Mocha ice cream with malt balls and warm caramel sauce

Sorry about that last post. I really should know better to try such things and just stick to recipes.

This particular recipe is a remake of one of the first ice creams I made when I got my churn a couple years ago. I've updated it into the Britton style, tweaked it a little and added the caramel which I though would go well with the other flavors.

I started by coarsely grinding 12 Tablespoons of coffee beans. Which was a mistake, I think. I added them to 1 1/2 cups cream and 1 1/2 cups milk, brought the mix to a boil, simmered for a few minutes to cook down the dairy a little, turned off the heat, covered and let steep for 10 minutes. That nicely infused the flavor, but the grounds grabbed on to a lot of the milk solids and I ended up mashing them in a sieve to try to get all the good stuff out. Kind of a pain, not terribly effective and some grounds make it through and back into the pot. Since the ice cream was going to be gritty from the maltballs anyway, I thought it would fly, but if I were to do it again, I'd just crush beans, not grind them.

Once the dairy was infused with coffee, I mixed in 1/2 cup sugar which isn't a lot for 3 cups, particularly with the bitterness of the coffee. I wanted to keep the ice cream on the less sweet side so the malt and caramel would contrast nicely. Once the sugar was dissolved, I mixed 1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon corn starch with 3/4 ounce by weight of Dutch-process cocoa (mainly as an aid to getting lumps out of both) and whisked the mixture into the pot and brought it back up to a boil to thicken up. Finally, I whisked in 1 1/2 ounce by volume of cream cheese (whipped up for easier incorporation) and checked for flavor and texture. It was both too intense and too thick so I thinned it out with 1/4 cup of cream.

The malt balls are the fancy sort from the bulk bin at Fresh Market. I think the chocolate to malt ratio is too high, but they've certainly got Whoppers beat. I wanted irregularly sized pieces so I put them in a plastic bag and whacked them with a crab hammer. That's a couple handfuls. I don't know, 1 1/2 cups?

The caramel sauce is only a sauce since it's warm. It's really just a simple soft caramel. I forgot to write down the amounts I used, but I think it was a half cup of sugar, melted, and then the cooking stopped by mixing in 3 Tablespoons of butter and 1/4 cup cream. I may have added a dash of vanilla too. That's all there is to it.

So I chilled and churned the mix, folded in the malt balls and ripened in the freezer. I haven't got a beauty shot of the final product I'm afraid, so you'll just have to use your imagination. I made it for a baby shower that happened while I was away visiting my mother and I never got to taste the fully assembled dish. I asked for them to take pictures, but nobody did. I tried a little of the ice cream and thought the coffee overbalanced the cocoa flavor, but I hoped the chocolate on the malt balls would compensate. I'm told the ice cream went over well and certainly it was all gone when I got back, but I couldn't get any details about how it tasted from those I asked. You'll just have to use your imagination for that too.

Caramel black tea ice cream

Actually, it's caramel black tea ice cream with a lemon caramel swirl and bits of shortbread.

I've been meaning to make a black tea ice cream for a while now; in particular I've been thinking of using Earl Grey. But I'm out of that and I have got plenty of caramel tea which is just straight ahead black tea with little cubes of (freeze-dried maybe?) caramel in it. I've also got some caramel sauce leftover from my bananas foster misadventure a while back that I wanted to use up. The shortbread I bought long ago for that Earl Grey ice cream I never made and have been nibbling away at since. Why not add in what I've got left?

I've had some problems infusing tea into ice cream previously in a chai ice cream I made last year and a green tea ice cream I made before starting the blog so I gave some consideration to my approach. Despite reservations over the possibility of stewing the infusion, I decided to brew the tea the same way I've made coffee ice cream. I used four Tablespoons of tea for two cups of cream and one of milk, the same amount of tea I would use for six cups of water. All those go into a pot cold, slowly brought to a boil and then let to cool for 15 minutes. A taste right from the pot was pretty bitter as I had feared, but I'm adding a full cup of sugar so that can be overcome. It's also interesting to note that the tea absorbed a good half cup of water out of the mix.

That cup of sugar I mixed with four egg yolks. That's a lot for the two and a half cups of dairy left, but what the heck. I'm not experimenting with weird substitutions today so I may as well go for super-premium levels of fat. I made a custard the usual way and cooled down the mix. It got to a syrupy level texture which is about right for going into the churn. When it gets to more of a pudding texture you know it's going to thicken up too quick and you won't get the right amount of air churned in.

