Coffee Ice Cream

This coffee ice cream was awesome, it turned out amazing even though I only used 4 egg yolks. I thought it was just sweet enough, but my sister thought it was too sweet and soft, different ice cream tastes I guess! There is a lot of coffee in this- there are coffee grounds in the ice cream and the cream was steeped with coffee beans too. Another ice cream recipe winner from David Lebovitz.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream

Sorry, no photos of this bomb ice cream. It just looked like regular vanilla ice cream in photos so I decided to leave it out. Anyways, who thought banana ice cream would be good?? I had it at Bi-Rite up in Norcal and I was HOOKED. I thought about it for weeks when I got back home until I found this recipe from, of course, David Lebovitz. I've also seen recipes for vegan ice cream that consist only of bananas and whatever flavoring you want to add. Not sure how that would taste. The texture of this was sort of strange... it froze very very hard and was creamy, but also had the texture of bananas. Not sure how to describe it. I'm going to try a different banana:cream ratio next time.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake and Honey Lavender Ice Cream

the elusive organic lavender

I had dinner at Fraiche a few months ago and the food was very good, but the dessert was mind blowing-amazing-awesome. I had a scoop of honey lavender ice cream- I picked it spontaneously. This ice cream tasted like a savory, subtle honey ice cream infused with flowers. It was so good- almost savory. I thought about that ice cream for a very long time and I found this recipe and made it and guess what... it tastes exactly the same!!! It took me 3 trips to different Whole Foods and Ralphs' to finally find some organic edible lavender, but it was worth it. SO WORTH IT.



And I made a huge chocolate cake. I didn't have raspberry jam so I used strawberry and it turned out pretty well (although I should really listen

Whole Wheat Brownies and Apple Pie Ice Cream

In an attempt to be more healthy I bought white whole wheat flour. I've been using it in regular APF recipes- usually substituting 1/4 of the APF with whole wheat. This recipe is all whole wheat and somehow it's still good- usually you can still feel the difference (like whole wheat pasta vs regular pasta). Also since a brownie doesn't have to be fluffy or tender it's a good place to start with whole wheat flour. I couldn't tell the difference between this brownie and any other brownie even though I ate it right after baking (the recipe has you wait overnight for the wheat germ to soften).


I had apple pie ice cream at Scoops and it started an apple pie obsession. I don't even LIKE pie- the filling is too sweet and goopy. I ate some form of apple pie every couple of days for 3 weeks- including the tasty apple pie from the Apple Pan. Finally my wallet was bled dry and I set out to make my own apple pie ice cream via this recipe. The only thing it's missing is the crust and it doesn't make that much- it was enough for 4 servings.

Chocolate Ice Cream and Salted Chocolate Dipped Caramels

Another ice cream recipe by David Lebovitz- this one is for chocolate ice cream. When choosing between vanilla and chocolate I always go for vanilla. Chocolate isn't as refreshing to me and I rarely eat chocolate ice cream, but for some reason I was craving it. There was a false start- I was stupidly trying to do dishes at the same time and my custard turned into scrambled eggs. Always make sure you pay attention! I need to relearn how to uni-task. The final product? It's good. Like crazy good. It's smooth, creamy and not overly sweet.

I made a smore of sorts- chocolate ice cream, crushed graham crackers and a toasted marshmallow.



I have a big list of things I want to make and one of the things on the list is caramels. I found this recipe for Salted, chocolate dipped caramels from the NY Times. I'm very scared of heating sugar- I've read and heard a lot of stories about sugar burns and I'm already much aware of hot oil and pan burns. I was extra careful- aprons, glasses and oven mitts at all times! In the end, I was probably overprepared. Just make sure to use a very large pan- much bigger than you think you'll need because it bubbles and grows. And a candy thermometer is indispensable for this recipe.


Also, unless you are making wedding favors or plan on eating 10 caramels every day for a month, make half or even a quarter of the recipe. I made this a month ago and I STILL have a tupperware container full of caramels in my fridge (not complaining that much actually...). Just be aware it makes a LOT and caramel is not a stagnant object. My thermometer says I hit all the right temps, but that caramel oozes. I had to refrigerate portions at a time and work at a crazy speed to dip and salt them and then get it back into the fridge. It didn't help that it was a very hot day. In the end it was worth it. I had dozens and dozens of small (and large and oddly shaped) caramels. They taste exactly like the caramel bar from Huckleberry (minus the cookie crust), which is what started my obsession in the first place. They are salty/sweet/chewy/buttery and oh so melty.

