Monthly Archives: October 2012

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Pumpkin ice cream

The Starks are always right. Pumpkin-flavoured everything is coming.

Before you get started: Freeze your ice cream bowl for at least 15 hours.  After all the ingredients are combined, chill at least 1 hour before churning. This recipe is from the book that came with the attachment.

Time required: 3 hours (under 1 hour of actual work)

Yields: about 8 cups of ice cream

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $29.

Cost per scoop: maybe $1.80

Kitchen implements I used:

  • Nemo the KitchenAid mixer
  • ice cream maker attachment
  • mesh strainer

Ingredients:

  • 1½ C half and half (or light cream)
  • 6 egg yolks
  • ¾ C granulated white sugar
  • ½ TSP vanilla
  • ¾ TSP pumpkin pie spice
  • 1½ C heavy cream
  • 1½ C canned pumpkin

Instructions:

1. Scald the half and half in a heavy-bottomed sauce pot.

2. Combine yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

3. Use a strainer, and gradually temper in the hot half and half. Eww yuck skim.

4. Whisk in pumpkin pie spice.

5. Return mixture to stove, heat on medium-low for 10 min, stirring frequently. It’ll thicken. Don’t let it boil though.

6. Remove pot from heat.

7. Add canned pumpkin and heavy cream to mixing bowl. Strain in the hot mixture and whisk together.

Some desserts cannot be strained enough. I wholeheartedly endorse straining anything that involves scalded dairy.

Have no fear, it will all combine into this.

8. Chill at least one hour before churning into ice cream.

9. When you are ready to make ice cream, churn on speed 1 for 15-20 minutes until dasher clicks.

It stayed pretty fluid until about 15 minutes, that’s when I could see it was starting to firm up. Mine took 18 minutes before the first click.

I am pleased to report this time that I have figured out the frozen bowl completely, it stayed in place, and no thumbs were pinched.

10. Transfer to tupperware container and freeze at least 1 hour before serving.

11. Let thaw a few minutes before scooping with beautiful blue KitchenAid scoop!!

Verdict: Boyfriend says it tastes just like pumpkin pie, it was so good. I can’t really tell what it tastes like because I have a cold and my taste buds have died. :[

Making ice cream is so great! What shall I do with all of the frozen egg whites I have left over?

Playlist: Halo OST

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Strawberry jam

I invited a friend over recently, and she brought me a most fabulous birthday present: a canning starter kit. Wow! I was totally blown away, and very excited to make jam on my own. When Boyfriend came home and saw the canning kit, he got stars in his eyes and ran out to buy me some jars. Here is my first batch.

 

Before you get started: Listen up! Canning can kill (I should write slogans), so go read up on it before trying this at home.  In my first post about making jam with my sister M, I went into very detailed instructions, but this time I’m just posting the basic recipe and sterilization information:

  • Sanitize jars in the oven, pre-heat to 108°C / 225°F and heat jars for 10 minutes, then keep in the hot oven until needed.
  • Sanitize lids in a pot of steaming (not boiling) water, keep in hot water until needed.

Time required: 2 days (1 hour of actual work, needs to set 24 hours)

Yields: um… stay tuned on that

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $18.

Cost per jar: well…nevermind

Ingredients:

  • 1 package of Pectin
  • 4½ C of crushed strawberries
  • 7 C granulated white sugar

Instructions:

1. Place canning rack in canning pot, fill with water about halfway. Simmer and cover.  Sanitized jars should be in hot oven, sanitized lids should be in hot water (see tips above).

2. In a bowl combine ¼ C white sugar and pectin. (Reserve the rest of the sugar for later.)

3. Crush the berries with a potato masher. Make sure you have 4½ C of crushed berries, which is not the same thing as 4½ C of berries. Very important difference!

Actually I didn’t own a potato masher until yesterday, I took the berries out to thaw, and realized I had nothing to crush them with. One rushed trip to the store and…

4. Transfer berries to large pot, and stir in the sugar/pectin mixture.

5. Put pot on stove and bring to a boil, then stir in remaining sugar. Increase heat til you achieve a rolling boil (can’t stir it down). Let pot boil for 1 min, stirring often.

You should stir often so it won’t scorch. It actually started to boil over at one point.

6. Remove from heat, stir and skim for 5 minutes.

‘

Voila!

7. Place a funnel into a hot jar. Use a fresh measuring cup to spoon the jam into the jar.

8. Fill to the ¼” mark (the one tool I don’t have is a headspace gauge so I eyeballed this to the top ring).

What’s this?? Three filled jars and I’m out of jam. WTF.

9. Use the end of a measuring spoon to gently stir out air bubbles. Wipe the rim of the jar clean when you are done. (Jam on the rim will affect the seal.)

