… we all scream-a for ice cream-a!

Despite my recent posts about pies, the truth is that the confection I have been experimenting with most lately is ice cream.  For my birthday (in February) my amazing and wonderful mother-in-law gave me an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, and this summer I have been giving it a real workout! 

For the 4th of July, I wanted to make a sorbet as a palate cleanser to go with the grilled oysters I was bringing to a BBQ.  My aforementioned mama- in-law had sent a few ice cream recipe books, and The Idiot’s Guide to Ice Cream had some surprising flavors; I decided to go with cucumber.

I think I blew the mind of the farmer’s market vendor I bought the English cucumbers from by telling him my purpose— that was kind of fun.  The recipe is basically pureed cucumbers, water, lemon juice, and simple syrup; in place of the water, I used green tea, and I infused the simple syrup with mint.  It was a little sweeter than I expected, but had a wonderfully refreshing flavor, and I was surprised at how green it turned out.

I love trying exotic ice cream flavors, but the one I grew up eating is coffee, so I really wanted to find a coffee ice cream recipe I liked.  The Gourmet Cookbook includes a recipe for espresso gelato which is super simple and very light as it only contains milk, instant espresso powder, and corn starch.  I decided to make it a second time as an excuse to use up some leftover whole milk, and added some chopped bittersweet chocolate (54%) and swirled in some fruit-juice sweetened Hot Fudge.  It was fantastic!

At some point I got it into my head to make Peach ice cream.  I’m not sure how it happened, as I don’t think I’ve ever even had peach ice cream.  For this recipe, I turned to A Passion for Ice Cream, also a gift from my 2nd mom.  I think I messed up here, though, by not chopping the peaches finely enough, an error I didn’t realize until after I cooked them and mixed them into the custard.  I thought it would then be OK to use the immersion blender to puree the mix, but I think it “whipped” the cream too much, because the ice cream had a weirdly fluffy texture, especially before it really froze and as it was melting.  I also expected the ice cream to be tangier, more like a fresh peach with some cream poured over it.  I think this recipe deserves a redo, but in an effort to salvage the batch, I ate it with amaretti and fresh sliced peaches.  Poor me.

As it often goes, my favorite ice cream concoction was the one I made on a whim.  While practicing my pie for the pie contest I didn’t attend after all (post on that to come), I made my own ginger snaps for the crust.  Realizing I had  way more cookies than I needed, I picked up some beautiful Meyer lemons at the farmers’ market, and made a lemon ice cream which I sandwiched between some of the leftover cookies.  This divine flavor combination reminds me of the retro-fabulous Haddon Hall Gingerbread my aunt sometimes makes at Christmas time, but in glorious ice cream form. 

We had some boys over the a few nights later, and I cut them in half to share with them as we watched our Mad Men marathon.  I think they were impressed when I told them that I had made the cookies and the ice cream in addition to sandwiching them together.  I was mostly impressed that I shared them in the first place!  These are definitely going to be made again, but not before I try out some other flavors!  Stay tuned!