Chocomint Cookie Peppermint Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made some crazy dark chocolate peppermint cookies with milk chocolate chunks yesterday, and left a few without chunks for the purpose of ICE CREAM SANDWICHING. Wow, I went from Summer to Winter on this here blog - sorry for the lack of ice creamy posts! I guess I've been darn busy with Cake Land and Food Blog Land and Bake O'Clock, among other things!

But wait, here's a recipe for you! Dark chocolate peppermint cookies with pale green peppermint ice cream, all just a real breeze and a half to make, if you have a teensy bit of time and inclination. The cookies are rich, fudgey and minty. The ice cream is cool-in-your-mouth minty and creamy. Together, well, you'll want to eat with a tall glass of frosty milk or peppermint (!) tea! A beautiful holiday treat and your guests will be super surprised if you pulled these fan-favourites out of the freezer after a holiday dinner party.

Go here for the cookie recipe: CHOCOMINT COOKIES! but omit the milk chocolate addition, because the milk chocolate chunk won't freeze well. The cookie recipe will yield 2 dozen cookies, enough for 1 dozen ice cream sandwiches (Yay Math!).

{Peppermint Ice Cream}

You will need:

1 cup of 10% milk
2 cups of heavy cream (33% milk fat)
1 300 ml can of sweetened condensed milk
1/4 teaspoon of salt

Make it!

1. In a medium sized bowl, whisk to combine the 2 types of milks with 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (300 ml)
2. Whisk in 3 teaspoons or pure peppermint extract and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Add a teensy touch of green food colouring if so desired for minty cute greeny colour.
3. Power-chill mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes until mixture is ice cold but not frozen.
4. Pour into ice cream maker and mix according to ice cream maker instructions, I churned mine for about 25 minutes or so until thick and creamy.
5. Transfer finished ice cream to an airtight container and chill in freezer until harder in consistency.
6. Scoop some ice cream onto one chocolate cookie, and sandwich with another. Squish down a bit but not too much.
7. Wrap each individual ice cream sandwich in saran wrap, then place in an airtight container in the freezer to chill for at least an hour to set.
8. Bring out your ice cream sandwiches and party down while you chomp into delicious pepperminty madness!!!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

xo Lyndsay

Coconut Milk Lime Raspberry Pops

Feeling a little bit hot and lazy, anyone? Sunshine summer just makes me want to jump in a cool green lake, dry off, put on my oversized sunglasses and an old hat, read some trashy magazines and eat snacks and drink a cool drink, get hot again then jump right back in. You can be extra lazy but still enjoy a beautiful, icy, rich and tangy homemade popsicle with this super simple recipe. You can also substitute the coconut milk for some rich, plain yogurt. The consistency of this pop is a bit on the ice-milky side. The coconut milk is pretty rich but the acid from the lime and raspberry gives it a tang. You can play around with the amount of sweetened condensed milk too - I prefer not-too-sweet. These popsicles are so darn easy they should really be called Lazy Pops... whisk 'n pour into molds...!

{Coconut Milk Lime Raspberry Pops!}

In a medium sized bowl, whisk to combine 1 can of good quality coconut milk with the juice of 1 lime, 3 tbs raspberry jam, 8 cut-up raspberries, a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup of sweetened condensed milk.

Pour mixture into ice pop molds and freeze until solid. Run under hot water briefly to loosen before pulling out your pops!

Enjoy the rest of your summer, everyone! ^__^

VICTORY FEI FEI ICE CREAM PIE

I'm not exactly sure how this victory fei fei ice cream pie idea got started but I do know the VANCOUVER CANUCKS are the reason behind it!

Not only am I close to my dear sisters in my immediate family, but we are also close with all of our super duper cousins... and my cousins Mike, Ryan and Christopher, known as the Sung boys, are all maniacally crazy hockey fans... especially VANCOUVER CANUCKS hockey fans!

There is something so absolutely endearing and cute and adorable when I see people of all shapes, sizes and colours proudly wearing their Canucks jerseys. I admire those people because I'm too uncool or maybe trying to be too cool to fully admit my reinstated hockey craziness. I have hockey craziness in my blood, obviously ... my mom's been a Canucks fan since 1982, when she went to her first hockey game - the Canucks vs. the New York Islanders! Canucks hockey mania has fully gripped me in its ridiculously exciting power - and with that comes an excruciating wish for our team to carry that giant silver Stanley Cup over their heads, confetti falling like blue and green snow and a blur of white screenprinted terry-towels whipping madly around in an arena full of screaming hockey fans...

