Lesson #187: Peppermint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I was driving by Chick-fil-a last week and I saw an advertisement for their Peppermint Milk Shake. I had two thoughts: that sounds really yummy and I think that I've made a version of that ice cream last year. Of course, I had to get a milk shake for research purposes :)

I came home and found an ice cream recipe that I posted last year and modified it to add bits of milk chocolate throughout. That was a good idea! This is a cooked custard based ice cream with candy canes steeped into the custard. During the last few minutes of churning I added crushed candy canes and chopped milk chocolate. DELISH!

LESSON LEARNED: Don't add any food coloring to this ice cream. As it sits in the freezer, it becomes "pinkish".

Recipe for Peppermint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Lesson #183: Sweet Potato & Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream

This recipe is for a novelty ice cream. How many times have you tasted sweet potato ice cream? If you are like me, the answer is zero. At least until you try this recipe! :)

It really, truly does taste like sweet potato. That can either be a good or bad thing. The sweet potato ice cream base is flavored with cinnamon and molasses and the toasted marshmallows add a little extra sweetness & smokey flavor. I liked it enough to have a few spoonfuls of it, while my husband ate a few bowls of it. For him, the best part about this is the toasted marshmallows which are folded into the ice cream after it's churned.

LESSON LEARNED: Toast the mini marshmallows over a gas burner or use a kitchen torch. Work quickly - they melt fast!

Recipe for Sweet Potato and Toasted Marshmallow Ice Cream

Lesson #179: Pumpkin 5-Spice Ice Cream

We are in LOVE with this ice cream! Rich pumpkin puree is combined with honey and Chinese five spice in this sweet cream ice cream. Chinese five spice contain warm spices such as cloves and cinnamon with a touch of pepper. I think it tastes very similar to a chai flavor. Since chai lattes are one of my favorite things, this ice cream is pretty darn DELICIOUS!

LESSON LEARNED: You can roast your own pumpkin for this recipe. I was running short on time, so I used the canned variety. It was still delicious!

Recipe for Pumpkin 5-Spice Ice Cream

Lesson #175: Dark Chocolate & Sea Salt Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich

I couldn't resist this combination of sweet & salty in the form of an ice cream sandwich. I've noticed a trend on other food blogs discussing these dark chocolate cookies. I decided to take the recipe up a notch by sandwiching the cookies between ultra-creamy vanilla ice cream. Use the best ice cream you can find - or make your own!

LESSON LEARNED: Refrigerate this cookie dough at least an hour before you bake. I refrigerated it a whole 24 hours before baking...this really allows the flavors in the cookie to develop.

Recipe for Dark Chocolate & Sea Salt Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches

Lesson #168: White Chocolate Ice Cream

This ice cream is INCREDIBLY smooth and creamy. You start by making a vanilla ice cream custard base and end by whisking in pieces of chopped white chocolate until they are melted and ultra smooth. Justin prefers this ice cream topped with a rich chocolate sauce. YUM!

LESSON LEARNED: Use a high quality white chocolate in this recipe because it's the star ingredient - meaning the one you taste the most.

Recipe for White Chocolate Ice Cream

Lesson #167: Tin Roof Ice Cream

No oh! The seasonal ice cream store down the street is closed for the winter. That means that I'll be breaking out my ice cream maker to experiment with new flavors. :)

First up: this tin roof ice cream. It's a super creamy vanilla bean base with chocolate covered peanuts and fudge ripple sauce folded in after it's freshly churned.

LESSON LEARNED: Use either dark chocolate or milk chocolate covered peanuts in this ice cream depending on how rich you want the chocolate flavor to taste. We used dark chocolate which I thought was maybe too intense for the ice cream.

Recipe for Tin Roof Ice Cream

Lesson #164: Raspberry Ice Cream with Mini-Chocolate Chips

Over the last few weeks, I feel like I've been rushing to make all my favorite summer flavors into ice cream. This recipe is for an ultra-creamy vanilla ice cream with spoonfuls of raspberry jam and mini-chocolate chips mixed in. It's definitely a great end-of-the-summer combination!

