Birthday Ice Cream!

For RT's birthday, we were going to go snowshoeing... but it rained terribly and there was much to do for his grilled cheese and ice cream party... so instead we spent the day hanging out, shopping at Whole Foods for delicious items such as those sharp, super tangy crunchy mini cornichons-- go pickles! -- and cave aged gruyere cheese (again, strong but sooo good) and then... making our own waffle cones and two types of ice cream for the party! Mint ice cream with dark chocolate, and coconut cream ice cream. Yum...!

On my birthday I bought myself another ice cream machine AND a waffle cone maker with cone roller! I gotta say both machines RULE! The ice cream machine is a little loud, as the entire bowl turns and makes an awful racquet, but if you can stand it for 25 minutes or so it's well worth it.

The little waffle cone maker is a dream come true, makes perfect waffle cones and it's very easy to make the cones.

Waffle cone!

Dark chocolate chopped up to be folded into the mint ice cream!

A spoonful of ice cream... I made "Philadelphia Style" ice cream, without eggs-- Rich hates eggs so I didn't make the custard-style ice cream. This ice cream had a nice consistency, I used all heavy cream instead of part heavy cream and part whole milk for super creaminess. I also added a half teaspoon of cornstarch melted in warm water to give it a bit of hold.

Rich's ingenious little twist at the bottom of the waffle cone - no drips!!

The finished product... beautiful ice cream... I put it directly into this container and froze it for another two hours in the freezer to firm up. Though, before serving, I left out on counter for about 10 minute to soften. Seems backwards but you gotta freeze it to firm it then leave it out to soften for serving!

Ice cream cones, every bit from scratch! Hooray!

And a beautiful sundae for Rich with a sparkler... to celebrate the arrival of his 32nd year! :)

Ice Cream Partay! (for two)

My good pal Rafael (incidentally I call him Shogodog) came over the other night for an ice cream making sesh! I've been wanting to churn up some frozen creamy party times ever since I got my awesome new book "the Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz in the mail! French style ice cream vs. Philadelphia style (or American style) ice cream. Did you know there was a difference? Yes, it's true! French style ice cream is a cooked custard style ice cream, resulting in a rather eggy (much to my husband's nose-turned-up dismay), very rich, smooth and creamy ice cream. Philly style has none of this egg business; it's like the recipes that came with my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

So often I lie in bed at night before going to sleep and I read baking books or cookbooks. Right now "The Perfect Scoop" is on the top of the pile-- so I decided I would start by making the very first recipe, the author's fave vanilla ice cream. This recipe has seeds from a whole vanilla bean in it so it's very fragrant, and the end product turned out very nice and creamy and SO full of flavour it was insane. I found it a little too eggy and too sweet though-- next time I will adjust the recipe! David Lebovitz has a cute and toothy smile on the book jacket, holding up proudly a lovely looking cone. You can tell the guy really digs food.

The joy and the excitement of peering into the churning ice cream machine and seeing it slowly thicken, rich and creamy in colour, with specks of vanilla beans! We ate a few spoons right after we thought it was done-- it took about 40 minutes of churning, actually! And then we carefully doled out half of the ice cream into one container and the other half into another-- our prized product outcome of an evening's work!! I scooped out a small ball of it the following day and was amazed by the texture-- could've been Haagen Dasz! How exciting!!

{David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop Vanilla Ice Cream recipe!}

You will need:

1 cup milk

A pinch of salt

3/4 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean

5 egg yolks

2 cup heavy cream

A few drops of vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the tip of a paring knife. Add the bean pod to the milk.

2. Stir together the egg yolks in a bowl and gradually add some of the warmed milk, stirring constantly as you pour. Pour the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Rinse the vanilla bean and put it back into the custard and cream to continue steeping. Chill thoroughly, then remove the vanilla bean and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.

Beautiful Ice Creams!

Ice cream has always been a major favorite of mine, but now I am deeply interested in creating beautiful ice creams... ! Welcome to my new blog, Ice Cream by Coco Cake! This is my hobby blog, so when I have time to make ice creams or frozen yogurt or sorbets, I will surely post them here! I also want to try all sorts of ice cream sandwiches combinations...!

Stay tuned for ice cream party times!