Hockey players and fans alike are superstitious. My mom buys the same tortilla chips and guacamole and apparently we win when these exact chips are eaten. My cousin Mike is no different - unwashed jerseys and all - don't want to wash away the luck! After each win during this Canucks playoff madness, my cousin Mike has religiously treated himself to "victory ice cream"... his birthday was in May, mid-playoffs, and his lovely wife Sarah made him an ice cream pie, which he superstitiously only ate one slice of after each Canucks win... so when he and the rest of my cousins flew in to Vancouver this past week to catch the madness of a city emotionally tormented by the hope of the Cup, I of course had to make a VICTORY PIE of my own! So here it is... fei-fei means fat in Chinese... and eating this whole pie will make you exactly that... but who cares... 'cuz the Canucks are in the Stanley Cup!!!!


{Victory Fei-Fei Ice Cream Pie!}

You will need:

- An Oreo or chocolate wafer cookie pie crust
- Peanut butter ice cream
- Dark cocoa chocolate fudge topping

(recipes below!)

to make the crust:

Combine 1 1/4 cups Oreo or dark wafer cookie crumbs with 1/4 cup melted butter. Press into 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes until set. Let cool on wire rack.

to make the ice cream:

1. In a food processor, combine 2 2/3 cups heavy cream (33% milk fat), 3/4 cup of smooth peanut butter (I used Kraft brand), 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and half a can of sweetened condensed milk. Blend together until smooth and incorporated.

2. Power chill the mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes! Careful not to freeze it!

3. Pour into ice cream maker and churn according to ice cream maker's instructions. I found this churned for a much shorter time period than my usual ice creams - check on it after 15 minutes, mine took about 16 to get to a very ice creamy consistency!

4. Pour peanut butter ice cream into the cooled pie shell, spreading with an offset spatula to create an even layer! Place in freezer while you make the...

fudge sauce! to make:

On stovetop in a small pot, combine 1/3 cup of dark or high quality cocoa powder with 2/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup of heavy cream, and 3 tablespoons of butter. Whisk gently to combine. Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, whisk until smooth. Pour into bowl to cool. I power-chilled my fudge sauce in the freezer for 20 minutes!

Once fudge sauce is cooled, pour on top of peanut butter ice cream layer. Again, it's important to cool the fudge sauce first, otherwise it will melt all up into your P&B ice cream layer.

Place back in freezer and chill for 1 hour uncovered until fudge sauce is set. Then wrap with plastic wrap and chill until completely set - 4 hours or overnight!

This pie is pretty rock solid when you bring it out for serving - so leave it at room temperature for 5-10 minutes to soften it up before slicing in!!!

Note: the P&B ice cream is crazy delicious on its own, so feel free to just make the ice cream when you're having a P&B hankering!

My fingers are crossed so hard for our Vancouver Canucks... and I can't wait to make THE ULTIMATE VICTORY pie... ^__^

Go Canucks!

xo Lyndsay

Matcha Green Tea Cream Pops

Another fantastically easy/lazy-times recipe to follow:

Matcha green tea frozen cream bars! Last summer I spent a long time googling the heck out of ice cream bar molds. There are crazy expensive ones out there, and at the same time there are excellent D.I.Y. ways to make em: how about pouring your treat recipe into shot glasses, freezing them for 15 minutes then jamming a wooden stick in there, then letting them set til ready? Orangette has a lovely tutorial on it.

Or, do what I did ... on a trip to DAISO, which is one of Richmond's excellent dollar-store-esque emporiums,I found the cutest little 4-pop popsicle molds for $2/each. Problem solved! Now, what to put in them??

I combined 3 cups of cream (33%), 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk (my favourite ice cream "creamifier" and sweetener), a pinch of salt, and 2 heaping teaspoons of matcha green tea powder in a medium sized pot on the stovetop, whisking over medium high heat until everything blended together. I then poured the mixture through a fine mesh strainer to strain out any gunk, cooled it for 20 minutes in the freezer, then poured directly into my ice pop molds.

You will want these to freeze overnight for maximum popsicle-ness! I was trying to make these less-sweet than usual, but you can feel free to play around with the condensed milk amount.

Enjoy being lazy in putting together this simple but deliciously creamy and green tea-ey cream pop! Ahhh, the magic of frozen stuff!

Next up for ice cream pops: fresh raspberry frozen yogurt pops! Stay tuned! ^__^

Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream & Cake!

Strawberry ice cream... Summery, right? Today was not so summery in Vancouver - pouring torrential rain mixed with hard cold granules of hail... all day! And the teensiest sun break in the clouds around dusk.

Oh man, I cannot wait until it's berry picking season here in British Columbia. Navigating prickly bushes on hot sunny days, plucking shiny blackberries from branches and filling buckets for freshly baked pies and general snacking. Whee, so fun!