As for the caramel sauce, I squeezed in fresh lemon juice until it had thinned out enough to be gooey, but not chewy at freezer temperatures. There was already a bit of booze in it so I knew it wouldn't freeze up. To be honest, I was under the misapprehension that caramel plus lemon made butterscotch which is an odd thing to think as it includes neither butter nor scotch. Actually, butterscotch is made by melting brown sugar and adding butter, scotch optional, which makes more sense. Anyway, both caramel and lemon go nicely with tea so no complaints at the results.

And the shortbread I froze and then cut into half-inch pieces. I didn't want the crumb-filled texture I got from the pumpernickel Nutella ice cream so I was careful to keep the pieces intact and tossed the crumbs. In retrospect the pumpernickel and Nutella would have made a great bread pudding instead of a weird ice cream; If I wasn't so fixated on ice cream I would have thought of that.

So, anyway, churning went better than it's gone in a long time, creating a smooth creamy texture without a lot of drama from freezing too quickly or slowly. Once I got it to soft-serve texture I scooped it out by quarters and layered each with drizzles of caramel and handfuls of shortbread and then folded it all together.

After ripening, it hardened up just right, slightly firmer but keeping all of the creaminess, just about as good as ice cream gets really. I think the caramel sauce melted into the ice cream a bit which probably helped the texture there, but the thicker streams kept some separate identity. I probably should have used straight black tea instead of the caramel version to get more contrast between the ice cream and the swirl. Right now they're both primarily caramel with notes of dairy and tea or citrus depending. I don't think you could even identify that note as tea if it wasn't pointed out to you which is a bit of a shame. I shouldn't complain much about that as the ice cream really is spectacularly good and any possible refinements are out of intellectual interest more than sensual improvements. The shortbread is, of course, buttery and crumbly and a lovely addition. See, this is what happens when you stop screwing around and make ice cream out of actual ice cream ingredients using actual ice cream recipes. Well, enough of that, my next ice cream will have to be extra weird to compensate.

Peanut butter caramel popcorn

Several years ago, before I got into making ice cream every couple of weeks, I used to make a lot of caramel corn. I'm talking about the good stuff that they sell for five bucks a handful in tourist traps, except better because I made it with plenty of real butter and without ridiculous novelty flavors for the rubes. It was praised by the editors of Food and Wine magazine. OK, one ex-editor, but still, he knew what he was talking about. It's also kind of a pain in the butt so I made this recipe instead.

Still, I've got a bit of expertise to bring to bear so I think my few tweaks managed to improve it.

Ingredients
enough popcorn kernels to make six to seven cups of popped popcorn. That's 1/4 to 1/2 cup depending on the variety and how fresh they are
1 cup roasted peanuts
Vegetable oil
2 large pinches salt
1/2 cup strongly flavored dark honey, like, say, avocado honey
1/3 cup not-quite-white sugar, demerara or the like
1/2 cup natural unsweetened peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 or 5 shots of vinegar-based but fruity hot sauce, Tabasco's not really the best choice, but it'll do.

Prepare your largest mixing bowl. Heat a large heavy pan over medium heat and film the bottom with vegetable oil. Add a few kernels of the popcorn, then put a lid on the pan. Leave a small crack for steam to escape. When the popcorn starts popping, add the rest and shake vigorously to make sure the kernels pop evenly. When the popping slows, take the pan off the heat.

Pour the popcorn into the bowl to cool, being careful to leave any unpopped kernels in the pan. Coated with peanut butter caramel, the unpopped kernels are a serious tooth hazard.

Mix the honey, a pinch of salt and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and let simmer for three minutes, then remove from the heat and add the peanut butter. Stir vigorously until all the peanut butter is melted, then mix in the vanilla and hot sauce.

Immediately pour the peanut butter caramel over the popcorn and stir with a long-handled wooden spoon until it's all coated. Once it's mixed, check for seasoning. Let cool a few minutes before moving it to a serving bowl. Let cool a bit longer before actually serving as it's better when it's congealed a little. The texture is better refrigerator, but the flavor is better at room temperature. You'll have to judge the best balance yourself.


My popcorn popped up rather less voluminously than I wanted so I ended up with a rather thick coat of goop around the kernels. That's a bit of a novelty for me as I'm using to thin coats of caramel that I can bake into crispness. That's not really an option with a peanut butter based sauce. This is more in the soft chewy rice crispy treat neighborhood. Not a bad thing if that's what you're aiming at.