10. Use magnetic lifter to get the hot lids onto the jars.

11. Use your finger tips to screw the ring onto the jar. You don’t want it super-tight, because the air in the jar will expand as the hot jam heats it up, and that hot air needs to be able to escape the jar, to create the vacuum seal when the jar cools.

12. Now it’s time to use the canning pot and rack. The water should be hot but not boiling yet. Use the jar lifter to set the jars onto the rack. The water needs to be 1 to 2″ above the tops of the jars.

13. Turn up the heat until you have a full rolling boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes.

14. Use jar lifter to remove jars from pot, and set into a lined pan. Leave room between jars for air to circulate. Let jars sit undisturbed for 24 hours. You should hear a “pop” as the jars cool.

15. The next day check the seal. (If you have sealed your jars correctly, you can pick them up by the lids without the lids coming off.) Remove the rings, the lids should be “sucked down”. Press down on the centre of the lids with your finger. If the lid goes down it did not seal.

Verdict: Well, considering I don’t even like strawberry anything (except the fresh fruit), I thought this was pretty good. I made strawberry because it sounded easy and Boyfriend likes it. The reason I only got three jars of jam is that I used the wrong size jars. I thought I would get six or seven 250 mL jars, but what I had was 500 mL jars, oh well!

Playlist: Final Fantasy

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Belgian chocolate peanut butter ice cream

It’s Thanksgiving. I have no pumpkin. But I have something better.

This was a three-person enterprise made by yours truly, Boyfriend, and our friend V. This recipe is from the book that came with my ice cream maker, and I used my favourite Callebaut Belgian chocolate instead of baking squares, and added peanut butter chips. It was even more of a production than the cookies ‘n cream if you can imagine!

Before you get started: Your ice cream bowl needs to be frozen for at least 15 hours.

Once your start churning the ice cream, never, ever stop the mixer.

Time required: 2 days (1.5 hours of actual work and overnight chilling)

Yields: about 8 cups of ice cream

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $41, depending on the quality of chocolate

Cost per scoop: maybe $2.50

Kitchen implements required:

  • Nemo the KitchenAid
  • ice cream attachment
  • strainer

Ingredients:

  • 2 C heavy cream, divided
  • 60 g semi-sweet chocolate (2 oz)
  • 60 g unsweetened chocolate (2 oz)
  • 2 C half and half
  • 1 C granulated white sugar
  • ⅓ C cocoa
  • 8 egg yolks
  • 4 TSP vanilla extract
  • ⅛ TSP salt
  • 184 g milk chocolate (6.2 oz)
  • 1 C peanut butter cup pieaces

Instructions:

1. Chop the chocolate with a serrated blade, weigh it out and set aside. (The milk chocolate needs to be kept seperate, but the semi-sweet and unsweetened can be put in the same bowl.)

2. Using a double boiler on low, heat ½ C of the heavy cream, with the semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate. Stir often and once chocolate has melted smoothly, remove from heat.

3. In a different sauce pan on medium, heat the half and half to steaming. Remove from heat. (I convinced Boyfriend and V to do the stirring and pot watching because I HATE that part. Ah, helpers!)

4. In a small bowl combine sugar and cocoa. Set aside.

5. In mixer combine egg yolks and sugar/cocoa mix, beat til blended.

 

6. Gradually temper in the warm chocolate/cream mixture into the yolks. Strain the warm half and half into the yolks. Don’t skip straining, it catches a huge skim which you don’t want in your ice cream. Or maybe you do. Ew. Blend on low until mixture is thoroughly combined.

7. Return mixture to sauce pan, heat to scalding (small bubbles form under surface but don’t let it boil). It will thicken up a bit but don’t worry.

8. Remove from heat, and stir in the remaining 1½ C of heavy cream into the hot mixture. Cover and chill overnight.

9. The next day, place frozen bowl in mixer and start the mixer. Pour in chilled mixture, all at once, and beat on speed 1 for 10-15 minutes.

So yeah… what I said about don’t stop once you’ve started? The bowl was making a funny noise, and Boyfriend determined I put the bowl on backwards. The mixer was stopped for 30 seconds to re-position the bowl. Bad idea. By the time the mixer started back up, the ice cream had completely frozen to the bowl and he had to churn it by hand like crazy to get it going again, while I cursed and shouted in the background.

“It’s ruined. It’s going to be awful. Look, it’s not even moving!”

“It’s not ruined, it’s going to be fine!”

10. When 30 seconds remain, add milk chocolate, and peanut butter chips.

11. Transfer to tupperware container and freeze at least 2 hours.

12. Let stand 10 minutes before scooping.

Verdict: Wow, this is delicious. It reminds me a lot of Chocolate Supreme ice cream which I haven’t had in years. It’s very rich though. Three scoops was way too much.  Can’t wait til V gets to try it.

