Chocolate Peppermint Ice Cream

It is HOT in DC, and it is humid. Such is the joy is living in Washington, DC in the summer! Less joyfully, the AC is not exactly working properly. After leaks in the subfloor, many jiggles, emptying a bucket of dripping water twice a day and more than a few temporary patches from my handy husband, today our 45 year old AC unit is being replaced! Huzzah!.....oh wait....no AC until it's actually finished. Huzz.........wait for it...........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. *Sigh of relief* 

Today's temporary AC outage calls for ice cream. Chocolate-Peppermint is the ultimate keep-me-cool-and-happy treat. I cannot get over just how soothing the peppermint actually is. Four scoops later and no regrets! 

Chocolate Peppermint Ice Cream 

makes roughly 4 scoops 

1 1/2 cup half and half 

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon peppermint flavoring**

1 tablespoon dutch cocoa powder  

In a stand mixer combine the eggs and sugar. Beat for one minute until light and fluffy. Add dutch cocoa. Mix until combined. Gently mix in the half and half and peppermint flavoring.

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

**specifically peppermint NOT plain mint which is 99% of the time spearmint. I use Frontier Organic Peppermint Flavoring which can be purchased online and in many natural foods stores. 

Peppermint Marshmallows & Chocolate Spoons

If you want to add a little zing to your winter's hot cocoa try out these adorable peppermint flavored pink and white swirled homemade marshmallows! 

Oh what a week! I have spent the majority of my time pouring over food trends lists for 2011! I must say...I'm not incredibly impressed. There are a few things I am wildly excited over, but it just felt like a whole lot of the same things we've been seeing for years! Such a shame! I just wrote an article on it for the Washington Examiner on it (that just posted! yay!). It's somewhat sad but true, but the opening five words are really all you'll need to know for the trends.

I am really looking forward to Korean food taking off. I am passionate about bulgolgi and love my little trips out to Annandale (just don't go to Gom Ba Woo easily the worst I've had).

Okay, I need to think about ANYTHING but food trends. It's been making my eyes hurts to stare and read through most of these lists............so let's think about peppermint marshmallows!

A little while back I fell in love with making my own sugar out of peppermint candies. Thirty seconds in a food processor and I would have the perfect peppermint flavored powdered sugar. Delightful! I've been having fun making ice cream with it and decided it was about time to try out something else! So why not marshmallows! I thought up some adorable marshmallows and off it went! I hope you enjoy them! My favorite part right now...the mint is SO calming. Which is fantastic to calm my nerves about food trends.

Another little thing I did was to cover spoons with dark and white chocolates. The instructions are so simple! Melt chocolate, dip a spoon in to cover, and put on a sheet of wax paper in the freezer to set. Repeat with white chocolate! They are perfect for stirring hot chocolate with and add a little decorative flair. I have away the spoons and bags of marhsmallows to my friends for them to enjoy.

Cheers!

Homemade Marshmallows

Adapted from Alton Brown

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

Nonstick spray

3 packages unflavored gelatin

1 cup ice cold water, divided

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup powdered peppermint candies

1 cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

red food coloring

First things first prepare your pan! Spray the pan heavily with cooking spray (or grease with shortening if you prefer). Mix cornstarch and powdered sugar in a separate bowl. Pour about half the mixture into the pan and shake around the coat. Over wax paper, tap out any excess powder. Picking the wax paper up, return the excess powder to the bowl.

Fit your stand mixer with its whisk attachment. Pour the gelatin and ½ cup of the ice water into its bowl. Allow to sit as you continue to make the marshmallow syrup.   

In a small saucepan combine: 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, peppermint sugar, corn syrup and salt. Cover and cook on medium or medium high heat for about 3 minutes. No need to stir.

Take the lid of the syrup, and attach your candy thermometer to the side of the pan. Continue to boil for about 7 minutes until the syrup reaches 240 degrees and remove from heat immediately.

Put your stand mixer on low speed churning the gelatin mixture for a few turns and then, while running, SLOWLY pour the syrup down the side of the bowl. When all the syrup is incorporated, increase to a high speed. I cover the stand mixer with a tea towel for the first few minutes to prevent hot syrup from flying around my kitchen.  Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 -13 minutes. Add the vanilla, during the last minute of whipping.

WARNING: This part is tricky and requires you to move FAST! Pour the majority of the marshmallow cream into a the prepared pan. Leave a small bit into the bowl. Work quickly and add in some food coloring until it reaches the color you prefer. Quickly drizzle over the top and swirl the marshmallow with a knife in a figure 8 pattern. 

If you have a sugar shaker, I recommend shaking on a little powdered sugar (or peppermint powdered sugar) to coat slightly. Then take a few tablespoons of the powdered mixtures and brush on over top of the marshmallows. Allow to sit for 4 hours or overnight. Keep the remainder of the powder mixture.

When you cut the marshmallows, you’re going to want to dip each side in the powder sugar mixture to keep it from sticking to everything it touches. At this point you’re ready to eat them!

Peppermint Ice Cream

I love peppermint ice cream. I find it calming during the crazy holiday season!

Alright! I am back on track! I am just about done writing up my posts about my travels! And I spent nearly all of my weekend in the kitchen! Between cooking demos and making my last ditch effort to make all the ice cream I set out to this year, it was one. busy. weekend. 

I know it might seem crazy, but yes, all the posts in the next two weeks are going to be ice cream. HORRID timing right? As the blizzards are setting in across America, who really wants ice cream? Frankly I'm about to write off anything that involves walking outside! This week I need to visit the holiday market, and go to National Harbor for their holiday festivities...both outdoors. If you want to find me while I'm at either I'll be the one that looks like the Michelin Man. I'm think it'll take at least five layers to be okay in any of this. It's not so bad except the wind. Oh the wind. I can't take it. 

Ugh. As it is I need to get to work on sending out holiday cards. Hundreds of them. Hundreds. Literally my entire day will be spent hand addressing envelopes. At least I can watch holiday movies! And eat Peppermint Ice Cream! ....oooooh cold. I'll just have to sip hot chocolate at I eat my ice cream! 

So, if you want to have chocolate wafers and make the ice cream into a sandwich like I did...I would NOT recommend doing it the way I did. I thought it would be fun to use the tree silicone pans my mother gave me in her Christmas Countdown (which is just SO cute!). Bad idea. Bad. I melted down chocolate chips and poured them into the molds.....chocolate does not want to come out of silicone molds. Yep. Good learning moment. Took some effort. My new plan would be to melt down the chocolate and go at it like I would the chocolate collars. That would work out so much better....I think. Haven't tried it, but I can't see how it could fail. Good luck! 

Enjoy! 

Peppermint Ice Cream 

2 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups cream

1 cup milk

pinch of salt

1 cup peppermint candies

Using a food processor, grind the peppermint candies into a fine powder. 

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

Gently mix in the cream, milk, vanilla, salt  and powdered peppermint candies. 

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