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May 28 2010
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Dessert

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

I heard someone mention salted caramel ice cream the other day, and I immediately had to get my hands on some.  I’m sure you can buy it at the grocery store, but that thought didn’t cross my mind until now.  Instead my first thought was “David Lebovitz,” the source of all great things ice cream.  I checked his website, and, as expected, he had just what I was looking for: a recipe for salted butter caramel ice cream.  It’s phenomenal.  Even my super foodie friend, Santo, thinks so, which is good since I pawned most of the final product off on him.

Salted caramel can be tough to execute successfully, whether in candy form or in ice cream form.  There’s a fine line between being decadent and being overly rich, and it’s a line you don’t want to cross.  I had some salted caramel ice cream last fall at Molly Moon’s in Seattle that was edging toward the too rich category, and I could hardly finish half of the bowl before ditching it for the water fountain.  This version, on the other hand, is pretty much perfect – not too salty, not to sweet.

Click here for the recipe: Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

Chilling the custard.

Almost done churning.  It looks kind of like a Wendy’s frosty, but it puts the frosty to shame when it comes to flavor.  Plus, this ice cream contains eggs, milk and cream instead of corn syrup, calcium sulfate, and cellulose gum.  In your face, Dave Thomas.

Success in a bowl.  The recipe included a caramel praline that you stir in at the end of the churning, but I left that out because I wanted a perfectly smooth ice cream.  I figured this way I could top off each bowl with some chocolate sauce or candied peanuts or whatever else I feel like adding.

This ice cream really needs no adornment, although a tall glass of water or a shot of espresso would be nice on the side.

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Apr 27 2010
8 Comments
Chocolate, Dessert

Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

I love cupcakes, but I’m not much of a cupcake maker.  I don’t really see the point of baking them when I can buy a delicious cupcake from Yum whenever I want.  My craving is satisfied, and I’m not left with eleven little treats sitting around.  Sometimes, however, I do get the urge to bake a batch.  It’s usually for a birthday or some other special occasion, but this time it was due in part to my desire to avoid studying and in part to the fact that I clicked on a link to a website called Ming Makes Cupcakes and I simply could not control myself.  There were several varieties that I wanted to try, but I chose the Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting because I already had most of the ingredients.  The only thing that I did not have was sour cream, so I used plain yogurt instead.  It was a success.

Click on the link for the recipe, but be warned, you might lose all self-control: Ming Makes Cupcakes

You might be wondering what could possibly be better than a half cup of Nutella.

Nutella mixed with powdered sugar and cream, of course!  OH MAN is this good.  And sweet.  Very sweet.  I licked the spoon about six times, and my stomach began to ache.  But some things are worth the pain, and this is certainly one of them.

The only thing I would consider doing differently next time would be doubling the frosting recipe, or at least increasing it by 1/2.  This amount was certainly enough to frost all of the cupcakes, but if you’re into frosting like my mom is, you will need about twice as much.

Thick chocolate cake batter.

WOW.

Fill me with sweet sugary goodness.

Note: The original recipe tells you to bake these for 30 minutes.  Not sure if that’s a typo or not as most of the other recipes only have a 20 minute baking time.  Whatever the case may be, mine only took about 20 minutes.

Who wants one?

Seriously.  I need to get rid of these.  Who wants one?

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Feb 04 2010
2 Comments
Dessert

Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding

Are you sick of coming around here only to find the most recent post is still Limoncello? Me too. Ugh. Sorry about that. I’ve been a little preoccupied with some fun stuff and some not-so-fun stuff, and all I have to show for it is a couple completed knitting projects and a boatload of reading to catch up on. I don’t have much time to talk food right now, so I’ll just get straight to the recipe. It’s delicious and a great way to use up stale bread or cinnamon rolls.
Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding
Adapted from Bon Appetit, December 2003
12 ounces crustless bread, cut into large chunks (about 4 large cinnamon rolls)
7 large eggs
2-1/2 cups whole milk
1/3 cup raisins, preferably soaked in hot water for about 10 minutes until plump
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon

These are the leftover cinnamon rolls that I made a couple weeks ago. The only reason I had leftovers is that I’m not really a cinnamon-roll-a-day kind of person, and after snacking on them for a few days I had to get my gluttonous tendencies in check. So I made bread pudding. Makes perfect sense, right?
Cut the crust off the rolls, and cut them into about 1″ cubes.
Crack 7 large eggs into a big bowl. Lightly beat them.
Add the milk, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk to combine.
Add the nutmeg and cinnamon. I didn’t actually measure the nutmeg, but I grated somwhere between 2/3 to 3/4 of a whole seed. It was pretty strong on the nutmeg flavor, which I really liked, but you could reduce the amount of nutmeg if you’d prefer the cinnamon to shine through more.
Did you know that both mace and nutmeg come from the same plant? And they grow on an evergreen tree? The ol’ Myristica fragrans is the only tropical plant that’s the source of two spices. Fascinating, isn’t it?
Stir the egg/milk/sugar/spice mixture until everything is combined, and then pour it over the bread and raisins in a large bowl.  Use a spoon to push down any bread that isn’t submerged, and let the mixture hang out for at least 20 minutes and as long as overnight.
Pour the mixture into a greased 11x7x2-inch* glass dish, cover it with foil, and put it in a cold 350 oven for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 35 minutes, until the top is puffed golden brown.
*If you only have a 9×13-inch dish, that should work as well. You might need to adjust the baking time, though.
I took mine out a little too early, which I didn’t realize until I started cutting pieces from the edges and the runny center rushed to fill the newly vacant space in the dish. If that’s the case, just throw it back in until the center is set.

The original recipe calls for a drizzle of maple syrup and a sprinkle of toasted pecans to top it off…
But we went with vanilla ice cream. There was also a bottle of chocolate syrup that was passed around, but for some reason I resisted.
Tagged
Mar 09 2009
3 Comments
Chocolate, Dessert

Turd Torte

My parents came to visit this weekend and picked up a belated birthday cake from a little bakery in Waterloo, Iowa.  There was a lot of suspense leading up to the unveiling of the cake, including making me avert my eyes while we rode the elevator up 8 floors to my apartment and making me go wait in the bathroom while they put on the finishing touches.  Oh, the irony.  Here was my surprise:

More like S__T we spelled your name wrong.
I quickly got over the sting of the misspelling, and dove right in.  If I boycotted eating every cake on which my name was misspelled, I probably would have deprived myself of about half the birthday cakes of my lifetime.  Cake deprivation is not something I choose to participate in on my birthday.  Or ever.  Especially when there are copious amounts of frosting involved.
My dad had a double dose of cake – poop cake and carrot cake.  Typical.
Same with my mom.  She ate it so fast that I couldn’t even get a good picture.

Thanks, Mom & Dad!
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