Green Tea Ice Cream and Shortbread cookies

My favorite ice cream is probably green tea ice cream, with taro a close second (not sure where to get taro powder in the US though...). This recipe is awesome- it tastes exactly like the ice cream you get in the stores, but you can make it for half the price! Just make sure you go to a Japanese supermarket to get the green tea and not somewhere like Whole Foods where it's $30 for a tiny container. Also this ice cream doesn't have any egg yolks in it so it's thankfully not as rich as the other ice creams I've made.


Another favorite of mine is Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies. These are so freaking good and buttery. But this recipe for a green tea shortbread beats it. The only cookie cutters I have are candy cane and stocking shaped so I used those. These cookies disappeared in a few days (good thing one batch makes a ton of cookies!).

Still using my trusty salt shaker as a rolling pin.

The underbelly full of nooks and crannies.

Vanilla bean ice cream and root beer floats

This recipe is from David Lebovitz's book, The Perfect Scoop. It's a very intense vanilla ice cream, very rich. I made a root beer float with the BEST root bear, Virgil's!


It's not the prettiest root beer float, but don't worry I finally bought an ice cream scoop! Yay!

Vanilla Ice Cream with Strawberries

The recipe for this luscious ice cream is from Tartelette. It's vanilla bean ice cream with nice bits of strawberries (not strawberry ice cream). I still have a bunch of vanilla beans left- I ordered a dozen from amazon, which is much much cheaper then getting one beach from Ralphs or Whole Foods. Not only are they cheaper, they're more fresh and pliable then the ones I normally get. The problem afterward is finding a use for all of them. Vanilla sugar, vanilla pound cake, vanilla cake, vanilla everything. Good thing Ilya bought me the ice cream attachment for my beloved KitchenAid mixer.

Egg yolks before being whisked.

Egg yolks, after being whisked. See how much lighter they are?

A lot of ice cream recipes call for raw egg yolks, which I'm not 100% comfortable with... Traditional custard based ice creams also tend to be more rich than I'm used to (thankfully my roommates are happy to help me finish my ice cream experiments). I think my favorite ice cream recipe is the one for green tea, which I'll post soon.

Look at my mixer go!

Making ice cream is easy. I leave my ice cream bowl in the freezer so it's always ready to make ice cream. Of course I have to wait anyways since the ice cream has to be refrigerated for several hours. The colder you can get all your ingredients, the better. This ice cream was okay- I think I didn't mix the ice cream and strawberries enough so there were some icey streaks of strawberry. Overall though, a good ice cream!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Last weekend I went to Japan town's Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco to try some new good eats... and boy, did I find some surprises!

SPAM MUSUBI

(Can't tell too well from the picture, but this is wrapped in seaweed.)

This savory treat is absolute genius. It's probably among the simplest of creations and yet it tastes so amazingly good! I bought 3 (took two home) of these from two different booths but I noticed there was a difference in taste. So far I can tell you that the sauce is the biggest determiner of a "good" spam musubi, and that too little seaweed can be a bad thing. I even went home and bought a musubi molder off eBay for about $10 including shipping. I'll be making these in the near future.
*One small note about these: they're not Japanese! I wikied it and it actually turns out that these are a Hawaiian creation, probably Japanese-influenced. Still good, though.

BEEF BALLS

What the heck are those?? Beats me. Really beats me. I waited in a half an hour plus line for these so-called "amazing" beef balls and when I took a bite I tasted... starchiness???? Beef balls my butt! Most of the ball is made of a doughy-sponge cakey-batter, and there was maybe a tiny piece of meat here and there. What you really taste is the batter, the sauce (some kind of teriyaki sauce I believe), and the ginger. Below is what's actually in it:

All I can say was that I was pretty disappointed for the nice list of ingredients they had above. If only they had focused on the beef!

GREEN TEA ICE CREAM

No pictures here for this once; it was a basic two-scoops of green tea ice cream on a regular cone. It is honestly some of the best green tea ice cream I've ever had, and I've had green tea from quite a few restaurants and quite a few ice cream brands. This was some good stuff I had... it's possibly where many Japanese restaurants get their green tea from (because it tastes quite comparable if not the same). What has two thumbs and knows the source of great green tea ice cream? This one! *Points thumbs at self* I found out where it's from. Hard to find in your local markets, but definitely available through special-order. Guess where it's from. You'd never believe it. It's Dreyer's.