Iron Chef: Fennel

Fennel in ice cream? Oh yeah, I went there! Turns out it's tasty! 

Yes. Yes I did. I made fennel ice cream. It's ice cream year, and odds are, with the weather getting cold incredibly suddenly. I have not hit my 52 ice creams for the year.....more like....27....and that's if I include the the ice cream accessories, cheating and rounding up. Fail! I'll keep trying but it's so much harder to want ice cream when I'm freezing cold.


Iron Chef Fennel was a smashing success (a week ago!). My roommate Sunni won, making a fantastic pear and fennel salad (a week ago!). It was a smashing success (I'm feeling ashamed about not getting this posted faster!).....and if I had posted this sooner I would remember a lot of what happened or have some witty anecdote (but I don't). 


Happy Monday! I'm happy to be back to an almost normal posting schedule and almost not behind on posting recipes! 

clockwise: tortellini, falafel balls, Sunni's winning Pear and Fennel Salad, gratin, bruschetta, and fennel salad

Fennel Lemon Ice Cream 


2 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp. lemon extract
1 tsp. ground fennel
2 cups cream
1 cup milk 

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar.  Beat for one minute until light and fluffy. 

Gently mix in the cream, milk, lemon extract and fennel. 

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker. Allow the ice cream to churn until finished and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

cookies n cream ice cream

Cookies and Cream Ice Cream is a staple! How could it get better? Easy! Homemade Oreos! And better still, homemade Oreo cookie cups to serve them in! 

Well now that the wedding is over it's back to business! Sorry for my absence. It got VERY crazy around here. I had this post all ready to go and post on Friday......I honestly, deep in my misguided mind, thought that I would have the time to post it. HA! I'm so cute right? UGH! No time. As it was on Friday, I called in a few extra helping hands (Rachel and Brandon, I adore you both!) and barely made it on time...or half an hour late, one of the two. Luckily that meant late to set up. The food was ready for the reception thank heaven! Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Easley!

I would have posted yesterday, but I went to Taste of Bethesda and tried out samples from the more than 50 vendors at the street fair. I am sad to report that none of the cookie vendors held a candle to homemade.

And today, as I am in the kitchen, making pumpkin chiffon pies, and chocolate cake and mousse, I am excited to say:

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! Happy birthday to me!  Tonight we're holding a pumpkin themed party for me, with pies, and "Pumpkin Bocce" details to come with that post.

But for now, enjoy my homemade cookies and cream ice cream, made with homemade Oreos! :)

Lots of wedding recipes and posts to come soon! As well as my Iron Chef Fennel post! OMG I am so behind on life!

Cookies’n’Cream Ice Cream

2 large Eggs

3/4 c  Sugar

2 c  Heavy or whipping cream

1 c  Milk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups chopped Oreos - see homemade recipe below!

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar.  Beat for one minute until light and fluffy. 

Gently mix in the cream, milk, vanilla and chopped Oreos. 

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker. Allow the ice cream to churn until finished and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

  

Homemade Oreos
  1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons, unsalted butter
1 large egg

½ cup unsalted butter (You can substitute some butter for vegetable shortening)
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.

In a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, mix together flour, cocoa, soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Once mixed add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass. Divide into 2 or 3 pieces.
 

Roll out each portion between parchment paper to a thickness of about 5 mm. Refrigerate for a minimum of 30mins.

Once chilled, peel off top layer of parchment. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a sharp knife. Arrange shapes on parchment lined baking sheets and refrigerate for another 30mins to an hour.

Re-roll scraps and follow the above process until all scraps are used up.

Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool. (or pressing some warm cookies into cupcake tins to make a cookie cup!)

To make the cream, place butter in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Keep the mixer on low and mix until just combined and formed a stuff paste. Roll paste into a slighter smaller than cookie sized log. Freeze.

To assemble the cookies slice filling off of log. Sandwich in between two cookies halves.

Enjoy! 

Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream

Balsamic Vinegar in Ice Cream? YEP! If you read my Kansas City post you know that that Glace Artisan Ice Cream makes this flavor and I couldn't help but try to make an easy copy cat recipe! The balsamic really accents the strawberries perfectly, enhancing the flavor ever just so.

