Thursday, November 4, 2010

recipes tested, no. 2

[Next time Rob has a little bowl, I'll take and post a good photo!] 

I think Sara is still planning to make autumn spiced ice cream for Thanksgiving dessert - a few weeks ago, I was looking for a healthier (eh, no heavy cream, whole milk, or eggs) ice cream or frozen yogurt to make that was sort of seasonal - I thought about rum raisin, but we didn't have rum.  I thought about pumpkin.  I thought about gingersnap.  And then Sara pointed me in this direction...and she suggested I try it out so she could she how it turned out with a few adjustments.  The original recipe is: 

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups 2% reduced fat milk, divided
  • 2 Tbsp arrowroot powder or cornstarch
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • 2 Tbsp evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 Tbsp pure maple syrup
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp pure maple extract
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
Directions:
  1. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup milk with the arrowroot. Set aside.
  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the remaining 1 3/4 cup milk, half-and-half, evaporated cane juice, brown sugar, and maple syrup. Cook over medium heat, gently whisking occasionally, until the mixture just begins to boil, about 10 minutes. When the mixture reaches the soft boiling point (bubbles are just starting to break the surface), remove from heat, and whisk in the milk & arrowroot mixture. Whisk until the mixture noticeably thickens, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the vanilla extract, maple extract, and spices. Transfer ice cream base to a medium bowl. Chill completely in the refrigerator, about 2-3 hours.
  3. Freeze according to ice cream manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer to an air-tight freezable container and freeze until “ripened” (hardened).
Sara asked Lauren if she could make it with skim milk and she replied that she thought so - it would just freeze harder.  So, this was how I revised the recipe:

Ingredients:
  • 2 cups skim milk, divided
  • 2 Tbsp cornstarch
  • 1 cup half-and-half
  • 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp pure maple syrup
  • 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp pure maple extract
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves I just don't have ground cloves!
Directions:
  1. In a small bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup milk with the cornstarch. Set aside.
  2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the remaining 1 3/4 cup milk, half-and-half, sugar, brown sugar, and maple syrup. Cook over medium heat, gently whisking occasionally, until the mixture just begins to boil, about 10 minutes. When the mixture reaches the soft boiling point (bubbles are just starting to break the surface), remove from heat, and whisk in the milk & cornstarch mixture. Whisk until the mixture noticeably thickens, about 30 seconds. Okay, I'm not sure what happened here - but the mixture was not noticeably thickening much.  Perhaps it was a little thicker - but not much - maybe this was because of the skim milk or using cornstarch - I'm not sure.  So, I probably whisked for about 2 minutes, then just proceeded feeling like I'd totally messed it up and it wouldn't become ice cream properly.  Whisk in the vanilla extract, maple extract, and spices. Transfer ice cream base to a medium bowl. Chill completely in the refrigerator, about 2 - 3 hours.
  3. Once it was in the refrigerator for a few hours, I poured it into the frozen ice cream maker bowl - I was pretty worried because it was very thin.  The ice cream I had made before, even the skim milk ones, had been much thicker - so I was convinced it would not turn into ice cream.  Twenty minutes after the ice cream maker had been running, I came back and it wasn't getting thicker - erghhh.  But then - after about another 5 minutes - it started turning into ice cream! 
Since I love gingersnaps and bought two bags for a pumpkin cheesecake I was going to make for Rob's birthday, I just used some of those and broke them into small pieces and added to the ice cream right before I took it out of the maker - so it swirled in well.  It actually turned out really well - and it wasn't too icy because of the skim milk - and the ginger snap pieces got sort of soaked in the ice cream - so they're nice and chewy like the gingersnap crust on a cheesecake.  We still have a ton left in the freezer and it's pretty tasty - I wish some of the other autumn flavors were more prevalent - it just tastes like cinnamon vanilla ice cream, but it would go wonderfully with apple pie!  And I bet a shot (or three!) of spiced rum would taste excellent in this!

3 comments:

  1. hmm... will keep this in mind. i'm not sure if it was because of the use of cornstarch instead of arrowroot.

    did you use the maple extract, too? perhaps the cloves really bump up the spice factor?

    i like the idea of adding gingersnaps to this. maybe some candied walnuts also?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well it ended up thickening fine - I think I expected it to be very intensely spiced, like a strong chai - but instead, it was just very cinnamon-y. Still delicious though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. check me on this, but I think the spice flavors get dulled by the cold - so you taste the cinnamon because there's a lot of it, but seems like you'd need a good bit more than 1/4 tsp (or even an 1/8th?) of the other spices to have them come through.

    ReplyDelete