Ice cream cake what what

Do you like coffee, reader? I confess I did not always, and I still don’t fully. To be entirely honest, I still can’t drink it without cutting it with milk or cream first. I am just not that cooooool. I don’t wear skinny jeans or ray bans or read faulkner just for fun (come to think of it, i never read faulkner for a class either) and I can’t drink my coffee black and I’m sorry but I really don’t appreciate most jazz (part II a from the koln concert by keith jarrett excepted).

Coffee ice cream, however, is a completely different situation. Completely different. Coffee ice cream is all milk and cream and dairy loveliness and sweet sweet sugar with a liiiiiiiiittle bit of coffee flavor. It’s fantastic.

It’s in my top 5 ice cream flavors. It might even be the only non-fruit in the top 5. No, that’s not true. Mint chocolate chip exists, after all. Anyway, without having to think through my top 5 with you, let’s settle on: it’s delicious. And I MADE SOME. From my 2nd favorite coffee in San Francisco, which is still very excellent coffee (San Francisco excels at several things: cold summer nights, the noble “every man in a plaid shirt” fight, burritos, making you feel bad for forgetting your reusable grocery bags at home, and coffee)

Not ONLY did I make delicious coffee ice cream (and delicious raspberry ice cream from last post), but I combined them into…a HOMEMADE ICE CREAM CAKE. Based loosely on Carvel, however with snottier results. I used cat cookies for people (you know the ones…from Trader Joe’s? the ones i cannot have in my house ever because i eat them all in one sitting and my friends they come in a VERY LARGE TUB) mixed with melted butter in place of the “chocolate crunchies” Carvel puts in the center. Can I use this moment to profess my undying love for Carvel ice cream cakes? I don’t even care what it makes me. I love them in all of their too-sweet, chocolate-crunchied, cool-whip-frostinged delight. My homemade version was my favorite of the 3 cakes I made, I would even say BY FAR. It tasted like a raspberry mocha. A cold creamy raspberry mocha. I wanted it to last forever. But, like my 26th year, it has come to an end. Dear 27: cut a girl some slack, eh? Love, Trina.

Coffee Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop

1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon finely ground coffee

Heat the milk, sugar, whole coffee beans, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan until it is quite warm and steamy, but not boiling. Once the mixture is warm, cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

Pour the remaining 1 cup of cream into a medium size metal bowl, set on ice over a larger bowl. Set a mesh strainer on top of the bowls. Set aside.

Reheat the milk and coffee mixture, on medium heat, until again hot and steamy. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Slowly pour the heated milk and coffee mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks are tempered by the warm milk, but not cooked by it. Scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof, flat-bottomed spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have the coating not run. This can take about 10 minutes.

Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Press on the coffee beans in the strainer to extract as much of the coffee flavor as possible. Then discard the beans. Mix in the vanilla and finely ground coffee, and stir until cool.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Makes one quart.

Confessions of a lying liar

I’m maybe the biggest hypocrite who ever lived. I say maybe because of course there are all those politicians who are all “abstinence! family values! we hate gay people!” who are then screwing 1) their secretaries 2) other men 3) their videographers, sorry johnny e, I am giving you your own category you crazy scoundrel. So maybe there are a few people who are more blatantly hypocritical. But not by much.

Because like a mere week ago I was talking about how much I HATED fake sugar. How I can TELL when it’s in something and I just DESPISE IT, and there wasn’t anything you could do to change my mind. But then something happened. It’s like those movies, where there’s the hardened cynical girl, and there’s this admittedly kind of douchey but supposedly well-intentioned guy, and she HATES him. She hates him, and they exchange hateful barbs, and she sits around brooding all the god damned time about how there aren’t any decent men at all, and this guy especially represents all that is vile about the opposite sex. But then she’s like AROUND him all the time, and one day he like…surprises her or something? Like maybe he sticks up for some nerd or he like, is secretly really good at poetry or he’s  a closet feminist and reads chick lit. And then cut to the scene where they somehow end up in some dark place together, usually after taking a long walk where they TALK to each other for the first time really, and all of a sudden her tongue is all DOWN HIS THROAT.

What the hell am I talking about? Well, not men, for once. I’m talking about diet coke. I’m like, always AROUND diet coke. It’s everywhere, and lots of people love it. And I always maintained I hated it. Firmly. It was like, Everything That Was Wrong with America and Also Why Humans Are Terrible. And then one day last week I was in the lunch room, and someone had placed 3 free diet cokes on one of the tables with a sign that said “free diet cokes please drink me and love me forever katrina i am talking directly to you.” Or something similar. So, I had one. Because, free! And it was bubbly. And the next thing I knew my tongue was firmly down diet coke’s throat, and my icy hardened bitter fake-sugar hating heart was all fucking…WARM.

