Saturday, May 17, 2008

Chocolatissimo Nutella Bomb Ice Cream

Originally, I intended to use the recipe, here. It's a fine recipe that includes a lot of basic techniques essential to the education of any cook.

Only thing was, that recipe is mainly a chocolate frozen custard with some nutella thrown in. I already have an incredible chocolate frozen custard recipe that I've done a bazillian (or is it brazillian?) times. Turning the one I already know backwards and forwards and have already made to great acclaim a bunch of times into a recipe that uses Nutella would not be hard at all.

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk
14 egg yolks (note the symmetry here with the angel food cake)
1/2 cup + 4 tbsp sugar
2 cups heavy cream
20 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 cup Frangelico
1/2 cup Nutella


To melt the chocolate, break it into reasonable chunks in a microwave safe bowl
Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Stir. Repeat. Stir. Until the chocolate is around 2/3s melted. Then reduce the microwaving time to 10 seconds until the chocolate is smooth and glossy. Any little chunks still remaining will melt while you do the rest of it. If the chocolate looks like this:

You're cool.

In a stand mixer put the egg yolks and sugar together and mix well on a medium speed.


Scald the milk


Use a ladle to put the scalded milk a little at a time (this is called tempering the eggs, remember?) into the egg and sugar mixture while the mixer is running on low.


Add 1/2 cup of Frangelico


Mix well and transfer to a large saucepan over a medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. There's no substitute for the wooden spoon here. Don't even fucking try. Just use a wooden spoon.


Cook until the custard thickens and begins to coat the back of your wooden spoon.


Pour this back into the mixer's bowl through a strainer.


Use a spatula to gently force some of the curdles through. Gently.


With the mixer at a medium stirring speed, add in the melted chocolate,


the cream,


and the Nutella.


Mix at medium until smooth and glossy.


Transfer this to the freezer container for your ice cream freezer, use heavy cream, or milk, or a combination of the two to bring the level up to the full mark.

Chill for at least six hours before freezing.

This one looks totally fucking epic. I'm certain it is going to taste monsterously good when frozen.

Get your drool bibs ready for the pictures of the freezing I put up tomorrow, or late tonight. Make that late tonight. There's no way in the blue-eyed world I will be able to wait until tomorrow to get this done.

3Beez

Friday, May 16, 2008

Friday Random Ten

I have ice cream on the brain. I found that recipe for chocolate nutella ice cream and have been obsessing about making it since.

The soundtrack for today features:

No Woman, No Cry - - - Sinead O'Connor (live bootleg from the Old Time Cafe me on the harp)
True To I Self - - - Ziggy Marley
The Wind That Shakes the Barley - - - Tommy Makem (live bootleg from O'Rourke's)
Lyric Pieces for Piano (7) Book 10 - - - Edvard Grieg
Rude Boy Ska - - - The Gladiators
Hard Headed Woman - - - Cat Stevens
Small Fry - - - Hoagy Carmicheal
You Came a Long Way From St. Louis - - - Peggy Lee (1962 Vegas Live performance, Da on bass)
Sugar Town - - - Nancy Sinatra
Bocetos: Coleccion de Obras Faciles - - - Enrique Granados


Bonus Track:

The Mary Ellen Carter - - - Stan Rogers



Expect ice cream, and pictures later on. What are ya'll listening too?

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Angel Food Cake - With Pictures and Stuff

Since the recipe I found for Chocolate Nutella Ice Cream calls for several egg yolks I figured I'd use the whites on an Angel Food cake. If Blogger continues to be well behaved I have gotten some positive and grateful feedback on the pictures with the steps stuff. So, here goes. Right out of Annie Peaches Begay's (Great Grandmother) legendary recipe box:



Measure and sift together three times

1 cup (measured sifted) cake flourand 7/8 cup sugar (3/4 cup + 2 teaspoons)

In a large mixing bowl (I'm using the bowl from my stand mixer here because of the deep sides and the handle on the side) take 14 egg whites
Notice that when I'm separating my eggs I have a small bowl in the middle to catch the whites. This is so, if a yolk should break,
it will not contaminate the other egg whites.The bowl with the one egg can go for scrambled eggs, or an omlette later, ordown for the dog, who cleans up the egg,then, the floor, and retires back to her duty station,to patiently await the next spill or minor mishap.

I always whip my egg whites for angel food cake by hand. I have Grammy Anna's trick tool, which was one of her prized tools that was passed on to me because she said I was the one who would put it to the best use. When an angel food cake, or a souflée is whipped by hand, even without any scientific explanation for it, I can tell the difference. If anybody out there can give me a scientific explanation for that I would love to hear it. Otherwise I will have to go to my grave wondering if I've been hallucinating this for all these years.



To the egg whites add 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon almond extract (you'll notice that I am using my measuring spoons here, on a recipe like this exact measurements are the rule) and have 3/4 cup sugar off to the side. Whip the egg white mixture until it is foamy and has grown in volume by half.Then whip it some more, adding in the sugar you reserved a couple tablespoons at a time, past the soft peak stage, which looks like this:until you reach stiff peaks.


Next gently fold in the flour and sugar you sifted at the beginning. Take care here, be gentle, you worked hard to get all those lovely little air bubbles into the egg whites, don't be ham handed and break them down.