Playlist: Halo OST

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Cookies ‘n cream ice cream

For reasons I have never been able to fathom, Boyfriend does not like ice cream. But that’s totally cool, because that means there is more for me. Behold! Homemade ice cream!!

How did I make ice cream, you ask? Well! My wonderful family sent me the KitchenAid ice cream maker for my birthday. It’s an attachment designed to fit any model of a KA mixer, and I have been lusting after it for months. I can’t believe it’s finally mine!!

Before you get started: Making ice cream can be a two-day process. The bowl used to churn the cream needs to be frozen for at least 15 hours, and the recipe may require that you chill the mixed ingredients over night. This particular recipe (from the book that comes with the attachment) is very similar to making custard. I used real vanilla bean instead of extract though.

There is a helpful video here which shows how to assemble and use the attachment. Changing the ingredients or the ratios can screw up your finished product.

Time required: 2 days (1.5 hour of actual work)

Yields: I don’t even know, it’s a lot.

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $20.

Cost per scoop: Can you price joy? I don’t think so.

Kitchen implements I used:

  • Nemo the KitchenAid mixer
  • ice cream maker attachment
  • strainer

Ingredients:

  • 2½ C half and half
  • half of one vanilla bean, split and scraped
  • 8 egg yolks
  • 1 C granulated white sugar
  • ⅛ TSP salt
  • 2½ C heavy cream
  • 10 Oreo cookies

Instructions:

1. In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan on medium heat, combine scraped vanilla bean and the half and half. Heat to steaming.

2. Combine egg yolks, sugar, and salt. Using speed 2 for 30 seconds is enough.

3. Pour hot mixture through strainer and temper into the eggs, and whisk on low to combine.

4. Return entire mixture to stove top, and heat to scalding.

When small bubbles form at the edge it’s ready. Oops. This has heated too much. I used a different sauce pot for the second time and the bottom is too thin. Ugh I knew changing pots was a bad idea but I couldn’t be bothered to wash and dry my best pot for this type of stuff. That’ll teach me.

5. Transfer mix to a metal bowl and place into cold water bath. This will cool the temperature to prevent it from cooking.

After I poured the mixture into the red bowl, I looked at bottom of the sauce pan. Uh oh. This is not good. Scorched eggy mixture. I hope my ice cream doesn’t taste like burnt eggs. That would be worse than having no ice cream at all. :/

Hopefully the strainer caught all the bad stuff. (Don’t force stuff through the strainer, that defeats the point of straining.)

(Instant water bath! Sink! Ice cubes! Water!)

6. Cover mixture and chill overnight.

7. The next day, chop up Oreos and set aside.

8. Fit the drive assembly over the pin on the head of the mixer. Take chilled ice cream bowl from freezer, assemble the lock on the base, and set it in the stand. Set the dasher inside the bowl and turn mixer on lowest speed. The head should grab the dasher and turn smoothly.

Now here is where I ran into problems. Try as I might, the bowl would not fit into the base. I wish I had tested this before freezing, but now I’m panicking that my bowl is thawing so I decide to go ahead, and I’ll just hold the bowl steady while it churns. (Not the best idea, a KA mixer churns like you wouldn’t believe even on low and I got my thumbs pinched.)

9. In one pour, add the entire chilled mix to the running mixer (if the mixer is stopped your ingredients will flash freeze to the side of the bowl).

10. Churn on lowest speed for 20 minutes. It will start rising up the sides, the middle looks the right texture but the edges are soft and liquidy, I tried to scrape down the rim a few times but at this point it becomes gloriously messy. I wasn’t worried because from everything I have read about making ice cream at home, it’s normal to get soft serve and you freeze it to harden further.

11. When you have 30 seconds left, add the Oreos. The KA recipe said to use one and half cups of chopped Oreos. That was too much, they flew out of the bowl and hit me in the face. I got Oreos and ice cream everywhere.

12. It’s done! The ice cream is soft serve at this state, so transfer to a tupperware container and freeze for a few hours.

13. When you’re ready to enjoy some, let it sit 5 minutes on the counter before scooping.

Verdict: Delicious!! I invited a friend over and we enjoyed this lovely ice cream on my patio.

I was afraid I ruined it last night when I overcooked it during the second heating phase, but it turned out wonderfully! I’m still unclear why the bowl didn’t fit into the bottom of the mixer. After I cleaned the dishes I tested this again, and the bowl sits in there correctly without the locking piece – so I’m confused. The base lock is specifically for use with the tilt-head Artisan which I have. Oh well. I still got ice cream! And it was wonderful! I will see if I can figure out how to get the bowl situated correctly next time… when I make BELGIAN CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER! Gwahahahah!

Playlist: The Legend of Zelda – Symphony of the Goddesses concert