What does this have to do with me making raspberry ice cream? Nothing. I just felt guilty and I needed to tell you about it. And, what can I say about raspberries that I haven’t already said? They’re my #1. And raspberry ice cream? Well, it’s like the best fucking thing ever. I’m not even going to sell it to you. It does not need my endorsement. Because I can’t be trusted anyway. Because I had a diet coke, and I’ll probably have another.

Raspberry Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop

1½ cups half-and-half
1 cup sugar
1½ cups heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
1½ cups strained raspberry puree
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Warm the half-and-half and sugar in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Mix in the raspberry puree and lemon juice, then stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, but to preserve the fresh raspberry taste, churn the ice cream within 4 hours after making the mixture.

So I made a few cakes.

What kind of person makes her own birthday cake? Is that what you’re thinking? Well, whatever kind of person I am, that’s who. But let’s not stop there. I’m also the kind of person who: throws her own birthday party and bakes herself MULTIPLE cakes. And not even on her birthday! Like, a week before! Which is apparently bad luck!!!!

But hey! I have terrible luck anyway. Just throw it on top of the bad luck pile. You know what I did last night? I stepped on my round mirror and broke it. What is that, 7 years of bad luck? Well, broken mirror. There is a line. Please see your way to the back. I’ll be able to seat you when I’m 45-52 years old, by my current calculation.

Ha ha ha! Because I’m the unluckiest! And also, I was once told by a psychic that I’d be married at 26! MARRIED!! So HI FUTURE HUSBAND, you have now ONE WEEK TO PROPOSE. I DON’T WANT A DIAMOND RING ON ACCOUNT OF ALL THE BLOOD AND LEONARDO DICAPRIO AND TORTURED DIAMOND MINING CHILDREN, and also I would like for you to not DRIVE ME ABSOLUTELY CRAZY FOR THE REST OF OUR LIFE TOGETHER. And also be warned I have FUN BAKING CAKES. For my self-thrown birthday parties. That occur a week and 2 days before my actual birthday.

So. Future husband, we should probably meet, like, today. Good thing I remembered to bring my deodorant to the gym with me this morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (<–do you see the kind of mood I am IN TODAY? FUTURE HUSBAND, THIS IS GOING TO BE FUN I CAN TELL)

But also this cake was THEMED. It was a chocolate-dipped strawberry cake. DO YOU GET IT? SHOULD I HIT YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH THIS? Because it was a strawberry cake with chocolate icing, and then strawberries in between the layers and chocolate-dipped strawberries on top to decorate, which I didn’t get a picture of because I was too busy EATING THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF THIS CAKE, because it was delicious. Future husband, I am A CATCH.

The strawberry cake batter is DOUGHY, y’all. But subtle! Which is why I heavy-handed the shit out of this particular theme. I erased any and all lovely subtlety of the batter with all the rest of the hoo-ha. That said, I think the bells and whistles are necessary, because who wants subtle cake on their birthday? I want to be smacked in the mouth with cake on my birthday. WHICH WASN’T THIS PAST WEEKEND. WHICH IS WHY I’LL NEVER HAVE GOOD LUCK EVER IN MY LIFE EVER BECAUSE I DISOBEY TRADITION. BECAUSE I’M A BAD PERSON AND ALSO I CURSE TOO MUCH.

But anyway. There THAT all is.

Strawberry Cake
from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes

[this is the recipe halved, which i then fit into 2 8" rounds and then sliced into SUPER THIN layers, and i'm glad i did, on account of all the doughiness, I think these layers do better as itty bitty ones. also i'm fucking AWESOME at slicing cake layers and it makes me feel really accomplished, so, there's that]

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2  teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup strawberry puree
4 egg whites
1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter 2 8-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment or waxed paper and butter the paper.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixer bowl. With the electric mixer on low speed, blend for 30 seconds. Add the butter and strawberry puree and mix to blend the ingredients. Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes; the batter will resemble strawberry ice cream at this point.

In another large bowl, whisk together the egg whites and milk to blend. Add the whites to the batter in two or three additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl well and mixing only to incorporate after each addition. Divide the batter between the prepared pans.

Bake the cakes for 25 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the layers to cool in the pans for 10 to 15 minutes. Invert and turn out onto wire racks and peel off the paper liners. Let stand until completely cooled before assembling the cake, at least an hour.

Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting
from that there book I used for the strawberry cake

10 oz bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 sticks butter (6 oz) (confession: I cut it down to 1 stick. HEALTHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at room temperature

Melt the chocolate with the cream in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk to blend well. Remove from the heat and let stand, whisking occasionally, until the chocolate cream sets up, or thickens to the consistency of mayonnaise.