As you can tell from the photo, I took it while the ice cream was freshly churned and I didn't get too many of the chocolate chips in the picture. Trust me- they are there! :) This ice cream was so good that I quickly snapped a few pictures, put away my camera, and enjoyed the ice cream outside.

LESSON LEARNED: It's easy to take any good ice cream base and mix in your favorite flavors!

Recipe for Raspberry Ice Cream with Mini-Chocolate Chips

Lesson #160: Cookie Dough Ice Cream

I've been on an ice cream making kick lately! I guess the ice cream I made for the fair a few weeks ago inspired me to get out my ice cream maker and try a few new recipes. I made a half batch of this ice cream because I thought that Justin would not like the flavor and I didn't (sigh!) want to be forced to eat the whole thing. I was wrong, however, because Justin ate just as much of it as I did. Guess I'll have to get busy making another flavor :)

This ice cream is super creamy with bits of chocolate chip cookie dough studded throughout. The ice cream base combines both brown butter, brown sugar, and molasses to replicate the taste of cookie dough. I thought it was FABULOUS!

LESSON LEARNED: Mix in the bits of cookie dough at the very end of churning so they don't sink to the bottom of the ice cream maker!

Recipe for Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Lesson #157: Buckeye Ice Cream

Candy buckeyes are pretty a typical candy in Ohio households - especially during the holidays. For anyone that is unfamiliar with the candy, they are creamy peanut butter balls partially dipped in chocolate to resemble, well, buckeyes.

A few weeks ago for our county fair, I decided to enter a Buckeye ice cream into the novelty ice cream category. Since the classic combination of peanut butter and chocolate is usually a favorite and given the fact that I live in Ohio, I thought this ice cream would be popular. I did win a ribbon for my ice cream so I guess I was right!

I loved the fact that the ice cream was super smooth & creamy with a strong peanut butter flavor. The richness of the peanut butter was cut with chunks of dark chocolate. The people who tasted this ice cream told me it definitely reminded them of the candy version.

LESSON LEARNED: Use your favorite type of chocolate in this recipe - I used dark, but milk chocolate would be equally good!

Recipe for Buckeye Ice Cream

Lesson #155: County Fair & Creamy Strawberry Ice Cream

I haven't posted any new recipes in a while, but that's only because I've been super busy. I've spent the last week at our local county fair! My brother runs a few concession trailers at the fair, so I've spent the week making soft-serve ice cream cones and root beer floats :)

In addition to working at the booth, I also entered a few baking/cooking projects. Check out my ribbons:

Pretty exciting, huh? Here's the breakdown on what I won:
1st place: Creamy Strawberry Ice Cream
1st place: Milk Chocolate Ice Cream
1st place: Buckeye Ice Cream
1st place: BBQ Pork Sandwich with Apple Slaw
2nd place: White Bread (I made this recipe with no cinnamon swirl)
2nd place: Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Last Sunday was the special ice cream day at the fair. Since we LOVE homemade ice cream in our house, I decided to enter all four categories of ice creams (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, and novelty). We could watch the local county people judge the ice creams, then they announced the winners, and you could sample all the ice creams. I think that sampling was my favorite part!

I tried a new strawberry ice cream recipe which was chock full of fresh strawberries and amazingly creamy. The chair of the culinary committee told me that she liked it so much she was going to try a variation of the recipe herself (substituting raspberries for strawberries and adding dark chocolate chunks.....sounds good to me!).

Here's a picture of a spoonful of strawberry ice cream right after I churned it and packed it up to go to the fair. We've already made a second batch at home :)

LESSON LEARNED: Use the freshest strawberries you can find for the recipe. It will make a big difference!

Recipe for Creamy Strawberry Ice Cream

Lesson #154: Sweet Corn Ice Cream with Berry Swirl

This ice cream tastes like a spoonful of summer! I absolutely fell in love with the idea of corn ice cream last year, but I didn't have a chance to make it during prime corn season. I haven't made homemade ice cream in at least 2 months (we have TWO season ice cream stores within walking distance of our house.....and yes, they pretty much know us since we visit often!) and yesterday I was in the mood to make ice cream.