The dark honey and hot sauce give a couple dimensions of full flavor missing from the original recipe which is not necessarily a good thing if you're just looking for simple honey peanut butter which I admit can be quite nice. Here the light peanut butter flavor fades into a rich honey with a few bitter notes rounding it out and leaves a lingering burn. Well, I like it.

I'll have to make my proper caramel corn recipe some time and post it up. Maybe I'll try a new variation with the bottle of agave nectar I bought. It's got to be useful for something.

Banana caramel chocolate swirl ice cream

Are you sick of reading about banana ice creams yet? I'm kind of sick of making them. But they're low fat and banana does go with a lot of different flavors so I guess I'll keep at it for a little while longer.

The immediate cause for this ice cream flavor was Kat's recipe for banana caramel chocolate swirl cupcakes. But before that prompt I had a couple ideas on the back-burner. First, I haven't yet made a successful swirl. My raspberry swirl melted into the ice cream; my peanut butter/honey swirl was more like chunks; and my coffee swirl ended up crunchy. A caramel swirl is pretty traditional so I figured I could find a well-tested recipe to use. As for the chocolate, I wanted to try an Italian method called stracciatella which is less a swirl than solid chocolate streaks.

For the base, I used the Good Eats recipe for banana ice cream:
3 medium ripe bananas, (a little over 1 pound), frozen and defrosted
1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice
3/8 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

No cooking required; just blend the lot. I've made this before, but I don't think I used the corn syrup. I don't think I will again either as it gave the ice cream an artificial banana-taffy sort of flavor. I know brown sugar, honey or maple syrup would make good substitutions. I wonder if a light molasses would work. I wish I could get my hands on some sorgum. That would be ideal.

Caramel recipes specifically made for freezing are not as common as I expected. Of the few I found, I went with this one:

3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup whipping cream
20g unsalted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla
pinch salt

Cook the sugar and water over medium high heat until it turns amber. Slowly mix in the whipping cream. Let cool five minutes and stir in vanilla and salt.

That first step is a little tricky, as you know if you've ever made candy. A sugar syrup goes from clear to burnt in seconds even after being removed from the heat. Stopping to take a picture is not a good idea. Mine turned out with a slight burnt flavor, but not enough to make me toss it.

I didn't like how it was thickening up in the refrigerator so I added a teaspoon of rum to thin it out and keep it liquid below freezing.

The stracciatella is even simpler. It's just melted chocolate drizzled over and folded into the frozen ice cream. David Lebovitz demoed the technique on the Gourmet: Diary of a Foodie episode on bloggers. (They focused on the big names who eat their way through food meccas like Paris, San Francisco and Hong Kong. No love for cooking blogs or those of us in nowherevilles like Miami. OK, why does my spell-checker not recognize the word "bloggers" but is perfectly happy with "nowherevilles"?) He recommends using a semisweet chocolate with no more than 60% cocoa. I only have 72% bar on hand, but I've also got a chunk of white chocolate ( 0% cocoa) so I can thin it out. But how much to use?

Starting with three quarters of my 3.5 ounce bar of 72% and adding X amount of white chocolate to get 60% when melted together:
0.72*(3/4*3.5 oz) + 0*(X oz) = 0.6*(3/4*3.5 oz + X oz)
0.72*(2.625 oz) = 0.6*(2.625 oz + X oz)
1.89 oz = 1.575 oz + 0.6*X oz
0.315 oz = 0.6*X oz
0.525 oz = X oz

Stay in school, kids!

On to the actual swirling. After churning the ice cream, I packed it into a medium baking dish and let it ripen in the freezer for an hour to get it good and firm. Then I brought it out into a well-air-conditioned room and drizzled on spoonfuls of the caramel and the chocolate. I really wanted to use plastic squeezy bottles but I couldn't find any. The caramel stayed liquid, but the chocolate solidified on contact. It was pretty cool--like I was using one of those fancy anti-griddles. I can see why the avant garde chefs like them so much.

Once I had the top covered, I scraped it off, packed into a storage container, drizzled the top of that, drizzled the new surface in the baking dish, packed that and so on. I don't think the caramel stayed in strings, but at least it'll be unevenly distributed. The end result wasn't packed all that well since I didn't want to break up the stracciatella too much.

And here's the result. The ice cream is light and maybe a bit fluffy. (I'd have preferred creamy, really.) The caramel is pleasantly oozy. The chocolate crackles enticingly as you carve out a scoopful and crunches between the teeth. The mixture of textures is great but the banana flavor is too pronounced. I'm going to blame the corn syrup here. I think maybe it would be best to leave out the banana entirely and just go with straight vanilla and let the caramel and chocolate carry the load.