This recipe is super simple, and it's taken from David Leibovitz's The Perfect Scoop. It's an interesting little texture straight out of the ice cream maker - super fluffy and airy, almost a mousse-like consistency, not hard like your typical scoop ice cream. You'll need to freeze it for a good 24 hours to solidify it. I used a pound of organic strawberries (I know they are more costly... but they taste sooo much better, amazingly sweet and complex and sour ... unlike their sometimes flavourless nonorganic brothers). The recipe calls for a technique called "macerating" your strawberries - sounds dangerous, right? Not at all! You just slice up those strawberries and mix them all up with your sugar and a teensy blast of vodka, and let sit for 1 hour. This little process helps to bring out the juiciness and sweetness in your berries. Fun, right?

And you get to use vodka.. so if you really wanted, you could take this opportunity to pour yourself a little icy delightful cocktail! I just love a cocktail that's cold and in a lovely glass. Glassware is so important to the enjoyment of my beverage.

Back to the ice cream... sweet, rich, creamy and tangy with that beautiful hue of soft strawberry pink.


{Strawberry Sour Cream Ice Cream}

You will need:

1 pound of strawberries (fresh, frozen, organic or non!)
3/4 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon of vodka
1 cup of sour cream
1 cup of heavy cream (whipping cream - 33% milk fat)
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

to make the ice cream:

1. Slice the strawberries and place in a medium sized bowl with the sugar and vodka. Gently toss to combine. Cover and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
2. Place strawberry mixture in a blender with the sour cream, heavy cream and lemon juice. Pulse to blend so some small strawberry chunks remain.
3. Pour into medium sized bowl and power-chill in freezer for 30 minutes, or chill in refrigerator until nice and cold (1-2 hours).
4. Pour into ice cream maker and mix according to ice cream maker instructions, I churned this recipe for about 25 minutes. Freeze this overnight to get it to a hard-scoop consistency. To keep the mousse-like airiness, eat right away!
5. Enjoy your ice cream and marvel at how freaking easy that was! You feel like a genius!!


and now... the CAKE!



So the real purpose of me making this strawberry ice cream was to use it as a filling for a Mother's Day cake!

I made an 8 inch round vanilla cake, added a little pink food colouring and baked it. Then I was confused. I had never made a layer cakey thing with ice cream as a filling - how do I build it? Do I freeze everything? Do I build it last minute?? I ended up freezing the cake, and still building it last minute. So next time for the ease of cutting the cake (it was ROCK HARD and very hard to cut into, even after 15 minutes of being out! Holy!) I will build it right before serving it!

So here are the layers:

Bottom: pink vanilla cake, with strawberry preserves spread on top.
Middle: ice cream, poured into an 8 inch spring-release pan and frozen overnight to stay extra-set.
Top: pink vanilla cake, with more strawberry preserves.
Very top: fresh whipping cream and fresh sliced organic strawberries.
Extra very top: A little cake bunting I made using Japanese washi tape (colored masking tape) and wooden skewers, in matching pink and grey cuteness! My grandma said it looked like laundry hanging out to dry!

I loved how this cake turned out visually... so cute!

Bye for now Ice Cream Land!

xo Lyndsay

Milky Chocolate Ice Cream Pie

I made this pie for my mother-in-law's birthday... I think I may be the luckiest gal to have the best mother-in-law ever.

I tried to low-fat this ice cream pie up a bit by using 10% milk fat milk instead of my usual heavy cream, in both the ice cream part and the fudge topping part. Though the fudge topping didn't turn out as rich and didn't hold together as well as the previous times I've made this, apart from the looks of it the result was, yes, still delicious! The ice cream filling was a tad more on the ice-milky side but still creamy and rich from the use of my favourite ice cream addition, sweetened condensed milk. The only bummer thing is that I threw this pie together too quickly after a day of shopping... and it didn't have time to properly set before serving. So I would say definitely chill this pie overnight before serving for maximum pie-shape. If you don't mind digging into a melty sundae-like icescreamsplosion, then feel free to chill for only 2 hours in the freezer! (which is what happened to me!)

If I made this again I would definitely make the fudge topping original style (ie with heavy cream vs. the lower fat milk), keep the ice cream component the same, and chill this overnight.

But... all you need to do now is sit back and relax and let your fingers do the simple work, as this is another easy-as-pie (heh) ice cream recipe!