Fresh super sweet corn is infused into the ice cream base and then swirled with a sauce made from raspberries and blackberries once it's frozen. I really enjoyed the sweet flavor of the corn mixed with the tangy bite of the berry sauce. It may sound weird to put corn into ice cream, but if you are adventurous, I would give this recipe a shot.

LESSON LEARNED: Fresh corn is good in desserts too!

Recipe for Sweet Corn Ice Cream with Berry Swirl

Lesson #146: Raspberry Sorbet

WHEW! It's been hot the last few days. So hot in fact that it was TOO hot to walk to the nearest local ice cream place. It's a good thing I had this sorbet in my freezer. :)

It's the time of year that raspberries are just starting to come in season and they taste amazing. Once you get tired of eating raspberries straight from the bush (or container!), I would suggest this recipe. It embodies all the magnificent attributes of raspberries - sweet, yet tart - into a cool summer dessert.

 LESSON LEARNED: This recipe calls for a tiny amount of pectin to help the sorbet hold it's shape once it's scooped into bowls. If you don't mind melty sorbet, you could leave it out.

Recipe for Raspberry Sorbet

Lesson #115: Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

My husband and I are moving at the end of the week, so over the past few weeks I've been trying to use up the odds and ends in my freezer and refrigerator. I realized that I had some leftover cake in the freezer from making these parfaits, so it was the perfect excuse to try this ice cream recipe.

Pieces of yellow butter cake are tossed with a honey butterscotch sauce and then folded into a vanilla ice cream. It definitely brought me back to the days of eating birthday cake with a scoop of ice cream - except it's all in one DELICIOUS bite!

 LESSON LEARNED: Be aware that adding the butterscotch sauce will alter the texture of this ice cream. As you add more sauce, the texture becomes slightly icy, so it's not as perfectly smooth and creamy as some ice cream recipes I post. It still tastes yummy though!

Recipe for Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

Lesson #113: Shamrock Shake

I've been seeing commercials for Shamrock milkshakes, so I thought I would make one at home. You could definitely start with a store bought ice cream and blend it with peppermint extract, green food coloring, and milk. I decided to go the homemade route by making a fresh mint ice cream (with no extract!), hot fudge sauce, and freshly whipped cream. I did add a touch of green food coloring so it would be pretty for the picture and look more like the one on TV.

I would describe the flavor as an earthly mint instead of a "hit you in the face" mint found in extracts. To me, it tasted fresh and clean, but my husband still prefers the extract. The milkshake would be equally YUMMY either way you make it!

LESSON LEARNED: Looking for the correct ratio of ice cream to milk? I've found that if you use 2 parts ice cream to 1 part milk, the result is a creamy and thick milkshake.

Recipe for Shamrock Shake

Lesson #107: Frozen S'mores

Last weekend I was in the mood for an ice cream dessert and an involved baking project. I brainstormed for a while and finally decided to make a winter version of a s'more. Because I was looking to challenge myself, I decided to make everything homemade.

Here's the list of what I made from scratch: marshmallows, vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and graham crackers. Incidentally, I was explaining to my mom that I was making homemade graham crackers and she gave me a look of disbelief :) I replied, "It's really not hard. Just some whole wheat flour, molasses, and honey plus a few other ingredients".   At the finale of my baking project, I was pretty psyched with the end result.

Of course, you could buy some ice cream, torch store bought marshmallows (using a gas flame - we use a big blowtorch because my husband saw what people use on cooking competitions, thought it was cool, and bought me one for Christmas), dollop on hot fudge sauce, and sandwich between traditional graham crackers. I'm sure it's still equally delicious!

LESSON LEARNED: If you make homemade graham crackers, it's best to roll them pretty thin. I baked this batch a little thicker and it was hard to bite into when sandwiched between ice cream.

Recipe for Frozen S'mores

Lesson #105: Turtle Sundae

If I owned a dessert restaurant, this would definitely be on the menu. Here's how I would describe my ice cream creation.

