simmering for aprox. 12 min, until the apples are tender.

Meanwhile, make the topping:

3 tbs butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 c crunchy granola
3 tbsp maple syrup

Again, melt the butter in a separate skillet over medium heat. Then stir in cinnamon and add granola. Cook, stirring constantly, until granola is hot and evenly coated. You may taste here and see if it needs more cinnamon. Drizzle maple syrup over granola and stir until well blended, about 2 min. Keep warm until the filling is ready.

Uncover the filling pan and check the apples for tenderness. If they've released more than a cup of juice, turn up the heat and boil some of it off. Remove from heat and scatter topping on the filling.

Not that different from the book, really.

Can be served hot, warm, or room temperature. We ate it with vanilla bean ice cream, and we're looking forward to tossing some vanilla soy milk on top tomorrow morning for breakfast. The craisins made this a bit sweeter than it would be otherwise, though not too sweet, and rather sticky, but they turned out to be a surprisingly good alternative to real cranberries.

What are those drinks behind the plates? Funny you should ask...

We had been thinking of a hot drink like a toddy but settled on two that were cold but definitely fit with the Crumble. Bull's Milk and its Variation, both from the fantastic online Cocktail Database (try their Mixilator). Don't worry, Bull's Milk has nothing to do with Rocky Mountain Oysters.

Both of these recipes are pretty simple, but you get some unusual brandy drinks out of them. Usually we use E&J VS brandy for most drinks. It tastes fine on its own and definitely when mixed (though nothing can fix a Stinger). But this time we tried ABK6 VS cognac.

Bull's Milk
2oz brandy
2oz milk
1/4 tsp sugar (superfine -- aka "bar sugar" -- is best, but if you only have regular sugar then dissolve it in some warm water first)

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled glass. Grate some fresh nutmeg on top. We garnished with a cinnamon stick.


How'd it taste? Well... basically like brandy and milk together. There is such little sugar and the nutmeg comes in so late that it's not all that complex or even sweet. We thought it was okay, but then we tried the variation.

Bull's Milk Variation
1oz light rum
1 1/2 oz brandy
1/2 tsp sugar
6oz milk

Shake with ice and strain into a tall glass. Grate nutmeg and cinnamon on top.


There we go. An alcoholic milkshake that can hold its own again the Brandy Alexander. The added milk and sugar help this drink along, and the rum cuts down on the cognac so that it's not so overwhelming. We could even imagine heating it up and trying it a few weeks from now when the weather catches up and Fall finally comes.