Lemon Ginger Ice Cream

I made this delicious Lemon Ginger Ice Cream to go with my Blueberry Galette. The blueberries, lemon and ginger were a wonderful combination. And the ice cream just on its own is delicious. A light lemon flavor with the spicy kick of ginger. I think I'll try a lemon raspberry ice cream next - using some of my favorite raspberry sauce, of course - yum!

My recipe is adapted from David Lebovitz's White Chocolate And Fresh Ginger Ice Cream. I highly recommend visiting his website: drool-worthy recipes and lots of beautiful pictures.

Lemon Ginger Ice Cream
Ingredients
3 oz (approx) unpeeled ginger, sliced into strips
about 1 c water (enough to cover the ginger in a saucepan)
zest of 2 lemons
3/4 c sugar
1 c whole milk
2 c heavy cream, divided in half
5 large egg yolks

Directions
Pour 1 cup of heavy cream into a large bowl. Set a fine strainer over the bowl and set aside.

Place ginger slices and water (enough to cover them) in a medium saucepan, bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove ginger slices, rinse them and set aside. Rinse the saucepan, return ginger slices to pan and add the lemon zest, sugar, milk and the remaining 1 cup of cream. Warm this mixture then remove from heat and set aside. Allow to steep for about 1 hour, or to taste. I steeped for about 45 minutes because I didn't want the ginger to be overpowering.

the ginger and lemon smelled so good

steeping the ginger in the milk-cream mixture

Before the next step, prepare an ice bath and set the bowl with the cup of heavy cream in the ice bath.

Remove the ginger slices using a fork or tongs. Reheat the milk-cream mixture. In a small bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks, then - as you whisk - pour a few tablespoons of the hot milk-cream into the eggs to temper them. Still whisking, add a bit more of the milk-cream mixture.

Pour the warmed egg mixture into the saucepan, return to heat. Whisking continuously, cook over low heat (use a large wooden spoon or spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the saucepan) until the custard reaches 170 degrees or coats the back of the spoon.

Strain the custard mixture into the bowl with the cup of heavy cream. I wanted to add my lemon zest to the final ice cream so I removed it from the saucepan/strainer and added it back into the ice cream.

saving my zest

Cool the ice cream mixture over the ice bath then refrigerate for about 5 hours (or overnight). I used a flat container so the mixture would chill faster since I wanted to serve the ice cream the same evening.

ready to chill

After the ice cream mixture is completely chilled follow your ice cream maker's instructions to finish. I have a Cuisinart ICE-21 Frozen Yogurt, Ice Cream & Sorbet Maker and love it. It is easy to use and very fast. My lemon ginger ice cream was done in about 15 minutes!

the day it was made, the ice cream was almost like soft serve and
was delicious with my Blueberry Galette

the next day the ice cream was much more firm...but just as delicious!

Bye for now...

Avid Baker's Challenge: Blueberry Galette with Lemon Ginger Ice Cream

This month's Avid Baker's Challenge recipe is the Glazed Apricot-Plum Galette on page 228 of The Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge. I was planning to make my galette for a dinner party but one guest is allergic to plums, so I decided to use blueberries instead of the apricots/plum combo. This is my Blueberry Galette.

I absolutely love blueberries and since they are now in season, I've been getting two pints per week added on to my Boston Organics (love!) delivery. Over the past five or so weeks, I've made Blueberry Crumble, Blueberry Muffins (from Baking with Julia), Warm Cinnamon-Spiced Blueberry Cake (from ABC's The Weekend Baker) and Blueberry Crisp with the blueberries left over from this recipe. Wow, I'm surprised my skin hasn't turned blue!

For this week's Blueberry Galette, I also wanted to make some homemade ice cream. I decided that lemon and ginger would be the perfect flavors to go with blueberries. My Lemon Ginger Ice Cream is detailed in a separate post.

my finished galette

The recipe for the galette crust is from The Weekend Baker. Once again, I struggled with a recipe from this book. Frustrating. The dough for the crust was pretty easy to make and work with (despite it being 90+ and humid), but during cooking it split open in several places and most of the blueberry juice leaked out onto the sheet pan. I know that blueberries release a lot of juice, but it seems that many other ABC bakers had a similar problem using different kinds of fruit, so I do think it was the dough. Although, I will add that even though the bottom of the galette cooked in its own juices, it still had a firm, cooked bottom crust, which I wasn't expecting.

