Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!

This morning I joined my mom and aunt for their weekend ritual: coffee. It makes for an early morning, but I love to join them. It is just so great to catch up and hang out. Typically their morning ends with errands, which are fun, too.

Later in the afternoon Rich and I joined my parent's (and brother) for dinner at their house.

We brought the salad, broccoli and three ice creams for dessert. My dad grilled up salmon and my mom assembled the bread and oven fries. In short: we had a feast and it was delicious!

It was fun to get to spend the day with my family.
Love them.

Craft # 5c: Salted Caramel Ice Cream

For Christmas I bought my mom, my aunt Colleen and Rich each a box of chocolate covered caramels topped with sea salt from Trader Joe's. They looked delicious! And while I didn't trust myself with a box, I knew I would still get to try a piece if I gave it to them. (Yeah... I had an alterior motive...)

So when I saw this ice cream recipe I knew my mom and aunt needed to have it for Mother's Day. Hence, Mother's Day ice cream #2.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream ‘caramel fleur de sel glace’
(Sources: David Lebovitz, Estarcion, EveningEdge, CD Kitchen)

Ingredients
1 c sugar (+1/2 c. sugar, if desired)
1 T butter
1 cups heavy cream [I used fat free half and half]
2 cups whole milk [I used skim milk]
5 egg yolks, whisked together minimally
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel -- plus more for serving
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Spread the 1c sugar (plus additional ½c. if desired) in the saucepan in an even layer. Cook over moderate heat, until caramelized. When melted, add butter. When the caramel is to your color-liking, mix in salt and whisk in the heavy cream (stand back - it will spatter)! Reduce heat. {The caramel may harden and seize, but return it to the heat and continue to stir over low heat until any hard caramel is melted.} Stir in 1 cup (250 ml) of the milk.

Whisk the yolks in a small bowl and gradually pour some of the warm caramel mixture over the yolks, stirring constantly. Scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan and cook the custard using a heatproof utensil, stirring constantly (scraping the bottom as you stir) until the mixture thickens. If using an instant-read thermometer, it should read 160-170 F (71-77 C).

Pour the custard through the strainer, add the vanilla and stir frequently until the mixture is cooled down. {Taste the caramel custard - you don't want it to be at full salt yet.} Refrigerate at least 8 hours or until thoroughly chilled.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Just before you turn the ice cream maker off, add in a generous pinch of big-grained sea salt. {I didn't do this... probably because I quit reading the directions. However I did add a pinch of big-grained sea salt to each scoop prior to serving}

I want to explain the soft-serve ice cream texture in this photo. This is what happens when you make 3 ice creams in the course of 48 hours. The frozen mixing bowl for the ice cream maker wasn't able fully re-freeze between batches and was less effective in the freezing process. It didn't help that I took the ice cream directly from the machine and brought it to my parent's house. It didn't have enough time to set and thus was very melty. Good thing that is my mom's favorite part. {I left the ice cream at my parent's house and they told me it did freeze up nicely overnight. However from what I understand this one disappeared quickly and didn't make it past that first night.}

Craft # 5b: Cake Batter Ice Cream

For Mother's Day I made not one, not two, but three different ice creams. The first one I made was cake batter ice cream. I know that Cold Stone Creamery carries this variety, but our "Neighborhood Ice Cream Shoppe" also has it and Rich ordered it once. One word: YUM! It really does taste like cake plus it has sprinkles.

My mom love ice cream cake, the DQ kind, but I thought I would take a different spin on it and make cake flavored ice cream.

Cake Batter Ice Cream
(Sources include: Recipezaar, Spice Dish and Scoopalicious)
Ingredients:

2/3 cup of sugar

4 large eggs yolks

1 cup skim milk

2 cups half and half [I used fat free half and half]

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup Yellow Cake mix [I used closer to +1 cup. I really liked the flavor and kept adding cake mix to the custard]

Dash of salt (optional) [I added it]
Sprinkles

Directions:
Beat the sugar into the eggs until thickened and pale yellow. Add the cake mix.

In a large saucepot, over medium heat bring the milk and half and half to a simmer add dash of salt. Once simmering, remove from stove and slowly add the hot milk mixture into the egg, sugar and cake mix and whisk until well mixed. Pour the entire mixture back into the sauce pan, and cook over low heat while mixing constantly until the mixture thickens. {The mixture may start to "bake" -- if this happens, take it off the stove immediately - it can still be salvaged by pouring through a strainer into a clean bowl.}

Remove from heat, and strain into a large bowl. Cover and refrigerate until cool (for several hours or overnight). Freeze according to manufacturer's directions.

Tip: taste mixture half way through to see if I have enough flavor, if you like more then you can add another tablespoon or two dry mix. For every quart of ice cream you should have 1/2 cup dry mix for flavor incorporated. [This is how I ended up using more than 3/4 c. mix]

Variations:
For cake batter lumps: Add additional dry cake mix half way or ten minutes before the freezing is complete and/or add another 2 tablespoons dry mix at the end of the freezing process and swirl with a spatula for lumps of dry mix. {did it}
Confetti Cake: Add rainbow sprinkles to the ice cream semi-frozen ice cream (about five minutes before ready to remove it from the ice cream maker.) Eat immediately or transfer to another container and freeze. {also did it. Not sure how much I added, but probably close to 2-3T.}

Add chunks of prepared cake: Five minutes before completion add cupcake pieces and sprinkles {didn't try}
Lemon & Strawberry Cheesecake: Use Lemon Supreme Cake Mix, fold in the strawberries and some toasted coconut at the very end. {didn't try it}

It was good. My dad's feedback was "it coats the back of his throat." Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I thought it tasted like cake and that was the point. In a later post you'll see what the full scoop looked like.

