ice cream Archives - Page 7 of 8

Plum Sorbet With Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

June 30, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Here comes another one with stone fruit. As Cherries and Peaches have taken their turn, it is Plums now, which got to be played with. Red, vibrant, juicy and totally inviting plums have flooded the markets, being at their peak.

I have been snacking on them hugely and still can’t get enough of them. A perfect to-go snack full of vital nutrients. A daily intake of seasonal fruits have always been on my evening snack foods. And they are really comforting, especially when the weather is so sultry and humid.

I bought a bag full of plums yesterday, thinking of gorging on them over the weekend, when the idea of making something frozen started playing on my mind. The ice cream maker has given me immense power and flexibility to play around with flavors in my kitchen. It has just made my life simpler. Delicious, silky and velvety ice creams and frozen desserts being churned out in minutes.

I made Balsamic Cherries and Toasted Almonds Ice Cream and Mango Pistachio Frozen Yogurt and they were mind blowing. Especially, it feels so great to have churned your own exotic flavor frozen desserts at home. I also made a Lychee Ice Cream too, which I’ll be writing about later.

So I thought of trying my hands on Sorbet. I have had sorbet many a times at fine dining restaurants. And the one which I can’t seem to forget ever is the Tamarind sorbet. That was one kick-ass sorbet, I have ever tried. Vietnamese cuisine inspired recipe, simple yet tantalizing your taste buds!

And that inspired and encouraged me to make my own sorbet. So I followed a recipe from David Lebovitz, The Perfect Scoop, did some substitutions and voila! What a vibrant deep pink color! Oh My God! I couldn’t believe my eye, when I saw the color. And it surprised me even better, when I had the first spoon full. I don’t know why, it just took me to the memory by-lanes of my childhood, a little kid enjoying sweet and sour candies. Total Bliss!

It was sweet, sour, bursting with fruit flavor. And I paired my sorbet with these wonderful lightly sweet rosemary shortbread cookies. Even better!

Plum Sorbet

Recipe adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients

550 gm plums (about 10)
1 cup water
2/3 cup sugar (adjust depending upon the tartness of plums)
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Instructions

Slice the plums in half and remove the pits. Cut into eighths and put them in a medium, nonreactive saucepan with rest of of ingredients.
Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes or until plums are tender.
Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Once cool, puree the mixture in a blender or food processor, until smooth. Strain the mixture through a sieve and chill it thoroughly and then freeze it in your ice cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions.

Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

Recipe adapted from Tartlette

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
100 gm butter (cold and cubed)
2 teaspoons fresh or dried rosemary
3 tablespoons cold milk

Instructions

Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius and line a baking tray with parchment paper or silicon mat.
Mix flour, cornmeal and sugar thoroughly in a bowl. Add the butter and rub it with flour using your finger tips, until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Stir in chopped rosemary. Add the milk and form it into a dough ball. Divide the dough into two.
Taking one portion at a time, roll the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch onto a floured surface or between two sheets of cling film.
Cut out cookies using a cookie cutter of your choice. Place the cookies on prepared tray and bake for about 10 minutes, until edges start to become golden.
Transfer cookies to a wire rack and cool completely.

Mango & Pistachio Frozen Yogurt

June 3, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

I just can’t imagine summers without mangoes, a quintessential summer fruit. So how could this place be left without a single mention of this wonderful sweet, juicy, fleshy and vibrantly saffron colored fruit, which is considered the king of all fruits. And the King has to be paid reverence.

During the season, you’ll find mangoes all over the markets. And that is the time, when they are at best of their age, like all seasonal fruits. You could do wonders with this yummiest fruit on earth or you could enjoy them plain in desserts after a meal, which is a perfect summery and light dessert.

Whip them into a cold milk shake or smoothie and you have a wonderful filling breakfast option. Blend them with some low fat yogurt and you are ready with a glass of Mango Lassi, a cool and refreshing Indian summer drink. Chop them into bite sized pieces, a dash of lime juice and some more seasonal fruits, and you are ready with a yet another refreshing summer salad bowl. Turn them into luscious creamy desserts such as cheesecakes, panna cotta, cream cakes and you are all set to rock your dinner party. So, like I said, opportunities are endless with this wonderful fruit. You just have to explore them and I am sure Mangoes wouldn’t fail you ever.

