Showing posts with label Sweet Tooth Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweet Tooth Friday. Show all posts

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Lemon Cream Ice Cream

Last week I shared with you the first recipes I tried one of my newest cookbooks, Mozza. In addition to the amazing Mozza cookbook, I received Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.

I love homemade ice cream and am always in search of the best recipes. Jeni's book is featured in almost all of the lists for 2011's best cookbooks. I've been making homemade ice cream for years. Jeni's recipes are different than any I've made before. She uses cornstarch for thickening, cream cheese and no eggs.

I had one Meyer Lemon remaining from our trip to California, so I chose Lemon Ice Cream as the first recipe to try. I've read some great reviews of Jeni's ice cream. This ice cream did not disappoint, it was creamy, tart and so smooth! I also felt it kept better in the freezer than any recipe I'd made before. You know how some ice creams freeze way too hard? Not this one, it stays a nice frozen consistency even after a week or so. I can't wait to try another one of Jeni's recipes.



Jeni's Splendid Lemon Cream Ice Cream

Makes about 1 quart

Lemon Syrup:

2 to 3 lemons

2 tablespoons sugar

Ice Cream Base:

2 cups whole milk

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 1/2 ounce (3 tablespoons) cream cheese, softened to room temperature

1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/4 cup heavy cream

2/3 cups sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

Zest of 2 lemons (reserved from above)

  1. Prep for the lemon syrup: Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from 2 of the lemons in large strips; reserve. Halve the lemons and squeeze enough juice to make 1/2 cup. Combine the lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and refrigerate until chilled. This won't be a very thick syrup.

  2. Prep for the ice cream base: Mix about 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch in a small bowl to make a smooth slurry. Whisk the cream cheese and salt in a medium bowl until smooth. Fill a large bowl with ice and water.

  3. Cook: Combine the remaining milk, the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and lemon zest in a 4-quart saucepan, bring to a rolling boil over medium-high heat, and boil for 4 minutes -- watch it closely and stir occasionally to make sure it doesn't boil over. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cornstarch slurry. Bring the mixture back to a boil over medium-high heat and cook, stirring with a heatproof spatula, until slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

  4. Chill: Gradually whisk the hot milk mixture into the cream cheese until smooth. Pour the mixture into a 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag and submerge the sealed bag in the ice bath. Let stand, adding more ice as necessary, until cold, about 30 minutes.

  5. Freeze: Remove the lemon zest. Pour the ice cream base into the frozen canister and turn on the machine. Pour the lemon syrup through the opening in the top of the machine, and continue to spin the ice cream until thick and creamy.

  6. Pack the ice cream into a storage container, press a sheet of parchment directly against the surface, and seal with an airtight lid. Freeze in the coldest part of your freezer until firm, about 4 hours.

I am linking this to Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday , Foodie Friday and Sweet Tooth Friday.

Friday, July 1, 2011

NY Style Crumb Muffins & A New Baking Group

One of my favorite baking groups, Sweet Melissa Sunday's is coming to an end. We're baking two recipes for the next couple of months, with our last recipe in August. Besides Melissa's great recipes, the reason I've enjoyed this group so much is the other bakers. It's such a great group of women! I was thrilled when Karen from Karen's Cookies Cakes and More suggested we bake our way through Matt Lewis's Baked Explorations. I'd been wanting to buy this cookbook and now I have a really good reason to buy it! Not that I need another cookbook, I am not sure what the count is these days but I know it's way over 100.

When I read through the recipe for the NY Style Crumb Cake, I quickly realized this wasn't a low fat recipe. 2 1/2 sticks of butter? I knew this much butter would bring two things, a delicious cake and way too many calories! My solution, cut the recipe in half. When reading Karen's comments on the recipe, I noticed she'd had a failure with an 8" pan. Thinking maybe the pan was too small, I sent Karen an email and inquired about using a 9" pan. She quickly responded that the 8" pan was too big and I needed to use something smaller. I decided to use my large muffin tins.

Not being from New York, I was curious what a New York style Crumb Cake was. I think it's what we call a Coffee Cake in the Midwest. My crumb topping didn't seem to be sticking together enough to make these big crumbs. I didn't have the time or the patience to make a bunch of large crumbs, so I went with the topping as it was. There were some large crumbs, otherwise it was like a cake topping. My half recipe made 5 muffins. A couple were pretty large, so I think I could have made 6 muffins. I had quite a bit of topping leftover, which I saved for the next fruit crumble.

The recipe called for 60 minutes of baking time. I set the timer for 30 minutes and when I checked them, I was a little surprised to find they were done. I think they could have baked for 20 - 25 minutes. As the muffins rose, the topping spread out and in the end I didn't end up with as much crumb topping as I would have liked. That's probably why I have so much leftover!!!



OMG! These are so good. They have such a nice tender crumb and the flavor is delicious!
You can find the recipe here on Karen's blog and the links to the other Baked bakers's here!

I am linking this to Foodie Friday, Sweet Tooth Friday and Full Plate Thursday!