Be Gentle. But also, be relentless. You need a good smooth batter here.
This gets turned into an Angel Food Cake pan. Draw a knife through the batter, give it a few sharp raps on a folded towel on the counter to release any big air pockets
Place the cake on the middle rack of a cold oven
Bake at 300° for an hour.Invert the cake on a bottle and cool upside down.

When completely cooled use a regular table knife to loosen the edges of the cake
Pop out the center section of the pan, loosen around the center postand the bottom of the pan. Invert the cake onto a cutting board,and dig the fuck in.

That's angel food cake. If you want a little bit of sublime, slather a slice of angel food cake with Nutella, slap another slice of cake on that to make a sandwich.

Decadent, sweet, delicious. Just how I like things. If politics continue to stay this stupid everywhere else but California where a Republican State Supreme Court decided that fully equal marriage is the only acceptable equality for our gay citizens, expect me to be in the kitchen a lot from now until November.

Ice Cream is on deck.

BBB

Why I Gave Up Golf

My back hurt, oh, yeah, I also sucked.

Back pain is treatable, my persistent slice wasn't.

big brass blog

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Peppermint Stick Ice Cream, Freezing and Serving



Normally I prefer my old throwback hand crank ice cream freezer. Like with the Anglefood cake I have not a shred of evidence, scientific or otherwise to back my assertion of superior texture when things like this are done by hand. But, Goddammit, I can tell the difference. Today that didn't get to happen though. I've been dealing all day with air conditioning technicians and getting the final grades ready for the intermediate strings class. The best part is getting to tell most of them that they are more than ready to move on to private classes and up to the college's main orchestra. Anyway, with all the distractions of the day, oh yeah, I took my german shepherd to the groomer today too, I just went with the electric freezer.

You alternate layers of ice, with layers of rock salt. The objective here is a fast and smooth freeze. Check your ice and salt levels often. You want the ice coming all the way up the freezer container. When you can't crank anymore, and the kids are worn out too is the signal for a hand crank. With the electric just listen for that annoying motor sound to stop.



Remove the container from the freezer, take out the dasher (which is a great job for a couple of kids with long spoons). At this point you can also mix in things like tiny chips of peppermint candy, or chocolate chips. I have fun using the stuff that gets left over when I trim the chocolate truffles. Mostly though, for an ice cream this superb, I go with no embellishments. I usually transfer it into plastic, freezer safe containers of about a half gallon size. This recipe made three containers like this:
which go into the freezer for at least two hours to really set the ice cream.

To serve, you can top with chocolate syrup, nuts, whipped cream or:nuthin' at all.

Just exquisite, rich, silky smooth, delicately flavored ice cream.

Bon appetite. I am building up a stock of ice creams in the freezer for a couple of parties on the horizon. Expect Ginger Ice Cream to come soon.

This is way more impressive than Hillary's winning the redneck vote.

BBB

Peppermint Stick Ice Cream, With Pictures and variations

I'm watching the news from West Virginia and thinking to myself Wow, Hillary Clinton has the racist, hillbilly, cousin marrying, mouth breathing, ignorant, redneck, motherfucker's vote sewed right up. Keep playing to your benighted southern cracker ass base of voters Hills. Why not go all the fucking way and name Huckabee or Trent Fucking Lott as your VP? Out west, I'm making ice cream. That's how much West Goddamned Virgina and Kentucky matter to me. Once a year when they wear silly hats, sing Stephen Foster songs and try to kill a few more young horses is the amount of time I'll spend on Kentucky.

For Peppermint Stick Ice Cream I use Great Grandmother Anna's recipe, although I'm trying some variations for this batch.



We first beat up a pound of peppermint candies. Notice the folded towels underneath the cutting board, this makes the noise of hammering the candy a bit muted. Napping critters will appreciate this little touch.



Melt the candy chunks in 2 cups 1/2 and 1/2 over a high flame, stirring constantly.



Turn off the heat and go to the stand mixer. Beat 4 large eggs until smooth and lemon yellow.



Add in 3/4 cup sugar (I'm using raw sugar that has been sitting with vanilla bean husks), and three tablespoons cake flour.



Yes, I have a fine set of measuring spoons. Sometimes I even use them. I've won money in kitchens by measuring out teaspoons, 1/2 teaspoons, and tablespoons into my cupped hand and then using the measure to prove that I had it right.



Instead of 3/4 cup Karo® syrup, I'm using a vanilla coffee syrup. It's about the same consistency, and I figure that the added flavoring will be better than just overpowering sweetness.



Instead of a can of Eagle Brand, sweetened condensed milk I'm going with a cup and a half of heavy cream.

This is all mixed until smooth. It will be a lovely pink color, although if you want a little more throw in some liquid red, or powdered food coloring.





This goes into the container for your ice cream freezer, use equal amounts heavy cream and 1/2&1/2 to bring the volume up to the full line on your container; and, with the dasher in place and capped, refrigerate until chilled and ready to freeze.

The freezing process post will happen after Hillary Clinton wins a landslide victory in West Fuckyercuzzin Virginia and I still won't fucking care who those idiot bastards want for President.

big brass Blog