Place the butter in a large mixer bowl and with an electric mixer on medium speed, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate cream and whip until lighter in color and somewhat stiff, about 3 minutes. Do not whip too long or the frosting may begin to separate.

MAKE THE CAKE:

Making the cake goes something like this: Freeze those strawberry layers and then hack them in half. Put a layer down. Spread some chocolate frosting on it. Put some sliced strawberries on top of that. Repeat. Top with the last layer. Cover with frosting. Dip some whole strawberries in melted chocolate. Decorate. Fucking CHOW IT DOWN.

Nosugar Cookies

INTERNET, I have some fantastic news. These cookies, and yes they are cookies, they don’t have any added SUGAR in them. Nor are they cookies that say “no sugar” but then you find they’ve got some sort of sugar substitute in them–like at Jamba Juice when I got tricked into ordering an “all-fruit, no sugar added” smoothie and I was all, well FINALLY, that’s how I’d make it for myself anyway, let’s try this out! and then in leeeettle bitty letters below the menu there was an asterisk that said something about *no sugar, yeah, but like, a whole lotta Splenda up in this piece, and I literally had to shout at the Jamba Juice lady and be like OH GOD I CHANGED MY MIND I DO NOT WANT THAT, and she was like, child has bipolar disease! and i was like, no ma’am, just understand, I fucking HATE SUGAR SUBSTITUTE I HATE IT AND I DON’T CARE IF YOU THINK I CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE I SO CAN SO LET ME HATE IT because I truly do. And don’t put any boosts in there either, those things taste like poison. Let the boosts go hang out with broccoli rabe and splenda where they can talk about how much it sucks to taste like poison all the god damned time.

But anyway. Neither do these cookies have honey or maple syrup or agave or any other NATURAL sugar substitute. They have in them: bananas. Sure, bananas are pretty much pure sugar (and starch but also! so much potassium!) but using a fruit to sweeten a cookie has never occurred to me before. And it WORKS. These cookies are sweet! Pleasantly sweet! Might I even say?–yes, I dare–PERFECTLY sweet.

And they don’t have a lot of fat in them either. There’s a minimal amount of oil and then the rest of it comes from the almond meal and coconut. So it’s like, decently good for you fat. Stay with me here.

I am a proponent of these cookies. If these cookies were running for office I would be passing out fliers for these cookies. It’s like eating a bowl of oatmeal with bananas in it! Aaaand, I mean, chocolate chips. But chocolate is pretty good for you, at least dark chocolate, right all those super accurate studies that tell me this and also give me permission to drink red wine and coffee?? So really what I’m SAYING to you here is I give you full permission to make these and eat them for breakfast, which is what I when I made them for my sister and parents. Ma and pa are visiting from the east coast and we’ve been giving them the full bay area food treatment, so I thought, why NOT do cookies for breakfast? Let’s go whole hog if we’re going to hog at all. And we’ve been going hog, my friends.

Nikki’s Healthy Cookie Recipe
from 101 Cookbooks AGAIN

Heidi: You can use unsweetened carob, or grain sweetened chocolate chips, or do what I did and chop up 2/3 of a bar of Scharffen berger 70%. I sort-of shaved half the bar with a knife and then cut the rest into bigger chip-sized chunks. You can make your own almond meal by pulsing almonds in a food processor until it is the texture of sand – don’t go too far or you’ll end up with almond butter. And lastly, the coconut oil works beautifully here, just be sure to warm it a bit – enough that it is no longer solid, which makes it easier to incorporate into the bananas. If you have gluten allergies, seek out GF oats.

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm – so it isn’t solid (or alternately, olive oil) <–i used grapeseed oil
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 – 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don’t worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (or Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 – 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect – just shy of 15 minutes seems to be about right in my oven.

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

On never getting old

Things get old. I, for instance, am getting older. My 27th birthday is but 2.5 mere weeks away. That is a frightening thought, because I’m pretty sure when I was 17 I pictured myself having my fucking shit together by age 27. I was married, I had a mortgage on a home, my husband and I had a dog and were contemplating actual children, and I worked in some sleek looking office with creative types where I had to kind of dress up and I complained about it but I secretly liked it. I wasn’t single, living with roommates, boozing several nights a week, with no set career path to speak of, still wasting entire evenings to shows such as “Millionaire Matchmaker,” not contributing to my 401(k) (or my 403(b) holler nonprofit workers!), and still getting pimples when I get stressed out.

No, this wasn’t the plan at all. Which isn’t to say that I’m not having a grand old time. I am. But this just wasn’t the PLAN.

