Recently in Ice Cream category

I just noticed that Amazon is selling Cuisinart Ice Cream Makers for only $19.99! These machines are reconditioned, which means they were re-built at the factory and may have cosmetic blemishes. It’s an amazing deal and an inexpensive way to chill-out this summer.

This kind of machine has a canister that gets pre-frozen in advance, twenty four hours prior to churning—some people simply store theirs in the freezer all the time. The upside is that they’re inexpensive and they don’t churn a lot of air into the custard.

They also chill up a pretty mean margarita, too.

Don’t know how long they plan to feature these machines, but since they’re at the top of their best-selling kitchen items, they’ll probably go fast…

For more advice on ice cream makers: Meet Your Maker

*Update: Amazon is currently sold out of the very low-priced reconditioned ice cream makers, but it’s worth keeping an eye on their site as these kind of deals come and go frequently. To those who got machines—happy churning!

Here’s a little round-up of some of the inspiring (and unusual) ice cream flavors that folks have been churning up…

Brian goes nuts with Gianduja Gelato.

Clotilde goes for simplicity with her lightning-fast Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream.

Deb’s Butterscotch Ice Cream looks scooper-duper!

Ricotta and Honey Ice Cream from Melissa sounds like a perfect match for the summer fruits just around the corner.

The Kitchn takes a whirl with my Guinness Milk Chocolate Ice Cream.

Le Bernardin’s pastry chef Michael Laiskonis whips up Brown Butter Ice Cream.

Continue Reading Unusual Ice Cream Recipes…

Who doesn’t like bacon and eggs?

Ok, maybe vegans. And folks who are kosher. And people who don’t eat eggs. Or those who don’t like bacon. But I’m not sure that’s possible. (I have a great bacon joke, but it’s not ‘pc’, so I’d better keep it to myself.)

I’m a big fan of both bacon and the beautiful, bright-orange yolked eggs we get in France, so why confine them to breakfast? I was pretty sure Candied Bacon Ice Cream would work. I mean, it’s got salt. It’s got smoke. So why not candy it? Inspired by Michael Ruhlman, l wanted to see what would happened when they all got together.

Candying the bacon was a hoot. Being in an experimental mood, I tried everything from agave nectar to maple syrup to dark raw cassonade sugar.

Continue Reading Candied Bacon Ice Cream Recipe…

For some reason, people think I eat out all the time. While I like eating in restaurants, I don’t like being served something that I don’t like. (Funny, huh?) So I mostly make food for myself, since when I do, I get to pick and choose exactly what I’m going to make, what I’m going to put into it, and how to cook it.

I’ve become the proverbial free man in Paris.

Working as a pâtissier for so many years, thought, it’s assumed that I want complicated, fancy desserts bulging with buttercream and towering with spun sugar and whimsical bits of foam, spheres, and powders strewn all over the place. While I appreciate the work and skill that goes into those kinds of things (Sam Mason has really impressed me with desserts that were creative and delicious), I really like simple food, especially after a rich or spicy meal.

I don’t think dessert should be the proverbial “nail in the coffin” after dinner and I’m always curious when people say, “That restaurant wasn’t very good. When we left, we were still hungry!”

I’ve been writing a bit about Korean food, but Japanese cuisine is a pretty good example of how I like to eat too.

Continue Reading Blood Orange Sorbet Recipe…

Last month, I received an invitation to visit the French Sénat. Like most of the government buildings here in Paris, this is one fabulous. Think wildly-ornate with lots of gilding and chandeliers and gardens that are plucked and shaved within an inch of their life. (‘Nature’ in Paris is meant to be looked at…ne touchez pas!) Plus there was a gorgeous dining room where les Sénateurs dine.

(Well, I should say, the real Sénateurs, since they didn’t seem to have my name on that list.)

I don’t know why the exhibition of foods and wines from the Lot-et-Garonne, was being held there, but I felt pretty special all the same. And who doesn’t like feeling special?

There was a decent selection of foods to try. Lots of foie gras, some nice Gascon cheeses, and of course, pruneaux d’Agen. And lots of ‘em. Since they were free, I ate as many as I could, especially the ones stuffed with chocolate-flavored prune filling. I was in prune heaven!

Except the next day—I was in prune hell.
Like Armagnac (take it from me); it’s worth knowing your limits.

Continue Reading Plum Kernel Ice Cream Recipe…

This dessert is the result of a happy accident. I’ve been working with a liquor company on developing some recipes and after a couple furious days of recipe-testing, I had a zillion containers of various odds-and-ends lying around.

Some had banana, some chocolate. Most were spiked with various quantities of liquor and there were a number of orphans that I had no idea where they came from. And there was that bottle of dark rum that I needed to finish the last little sip of.

So what did I do?

I mixed them all up, tossed them in my ice cream machine and let ‘er rip. After 30 minutes or so, I dug in my spoon in and tasted the most delicious batch of ice cream I’d churned up in a while.

But soon after, I got to work and discovered something—the world’s easiest Chocolate Ice Cream…with no machine required!

Continue Reading The Easiest Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe…Ever…

In terms of desserts, it doesn’t get much easier than this.

Affogato means ‘drowned’ in Italian, and any frozen dessert can meet this fate by tippling a little liquor or coffee over it. Classically, espresso is poured over Vanilla Ice Cream, but you’d have to be pretty hard-core to pour espresso over Espresso Granita. If I did that, I’d be ricocheting off the walls around here.

And because I live on the roof, I’m one caffeine-fueled tumble away from meeting my maker. Not my coffee-maker, mind you.
And we wouldn’t want that to happen, now. Would we?

I still have so much to accomplish…like tackling those chocolate marshmallows…

Continue Reading Espresso Granita Affogato Recipe…

Often bakers and ice cream-lovers will find themselves with a few too many egg whites leftover. So what to do with all of them?

It seems I always have a container in the refrigerator and more often than not, I make a big batch of Chocolate-Coconut Macaroons. One batch gets baked (and eaten) right away and I freeze the other half in a freezer bag, which is great to have on hand for emergencies.

Liquid egg whites can be frozen just as they are. I usually do it in a specific quantity, and label it as such, since there’s nothing more infuriating than needing 1 cup of egg whites and trying to chip that away from a frozen-solid block in the freezer. Some folks devote an ice cube tray to egg whites, slipping one in each indentation so they know exactly how many they have. Just so you know, one large egg white is about 2 tablespoons and weighs 25 grams.

Here’s some recipes of mine and from others that are great ways to use up leftover egg whites:

Chocolate Angel Food Cake (Serious Eats)