Busy Month

I probably should have mentioned this in my previous post - but because we've sold our home we kind of have a lot of work to do in a limited amount of time, 17 days in fact. As a result, expect blogging to be at a minimum in the upcoming weeks. {I would love to create more posts that I have been, however I feel extremely guilty if I'm not working on one of the projects below.}

Here is our list:
- Find temporary housing in which to reside while we look for our next home; we found a place!! checked off the list 5/11!
- Pack up belongings; Rich has started, I have not... DONE! 5/25. I ended up contributing, finally...
- Coordinate move, furniture, boxes, etc.; Moving truck rented, plan to move all large furniture 5/16; Change in plans, I think we are going to try to get a POD! So glad we did this!
- PO Box vs. Mail Forwarding; Rich is working on this... done! 5/22
- Order Lake Harriet Pizza once a week before we move {Our favorite local pizza place!}; ordered 4/26 (Supreme Pizza), 5/6 (Taco Pizza), 5/11 (Supreme Pizza); 5/23 (Supreme Pizza w/ Jalapenos)
- Order Fresh Wok at least twice before we move {Our favorite Chinese delivery restaurant}; ordered 5/9 (Steamed Chicken & Mixed Veggies), 5/22 same meal as before
- Search & purchase our next house!!~ Viewing trips w/ realtor: 4, Houses Shown: 27 (updated 5/30)

SOLD!!

We sold our house!! I didn't mention it on the blog before, but we listed our house in March. After 45 days on the market we received an offer we accepted!! We've had the inspection and all systems are a go for sale!

Our closing date is fast approaching (a little more than 3 weeks away). So we have a lot to do in a little amount of time. First on the list: find a new place to live.

*We are so excited!!*

Craft # 5a - Cinnamon Honey Ice Cream

During my Dad's winter stay in Las Vegas, he read an article about the health benefits of a variety of foods and has been making a concerted effort to ingest them on a daily basis. Two of the foods, in particular, are Cinnamon and Honey. Cinnamon and Honey are thought to aid digestion, reduce cholesterol and arthritis symptoms, treat toothaches and eliminate bad breath (among other things).

Rich, my idea man, suggested my Dad's ice cream flavor be Cinnamon Honey. Brilliant!

{ingredients}

Cinnamon Honey Ice Cream

Source: Ice Cream Recipes.com

Ingredients:

2 cups milk [I used fat free half and half]

1 egg (whole) + 3 egg yolks [I think I just used 4 egg yolks]

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

150ml cream (just over 1/4 pint) [I think I used 1c.]

2 sticks (about 6 cm) of cinnamon

1 t. ground cinnamon

Put the milk into a saucepan on medium heat, add the cinnamon and continue stirring until at simmering point. Remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse for about 1 hour. [I did not do this, but if you do - reheat the milk to the simmering point before tempering the eggs.]

In a separate bowl, mix together the egg yolks, sugar and honey. [I've read several recipes that have you beat the egg yolks and sugar mixture until the yolks are light yellow (~1 minute). So I usually do that at this step.]

Next step: temper the egg mixture. The goal of tempering is to slowly bring the egg mixture up to the milk temperature. [If you do this too suddenly (i.e. - dump the eggs into the hot milk), you will end up with scrambled eggs.] To temper, I take a ladel to take some of the hot milk mixture and slowly add it to the egg mixture, while whisking the eggs. I repeat this process a few times until I'm certain the egg mixture is about the same temperature as the milk mixture in the pot.

Pour your egg mixture back into the pot and heat gently, stirring contastantly. This is your custard. You want it to thicken until it coats the back of a spoon (you should be able to swipe your finger along the back of the spoon and the line stay in tact) and registers 170 to 175°F on thermometer, about 5 minutes. Do not let the mixture come to a boil. That will also lead the eggs to cook and your custard to curdle.

Once you have a thickened custard, remove your pan the heat and strain the mixture into a bowl. Cover and chill for several hours, preferably overnight in the refrigerator. Put the cinnamon sticks back in the custard in order to further infuse the flavor [this is why I skipped the original hour of steeping].

The following day (or once chilled) stir in the cream and ground cinnamon. Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.
After churning, I recommend freezing the ice cream mixture for another 1-2 hours so it sets. If you prefer a softer ice cream (similar to soft-serve), by all means, serve immediately!

{finished product}
Happy Birthday Dad!!

The end result was a very sweet ice cream. It kind of reminded me of the leftover milk after eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I would definitely make this again, but maybe cut back on the sugar content.

Craft # 5 - Ice Cream

I have two really great craft ideas in queue, but due to recent developments with our house I don't think they will get done in the month of May. So I'm going with Plan B: homemade ice cream.

Before we were married Rich thought we needed an ice cream maker; I thought he was crazy. My parent's had an ice cream maker, but never used it (and I think eventually donated it). So if I grew up not using one, I certainly didn't need one now. He didn't listen to me and bought one with some Best Buy points he had saved up. That year we hosted Thanksgiving and we tested the ice cream maker with some pumpkin pie ice cream. It was delicious.

I've made several kinds since: vanilla, almond, raspberry white chocolate, tiramisu, bacon - all of which have been good. {The tiramisu was not as good... but I have improvement ideas.}

The month of May contains two significant family celebrations: my Dad's birthday and Mother's Day. So for May's craft of the month I will experiment with different flavors and gift each parent with ice cream on their respective day.