This time, I made this very simple frozen yogurt with mangoes with some chopped pistachios blended in. Lots of mango pulp, some hung yogurt and a couple spoonful of honey. What a yummy, light and refreshing dessert. Even perfect for breakfast. See, that’s the good thing about mangoes. It’s a no-brainer flavor packed dessert, you all must give a shot!

Ingredients

650 gm ripe mango pulp
250 gm hung yogurt {or Greek yogurt}
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup white sugar {adjust sugar depending upon sweetness of the mangoes}
1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts

Instructions

In a blender, blend all the ingredients into a smooth puree, except pistachios.
Chill the mango and yogurt puree in refrigerator.
Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker, as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Mix in chopped nuts and serve with some freshly cut mango cubes. Otherwise, store in freezer.
If making, without an ice cream maker, freeze the mixture without folding the nuts initially in freezer for 5-6 hours, with blending the mixture in a blender every 2 hours, so as to break the ice crystals. And fold the nuts after final blending of mixture.

Balsamic Cherries & Almond Ice Cream

May 28, 2013 by TheWhiteRamekins

Summer is at it’s peak here. And we are somehow managing to get through this unbearable scorching heat and we are almost hitting the 46 degree Celsius. No respite from the heat at least from the weather Gods. Rather they are playing tricks on us by sending some terribly sparse clouds in the sky. But still no relief.

And with that, the baking spirits are also getting lazy to turn on the oven and warm the house with added heat. And hence comes a call for ice creams and more frozen desserts. A simple, fast and cool dessert to whip up in no time. And a recently purchased ice cream maker makes the life more simpler and effort less, with yielding creamy and delish results.

The best part, and probably the only one with Summers, at least which I found is that the weather brings a variety of juicy, re-hydrating, sweet and plump fruits, such as melons, cherries, plums, apricots and mangoes. And all of them are dearing to me without any disparity.

They don’t last for long, probably would stay for 2-3 months, except for mangoes which remain for little longer. So, every year I always remain in hurry to bake/cook with these lovely fruits of the season, to make maximum out of their short appearance.

I had my copy of The Perfect Scoop from a very long time with me, but I don’t know why I had never tried any recipe from this book. Yeah, but it never collected dirt sitting on my bookshelf, because I always loved to flip through the pages dreaming about those creamy ice creams and almost drooling through those attractive pictures.

But this time, when cherries appeared in the market, I knew about the first recipe, I was going to try from this book. I found this cherry and almond ice cream a kind of love at first sight, because it reminded me of my childhood days, when we used to have fruit ice cream, which was especially churned in manual ice cream makers.

And when I made this ice cream and had the first spoon, it straightaway took me to those memory by-lanes of childhood. I could almost felt that taste from the childhood memories. A spoon full of this rich creamy and melt in your mouth ice cream is good enough to make you forget this insanely hot weather.

Recipe minimally adapted from The Perfect Scoop

Ingredients

250 ml whole milk
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
500 ml heavy cream
1/4 cup of whole almonds, toasted and chopped
5 large egg yolks
1/2 vanilla bean slit
200 gm cherries, pitted
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Instructions

In a saucepan, mix half of the cream, 3/4 cup sugar, salt, vanilla bean and milk and warm on medium heat. Take off from stove, cover and let steep at room temperature for one hour.
In a bowl, add the remaining cream with a sieve set on top of the bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Rewarm the cream and milk mixture and slowly add that to egg yolks, whisking continuously. Put this on medium heat and continue stirring, until the custard becomes thick and coats the back of spoon. Take off from heat and pour the custard through the sieve onto the cream and mix vigorously.
Chill the mixture thoroughly in fridge, preferably overnight.
Meanwhile, in a saucepan, mix remaining 1/4 cup sugar, balsamic vinegar and cherries and cook on medium heat stirring occasionally, until all the juice from cherries is absorbed and it forms into a jam like consistency. Let cherries chill in fridge.
Freeze the chilled mixture in ice cream maker as per the manufacturer’s instructions.
Once ice cream is ready, fold in the balsamic cherries and almonds.