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...

Homemade Chocolate Sherbet

I bought a new kitchen gadget at the beginning of the summer - an ice cream maker...Fun! I'm kind of addicted to buying kitchen gadgets. My mom bought me my KitchenAid stand mixer about 20 years ago right after college and it still works...I love it so (is it wrong to love an inanimate object?). I love to bake (obviously!) and think that everything is much easier when you have the right equipment. My friend V has an ice cream maker and after hearing of all of her imaginative frozen treats, I had to have one for myself.

The machine itself is super easy to use. You mix up the ingredients (make sure they're cold!) and then pour them into the frozen tub and the machine does the rest in about 20 minutes. After it mixes, you can enjoy it right away as super soft ice cream or put in the freezer to let it firm up a bit. The only real drawback is that you have to have lots of space in the freezer - space for the ice cream maker tub, and space for the container you're going to store the ice cream in (I use a glass container so it makes a huge difference to chill the container first, before adding the ice cream...otherwise it starts to melt right away since the glass is room temp). When it's 85 and humid, it also helps to keep your serving dishes in the freezer. I use ramekins so they are pretty easy to tuck into little nooks in the freezer.

So far I've made David Lebovitz's delicious chocolate sherbet several times. It's very chocolatey and creamy, and since it's only made with whole milk so I can pretend that it's good for me. It's made using both cocoa powder and dark chocolate so it's great for my fellow chocolate lovers out there; you really only need a little to fulfill that chocolate craving. I've also made a coffee and vanilla bean sherbet. While it tasted quite delicious, I left it in the ice cream maker for far to long so it got really icy. After that debacle I make sure to always set a timer. 

Next on the list are some more interesting flavors - grapefruit and honey sorbet sounds delicious! EatingWell has some really interesting sorbet combinations. Yum!

mise en place - so simple!

cocoa powder is melted in 1/2 the milk

the chocolate is melted in and the vanilla, coffee liquor and remaining milk are added

into the ice cream maker

starting to freeze

almost there...

done and dusted. And delicious!

Bye for now...

Sugar-Crusted Popovers

In addition to the buttery-almondy-lemony Gâteau Breton I made in my baking frenzy last weekend, I also made these amazingly addictive, over-the-top yummy, incredible Sugar-Crusted Popovers. The recipe is courtesy of David Lebovitz (his recipe is adapted, in part, from a Maida Heatter popover recipe). The only change I made was to the baking temperature. My usual popover recipe is from Julia Child's Baking with Julia and she calls for baking at a higher temp to start and then lowering the temp to dry out the inside a bit. So that's what I did.

With the dusting of cinnamon sugar, they kind of reminded me of a fresher, moister, eggier fried dough. They were absolutely delicious and I was on a sugar high all day. They'd be wonderful for a brunch party - some baked eggs, bacon, fresh fruit, coffee and, of course, these wonderful sugary popovers.

They were super fast and easy to make - everything except the flour goes into the blender...whirl...add flour...whirl again. Done! I didn't have a popover pan so I baked them in a cupcake pan. Easy! Bake them up, brush with melted butter, dredge in sugar. Delicious!

mise en place...so simple.

giving it a whirl

then the batter is poured into a buttered pan

the melted butter and cinnamon and sugar for the crust

I love popovers

gorgeous...

...and incredibly tasty!

Bye for now...

Kouign Amann: an experiment in butter and sugar

A couple of months ago I stumbled onto David Lebovitz's website and a most delicious looking photo of a dessert I'd never heard of: Kouign Amann. I had to try it. While I overbaked my first attempt slightly, it was still absolutely delicious - buttery, but not too rich, and surrounded by a chewy caramelized sugar dough.

I had a slight problem with the dough "weeping" after it rested in the fridge, so it was a sloppy mess by the time I got it in the pan to bake. This didn't seem to affect the taste, but did make a big, sticky, sugary mess when rolling out and handling the dough. (This happened to me another time with palmiers so I need to investigate a bit to find out what causes the weeping with butter/sugar doughs.) Leslie Cole of The Oregonian reports that Romina Rasmussen, owner of Les Madeleines - and famous for her Kouign Amann - says that it may be American butter which has a higher moisture content than European. So, next time I'll splash out for some swanky European butter. On a side note, OMG, check out these photos from Les Madeleines - I think it's time to visit Utah! Leslie Cole also provides two recipes which I'll try next time I make Kouign Amann.

The recipe and directions can be found on David Lebovitz's website.

mise en place

proofing the yeast

ready to knead

so smooth and pretty

ready to rise

hmmm, I may have let it rise too much

this is so "webby," I'm getting nervous that it's over-risen

my dough is really thin...I think it must have risen too much...but I'll keep plugging along

adding the butter and some sugar

making an "envelope"

folded over again...kind of a mess at this point, with butter poking out everywhere

My dough was definitely too thin and so the butter didn't get incorporated properly, even after the second roll, however it still tasted fine in the end.

after the first rise in the fridge - a wet sloppy mess

ready to go into the oven

smells so good, like caramel

yum

Bye for now...