It's Time for Ice Cream!

Another summer holiday weekend, another post about homemade ice cream. It's becoming a little predictable, no?! But, hey...it's a post! I had really good intentions about hitting you (the 5 readers I have left) with a bunch of posts this weekend. Posts with breakfast ideas for the long weekend, our recent trip to Paris (!) and thoughts about pregnancy as I enter my third (!!!!) trimester.

Well, you know what they say about good intentions.

The truth is, after the craziness of the last month and the craziness that is to come in the next few months, I really needed a break-- a three day weekend with no feelings of obligation. Just rest, relaxation and doing things that I felt like doing. Things like making homemade ice cream.

Previous ice cream posts have focused on seasonal fruit, but this time around we decided to do something different. I was having a hard time making up my mind about what kind of ice cream to make, so I let Jason be in the driver's seat. We perused our ice cream bible, and he picked out a recipe for tin roof ice cream, a traditional custard-based vanilla ice cream with fudge ripple and a chocolate-covered peanut mix in. I was in! We ended up foregoing the chocolate-covered peanuts-- our local grocery store is "temporarily closed" (no word on why or when it will be reopening) and we were surprised to discover that the Trader Joe's near our house does not carry such confections. So we ended up with a fudge ripple ice cream which was just as delicious.

It's going to be a good summer!

Fudge Ripple Ice Cream
Adapted slightly from David Lebovitz

Ingredients
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt
1/2 vanilla bean
4 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Fudge Ripple (recipe below)

1. Warm the milk, sugar, salt and 1/2 cup of cream in a medium saucepan. Add vanilla bean to hot milk mixture. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the 4 egg yolks and set aside. Pour remaining cream in a large bowl; place a metal strainer over top of the large bowl and set aside.
3. Rewarm the vanilla mixture. Once warm, slowly add to egg yolks whisking constantly (so as to avoid scrambled eggs). Pour mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan, until mixture coats back of the spatula or spoon.
4. Pour through the metal strainer into the cream. Remove vanilla bean from the strainer, wipe off any bits of egg, and add back to mixture. Add vanilla extract. Chill over an ice bath. Refrigerate until cold (I let mine stay in there overnight but a few hours will probably do the trick).
5. Freeze in an ice cream freezer. When transferring to another container, alternate layers of fudge ripple and ice cream (don't stir together). Freeze until hard/ready to eat. Enjoy!

Fudge Ripple
From David Lebovitz

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
6 TBL cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Whisk together sugar, corn syrup, water and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium and bring to a low boil, whisking often.
2. Boil for 1 minute, remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
3. Let cool. Refrigerate until ready for ice cream. Make sure it is cold when you mix it in to the ice cream.

Homemade Fudge--the Easy Way

The first year Jason and I were dating I made him chocolate truffles for Valentine's Day and presented them in a white tin with a bright red ribbon. It was his favorite gift that year. Now it is an integral part of our annual Valentine's Day celebration--every year I make him some sort of homemade treat and give it to him in that same white tin. One year was linzer cookies while another was chocolate dipped shortbread hearts. This year I decided to make fudge.

Speaking of Valentine's Day--get a load of this awesome dinner Jason made for me last night. Bacon-wrapped scallops, skillet roasted potatoes, and asparagus! YUM.

The traditional method of making fudge can be a little daunting as it requires a candy thermometer and boiling the chocolate mixture until it reaches a certain temperature, etc. I haven't quite mastered that art yet (there was the burned doughnut incident last fall and a failed attempt at making homemade marshmallows around Thanksgiving), so I decided to take the easy road in order to make sure Jason's Valentine's Day was a good one. All you do is melt chocolate, vanilla, sweetened condensed milk, and butter and cool the mixture for a few hours. It's as simple as that. If you want to get crazy you can add some additional flavorings-- cinnamon, espresso powder, even chili powder-- are good ways to personalize it for that special someone in your life. It's the perfect chocolate treat--any time of year.

Quick and Easy Fudge
Adapted slightly from Giada di Laurentiis

Ingredients:
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 teaspoons espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips (I used a mixture of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate but you can use either/or depending your preference)
3 TBL butter, room temperature

1. Grease an 8x8 baking pan and line with a 14 inch piece of parchment paper.
2. Fill a sauce pan with 1-2 inches of water and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low. Meanwhile, mix sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, and espresso powder (or other flavorings) together in a glass bowl. Add chocolate and butter. Place bowl on top of the barely simmering water.
3. Stir chocolate mixture until it is smooth and everything has melted together. It will be really thick. Use a rubber spatula to scrape fudge into the prepared baking dish. Smooth the top and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
4. Lift the parchment-lined fudge out of the baking pan and cut into squares. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to eat.