The other thing that was very difficult was that after baking and cooling the galette "slightly" (not very specific!) you have to use two large spatulas to lift it onto the serving plate. I could have used about 3 extra hands for this part. Due to the juices having leaked out, the galette was almost suctioned onto the parchment paper. Trying to lift it off the parchment - while not completely breaking it in half - was a huge challenge. I ended up using a huge spatula and two cardboard cake rounds to transfer it. But, in the end, I got it onto the serving plate in one piece and everyone at dinner loved it, so I guess that's all that matters!

Here is the recipe for my blueberry filling:

2 pounds fresh blueberries (I used slightly more than 2 lbs but about 1 lb of this mixture was used for my Blueberry Crisp)
juice from 2 lemons (about 1/4 cup)
zest from 2 lemons (about 2 heaped tablespoons)
2/3 c sugar (to taste, 1/2 would have been fine since the crust and crisp topping were slightly sweet)
3 T cornstarch
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t salt

Pour the lemon juice over the blueberries and mix gently so you do not crush the berries. Combine the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add the sugar mixture to the blueberries and mix (gently) until the berries are coated. Pour into the middle of the galette dough or, for the crisp, spoon into ramekins.

mise en place for the crust

I prefer to mix my pie crusts by hand, instead of a food processor,
so I can feel how the dough is coming together

after adding the water and lemon juice, I turned it onto the counter-top to finish it.
I used my bench scraper to finish cutting all the ingredients together.

for a tender crust, stop when everything has just come together

fresh blueberries - yum!

mise for the filling

so sweet and lemony, I could have just eaten the berries like this

the berries go into the center and the edges are folded up toward the middle

voila! The crust gets a brushing of milk and sprinkling of sugar before baking.

finally got it safely onto the serving dish

served with my homemade lemon ginger ice cream...
the combinations of flavors was fabulous!

Bye for now...

In the Garden: what's blooming in late-July

Rudbeckia triloba

We planted a new front garden this summer; most of the plants went in in early and mid-June but we added a few more toward the end of July. I went to Mahoney's and they were having a sale so I couldn't resist stocking up on some more plants.

In an effort to keep better track of the garden, so I know what times of the year need a few more blooming plants, I'm going to start photographing the garden a couple of times a month. Here's what's blooming in late-July.

Geranium Rozanne in the forefront and
Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies' in the background

A Geranium Rozanne blossom hanging out with
Hakonechloa macra 'Naomi' (Japanese Fountain Grass)

A mix of blooms

Rudbeckia fulgida 'Little Goldstar'

a close up

Clematis 'Roguchi' climbing up a railing. I absolutely love this clematis.
It's grown steadily since planted in June and has a dozen or more flowers blooming.

hello bee...buzz buzz

our Gaura lindheimeri 'Whirling Butterflies' has a mass of tiny white flowers
which bloom at the ends of long thin stems. Very graceful and delicate looking.

a little butterfly resting on the leaf of a Dicentra spectabilis (bleeding heart)

our Asteromea mongolica (Japanese aster) is still flowering.
We planted it in mid-June and it's been blooming since then - more than six weeks!

Scaevola aemula 'Top Pot Blue' in a pot

Scaevola aemula mixed in with some Portulaca oleracea (Purslane)

this one was labeled Rudbeckia fulgida 'City Garden' at Mahoney's but
that can't be right because it's too tall. I'll see how it grows in next year and
try to figure out what it really is.

I added two Echinacea purpurea 'Virgin' in July so I've have more late-summer bloomers

so pretty!

A close up of Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote' with Asteromea mongolica in the background.
I love lavender!

another new plant, Veronica spicata. I think this one was also mislabeled because
it is supposed to be blue.

our Rudbeckia triloba, brown-eyed-Susan, is amazing. We planted it in
ealry-June and it started flowering - just one or two opening - but this past week
or so has seen an explosion of flowers. Lovely!

a close up

Bye for now...