I feel like lately I'm announcing more than the average amount of vacation's I'll be taking. I just went to Kansas, I'll be going to London and Edinburgh, and yes I have another vacation to announce! Well....vacation may be a strong word. I'm heading home to Good Ol' Gilbert, Arizona for a four day trip! Drum roll please: And bringing Stephen too! That poor dermatologist and all his sunscreen won't know what him! I'm not sure if he's even been in the desert for five hours...I'm actually not sure he's even been in the desert at all. Oh goodness, this could be very funny!

We're going soon too! Didn't really plan this ahead but two weeks from today we'll be flying out to Arizona. I can't wait to see his reaction to a "scor-pop." Not sure what your reaction should be? Picture a lollipop with a scorpion in it.....there ya go! That's the facial reaction I was looking for!!!! Oh, and then there's the Mexican food. Just keep in mind: everything is hotter in Arizona. It might be bigger in Texas, but it's hotter there!

What I'm REALLY excited about is that two weeks from tomorrow we're going to go spend a day in Sedona, Arizona AND GO ON A PINK JEEP TOUR! Okay, so it's probably not as fun as I think it is, but I hope it is! It's a rock climbing jeep tour that takes your out four wheeling in the desert. The tour I want to do takes us out to Indian cliff dwellings and rock walls full of hieroglyphics! Nerd alert: I think hieroglyphs are fun. We used to paint them in elementary school for class projects. But hey, even if you aren't into Native American dwellings, a rock climbing jeep tour? That's just awesome.

And now for my shameless segway: And with all that heat I bet I'll be dying for some good ice cream when we get back! Too bad Sedona won't have anything like this Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream. Yes. That was pretty awful. Just endure it. It's worth it. The ice cream is divine! One of my friends actually licked the bowl, and when a grown, well educated man licks the bowl that really says something!!!!

Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream

2 eggs
2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
3/4 cups sugar
2 cups cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup strawberry jelly

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar.  Beat for one minute until light and fluffy. 

Gently mix in the cream, milk strawberry jelly and balsamic vinegar. 

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker. Allow the ice cream to churn until finished and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Enjoy! 

Brown Butter Baked Alaska

Nutty, warm and creamy Brown Butter Ice Cream and Brown Butter Pound Cake covered in light meringue and toasted!  Worth it BUT a devil to make. 

I loved this challenge! Daring Bakers has just been such a fun addition to my life and to my blog! Baked Alaska is just one of those things that kinda scares me a little. No. A LOT. I'm glad that I got pushed into this one though. I'm very excited about trying this one out again. And brown butter? Yes please! Add that to everything! 

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”. 

I went with the Baked Alaska. I have made plenty of petit fours in my life, so it just seemed like a bit of a waste to do them one more time when I had a new opportunity in front of me. Since brown butter in baking was new to me too (I recommend brown butter on ricotta gnocchi) I decided to go for making a brown butter ice cream too. A total experiment that I LOVE the outcome of.  I went for the cupcake sizes and loved every minutes of it! Hope you do too! 

Brown Butter Baked Alaska 

Brown Butter Ice Cream 

1 cup butter
2 egg
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
2 cup cream

Place the butter in a 10” skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar. Beat for one minute until light and fluffy.

Add in brown butter and continue to whip.

Gently mix in the cream, milk.

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker. Allow the ice cream to churn until finished and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Proceed to make the brown butter pound cake.

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325°F and put a rack in the center. Line cupcake tins.

Place the butter in a 10” skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

Pipe the batter (or spoon) into the lined cupcake tin. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 12 minutes.

Remove from pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. 

Meringue

6 egg whites
1 1/2 cup plus 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Put egg whites in a stand mixer. Mix until they hold soft peaks. While the mixer is still running on a medium speed, add in the sugar one tablespoon at a time. Add in the cornstarch. Beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks.

Assembly

Place each cupcake onto its serving plate (use a plate that can withstand heat). Have your blow torch handy. DO NOT attempt to make a baked alaska that is this small in the oven. It will only melt, as it will not have enough frozen ice cream at the core to preserve it. . 

Scoop one scoop of ice cream onto each cupcake. QUICKLY cover with meringue and grab out your blow torch. 

Torch it, and serve! 

Enjoy!