{Milky Chocolate Ice Cream Pie}

You will need:

- An Oreo or chocolate wafer cookie pie crust
- Milk chocolate ice cream
- Dark cocoa chocolate fudge topping

(recipes below!)

to make the crust:

Combine 1 1/4 cups Oreo or dark wafer cookie crumbs with 1/4 cup melted butter. Press into 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes until set. Let cool on wire rack.

to make the ice cream:

1. In a medium sized pot on low heat, whisk to combine 3 cups of 10% milk, 1/2 cup of Dutch-process cocoa powder (I used 20-40% cocoa content), a teensy pinch of salt and 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (300 ml). Heat until all components are combined.
2. Power-chill mixture in the freezer for 1 hour+until mixture is ice cold but not frozen. Open the freezer occasionally to make sure it hasn't frozen!
4. Pour into ice cream maker and mix according to ice cream maker instructions, I churned this recipe for about 25 minutes.
5. Scoop ice cream into cooled pie shell, using an offset spatula to smooth it. Put in freezer, uncovered while you make the fudge sauce.

to make the fudge sauce:

On stovetop, combine 1/3 cup of dark or high quality cocoa powder with 2/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup of heavy cream (though I used 10% milk this time, but feel free to try either!) and 3 tablespoons of butter. Whisk gently to combine. Add 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, whisk until smooth. Pour into bowl to cool. I power-chilled my fudge sauce in the freezer for 20 minutes!

Once fudge sauce is cooled, pour on top of milk chocolate ice cream layer. It's important that the fudge sauce is cooled otherwise it will melty-melt the ice cream and it won't look very pretty.

Place back in freezer and chill for 1 hour uncovered until fudge sauce is set. Then wrap with plastic wrap and chill preferably overnight until time to serve!!


Note: You can also just forgo the pie part and make the ice cream on its own... so fast, easy and VERY DELICIOUS! ^__^

Enjoy!!! xo

Greatest Korean Alive Ice Cream & Cake

My good pal and cousin from another Asian mother Christa Min had her birthday this past week. So I sneaky-deakily (out of sheer love for the greatest Korean alive) created a super mini surprise party for Christa and all of her tight buds, with a surprise musical performance by the super excellent and undercover Joel R L Phelps.

We had a pizza party for four, which then expanded after a knock at the front door to ten guests... earlier I had made a dark chocolate cake with mocha buttercream, and to match, a lightly coffee-flavoured ice cream!

I think I am getting lazy in my ice cream making! All I did was brew 1 strong cup of dark French roast coffee, dumped in some 10% milk, sprinkled a dash of the ground espresso into it, a quick grind of my sea salt mill and mixed in a can of thick sweetened condensed milk. I whisked this all together, powerchilled it in the freezer for 1 hour and then poured straight into my ice cream maker!

It was a little more ice-milky than ice-creamy, so if you want a full creamy ice cream, I would follow the recipe I posted previously on Vietnamese condensed milk coffee ice cream. But if you want a lighter touch to go alongside a delightful rich cake, go light! Go frozen yogurt even! I want to try a coffee frozen yogurt next.

and Happy Birthday cousin C-Min!! xo

Nog Nog, Who's There? Egg Nog Ice Cream

Don't nog it 'til you've tried it. Nog town and egg boyz. Nog nog noggin' on heaven's (ice cream) door... how many bad puns could I come up with for egg nog ice cream?

I realize it's January, we're all on diets (not really!) or at least dead-sick of all of those rich, calorie-laden, seemingly endless piles of holiday shortbreads, chocolates, cakes, pies (it seems we are gluttonous pigs here in many parts of North America)... and exercising off the holiday fat layer is on our minds. No one wants to hear about another caloriexplosion ice cream -- they want to hear about frozen grapes and low-sugar fruit sorbets or nonfat frozen yogurt.

But still. I made this eggnog ice cream and I will tell you about it. Do with it what you will. Ie, wait until next holiday season to churn it up, eat it up and exercise it off only a few weeks later... I admit, it's well past Christmas and I am guilty of spooning the last scoop of it all up in my grill...

Extreme easy alert on this ice cream recipe! File under: super lazy!

{Ridiculously Easy Egg Nog Ice Cream}

You will need:

2 cups of full fat egg nog (from a store-bought carton, no less!)
1 cup half and half (10% milk fat)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
generous pinch of salt

1. Whisk all of your ingredients into a large bowl.
2. Chill mixture covered until good and cold, 1 hour in fridge or power-chilled in freezer for 30 minutes.
3. Pour into ice cream maker and mix according to maker's instructions -- churn away! 20-25 minutes gave me a delightfully frozen, thick and ice-creamy consistency.
4. Marvel at how even a baby or a cat could make this recipe.

Enjoy, and Happy New Year... !

xo Lyndsay