Turtle Sundae
Salted Caramel Ice Cream - Dark Chocolate Hot Fudge - Honey Praline Pecans & Walnuts - Hand-Whipped Cream

Sounds fantastic, right? I was in the mood to create a multiple component ice cream dessert and this was the result. The ice cream was smooth, nutty, and slightly salty, The fudge sauce was rich and ultra thick. The nuts were sweet and salty. The whipped cream was light and delicious. Yes, I whipped it by hand because I figured I could use a little arm workout before indulging in this treat :)

LESSON LEARNED: All of these individual components come together to create a fantastic ice cream dessert!

Recipe for Turtle Sundae

Lesson #96: Roasted Cherry Ice Cream

I've been on a roll posting a new ice cream recipe every week. Pretty soon, I will have a ton of ice cream flavors in my repertoire! Last week, we enjoyed this roasted cherry ice cream. My husband is a big fan of fruit-flavored ice creams, so this is a recipe he chose for the week.

Making this ice cream requires a little prep time. Mostly, if you are using fresh cherries, you have to pit all the cherries before roasting them in the oven with a bit of sugar and cornstarch. I have super useful cherry pitter which saves ton of time and red-stained fingers! When cherries are in season in Ohio, I usually go on a cherry pitting marathon where I freeze cherries to use year round. Once you get past the cherry pitting, you make a standard vanilla ice cream base and churn the ice cream. Then, as you pack the ice cream in a container to harden, you layer in roasted cherries. It's as simple as that!

LESSON LEARNED: Using a cherry pitter saves a ton of time!

Recipe for Roasted Cherry Ice Cream

Lesson #93: Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Hot Fudge

I had a craving the other day for vanilla bean ice cream layered with hot fudge sauce. I think it was because I was still getting over a sinus infection and this dessert sounded really comforting to me. Luckily, my husband was around, so he became my sous chef and tackled all the tricky parts of this recipe (or at least the parts that I didn't have the energy to do....like chopping a ton of chocolate!).

This new ice cream recipe is interesting because it contains no eggs like my traditional ice cream base. Instead, cornstarch and cream cheese is used to thicken it. The end result was AMAZING! It tasted very similar to premium quality store bought ice cream (you know, the pints that have cute and funny names!). Since the entire book uses this ice cream base, we are excited to try the other flavors!

 LESSON LEARNED: Cornstarch and cream cheese works well to thicken an ice cream base.

Recipe for Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Hot Fudge

Lesson #91: Riesling-Poached Pear Sorbet

I found a new book with ice cream and sorbet recipes last week, so I let my husband look through it to pick out some new recipes since he is the ice cream lover in the house. The book is divided by season (depending on what fruits are readily available) so we checked out the winter section of the book first. Here's the result of the first recipe we tried out!

The sorbet is super fruity and refreshing. When you eat a spoonful, you are first taste the pear flavor which is followed by the sweet bite of the Riesling wine. Warning: this sorbet disappeared fast in our home! Here's a picture of the spoonful I ate :)

LESSON LEARNED: Poaching pears in wine, then blending with sugar and water creates a delicious sorbet!

Recipe for Riesling-Poached Pear Sorbet

Lesson #86: Cream Cheese Ice Cream

It seems like we have an ongoing supply of ice cream at our house. I tend to make small batches because I like to have a spoonful or two of an ice cream and then experiment by making another flavor. Here's the latest flavor: cream cheese ice cream.

This sounds different, right? That's exactly why I picked it out of one of my dessert cookbooks. I really wanted to make a balsamic ice cream, but my husband was a little weary. I envisioned a balsamic ice cream with fresh strawberry sauce, but I'll probably wait until spring when strawberries are in season :)

Back to the current ice cream...not surprisingly, this tastes exactly like cream cheese! It's a little more work to scoop out this ice cream because it gets super firm in the freezer (I imagine this is because cream cheese contains all sorts of stabilizers which make it firm). I think this would be a great component on a plated dessert because a little of this ice cream goes a long way. I drizzled my dish with some homemade caramel sauce. If you're in adventurous mood for ice cream, give this recipe a try!

LESSON LEARNED: Cream cheese ice is harder to scoop than typical ice cream.

Recipe for Cream Cheese Ice Cream