Do you know, readers, what never gets old? Strawberries and rhubarb. I know, you’re seeing this recipe and you’re throwing your hands up all, again? This? Don’t you have any better ideas?? Ever? Aren’t you supposed to get older AND wiser? Whither the wise?

Well, friends. I’ve learned that wisdom comes in many forms. One aspect of being wise is knowing what you like. I am Very Wise in this regard. I fucking KNOW what I LIKE. And guess who’s near the top of that list?

So here we are with another recipe for strawberries and rhubarb, together. Because I’ll keep getting a year older. Springs will pass me by, year after year. And each spring, I’ll still want to make strawberries and rhubarb during that too-brief season in which they exist in tandem. Because they’re good together, and I like them, and I want to keep pushing my relationship with them forward. So DEAL WITH IT.

To be noted in this recipe: pine nuts in dessert, YES, this doesn’t happen enough! Black pepper in dessert, welcome! Didn’t know I loved you, but I do, this might be awkward for you considering we just met. Buckwheat flour substituted for spelt flour: Chalkville, USA. I suspect buckwheat and I don’t love each other. He’s kind of a ruiner, as it were. Hey, maybe that means I should try to date him, because THAT’S not a mistake I continue to repeat. Yeah, so, I guess the “wiser” part of “older and wiser” is up for debate.

Heidi’s Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble
from 101 Cookbooks

butter for greasing skillet/pan (about 1 tablespoon)

3/4 cup / 3 oz / 85 g spelt flour
2/3 cup / 3 oz / 85 pine nuts, lightly toasted
1/2 cup / 1.5 oz / 45 g rolled oats
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 60 g natural cane sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup / 2.5 oz / 75 g unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 60 g natural cane sugar (or Muscovado sugar)

1/2 lb. / 8 ounces / 225 g hulled medium strawberries, cut into quarters

12 ounces trimmed rhubarb, sliced into 3/4-inch pieces
1/4 cup / 60 ml port wine (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375F / 190C, with a rack in the middle. Butter a 10-inch round gratin dish (pictured), or a 9×9 square baking dish.

Combine the flour, pine nuts, oats, sugar, salt, and pepper together in a bowl. Use a fork to stir in the butter, squeeze into a few patties, then place in the freezer to chill at least ten minutes.

Make the filling by whisking together the cornstarch and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the strawberries and rhubarb, and toss until evenly coated. Wait three minutes, add the port and toss again. Transfer the filling to the prepared pan, remove the topping from the freezer, and crumble across the top of the filling – make sure you have big pieces and small.

Bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until the topping is deeply golden and the fruit juices are vigorously bubbling. You’ll want to let things cool a bit before serving, 20 – 30 minutes.

Serves a small crowd, 8 – 12 servings.

Eat this muffin and shut the hell up

OK I GET IT. JESUS. People have been all “hey, you know what you haven’t been doing lately? baking, you bitch.”

Alright. Yes. I haven’t. I WARNED YOU THOUGH. And then I posted a few times, and then you forgot about the warning, and then I ACTUALLY went on hiatus, and you felt cheated, or whatever. I know. I suck. I’m a terrible friend/human being/lover/daughter/sister/employee.

Don’t FRET. Cease fretting. I recently went to Omnivore Books and dropped, like, a painful amount of money on new baking cookbooks. Cookbooks I’ve been coveting for YEARS. Cookbooks I probably couldn’t continue living without. And NOW, you’re going to reap the benefits of my slightly-uncontrollable cookbook shopping habit.

Starting with these muffins, which I made, oh, immediately. I made some substitutions, most notably 1/2 cup of almond flour for 1/2 cup of the all-purpose and brown sugar for white. Why? JUST CAUSE.

I also added raspberries, also just cause, also with no regrets.

I also decided to slightly underbake them, because I can never do anything right.

I also ate 11 of them. 11. Of 12. By myself. I ate them. In 2 days. Just cause. SEE? THIS IS WHY I HAD TO STOP POSTING! BECAUSE I DO THINGS LIKE THIS. CAN YOU NOT SYMPATHIZE? I’M HELPLESS AGAINST A MUFFIN. MY ACTIONS ARE NOT OWNED BY ME. MY LIFE IS BEING DRIVEN BY A BERRY-STUDDED MUFFIN. I AM JUST A PASSENGER HERE.

Oh well. At least my seatbelt is buckled?

Orange Berry Muffins
from Baking From My Home to Yours

grated zest and juice of 1 orange
about 3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 tbsps honey
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries–fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)

decorating sugar for topping (optional)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Butter or spray a regular-size muffin tin. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey, and melted butter.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough–the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the cups.

Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorative sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.