Ice Cream Mini Scones

Okay, so this is one of those recipes where you read it and you say NO way.  Then you read it again, and you think, could this possibly work?  Because it sounds great...but no way.  It can't really work.

Can it?

It can.

There are three ingredients in these scones.

1. Self-rising flour

2. Vanilla extract

3. Vanilla ice cream.

No way, right?

WAY!

This recipe comes from a site called Ice Cream Ireland,  and to make things even more complicated, the original recipe is from Australia, but wherever it comes from, it works.  You take a pint of your favorite vanilla ice cream...

Let it soften for about 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 375 and lesiurely assemble the rest of the ingredients.  Once it has gotten mushy enough to scoop easily, spoon it into a mixing bowl with the flour (make sure you use self-rising) and about a teaspoonful of vanilla.  Mix it up until you have a moist dough.  Now scoop the dough onto a well-floured surface (and prepare yourself, this dough will be cold!  Why this came as a shock to me I have no idea, since it did involve an entire pint of ice cream, but there you go.)

Now take your chilly dough and roll it into a long tube shape.  You'll need to work in a little more flour as you go, just enough to get it to hold together and feel more floury than ice creamy.  Once you have your nice long tube, about an inch wide and a foot long, then slice it into one inch rounds - these are mini-scones we are making.  Pop them onto a baking sheet and into the oven for about 20 to 25 mnutes, until they are nice and golden.  They will flatten out a tiny bit, but will end up light and fluffy and tasting of vanilla wonderfulness.

Something the things that seem too good to be true actually are.

Ice Cream Mini Scones, from Ice Cream Ireland

• 1 pint vanilla ice cream


• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• Extra flour for rolling out the scones

1. Let ice cream soften for about 15 minutes, and preheat the oven to 375
2. Add ice cream and flour to mixer and mix until combined into a dough that sticks together.
3. Generously flour countertop or other rolling surface and place dough on flour.  Knead it just a little until dough comes together, adding additional flour as needed until you have a dough that is more floury than wet.
4. Roll with your hands into a long thin tube shape that is about 1 inch wide and 12 inches long.
5. Cut dough into 1 inch segments and place on baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
6. Bake until just turning golden brown, about 20-25 minutes.  Cool on rack.

Print this!

Toasted Marshmallow Shakes...and a Crush!

I have two crushes to tell you about today, and the first one is that glass of deliciousness up there. It is a Toasted Marshmallow Shake. Yes, you read that right. I know it looks like it might actually be a chocolate shake, but that delectable brown color comes from blender-ized toasted marshmallows, along with some milk and some vanilla ice cream. And when you take that first sip...it's a total toasted marshmallow in smooth, silky milkshake form.

I helped one of my sweetest friends try this recipe out over Labor Day weekend, and speaking of sweet...this shake is almost as sweet as she is. It is sweeter than this:

It is even sweeter than THIS:

Photo by Bruce Sohl

And that is pretty sweet. Here's the deal - you spread out a bag of marshmallows onto a cookie sheet. Make sure you line the cookie sheet with foil, and if you have the nonstick kind, even better. Toast them under the broiler until they are well, well, well-done. Watch those babies closely, and stir them around a little - you want them toasted as all-over as possible. Then pop them in your blender with 2 cups of vanilla ice cream, 2 cups of milk and a tablespoon of sour cream. Blend for 5 minutes. Yes, five minutes. Then park it in the fridge for a while until it is good and cold and presto - toasted marshmallow shake. Make sure you hold back one marshmallow to toast lightly and perch on the top.

That's my first crush of this post. My second one I am actually even MORE excited about, and that is a new partnership I am starting with one of my favorite blogs, the AWESOME Design Crush. I've been following this fabulous blog ever since I figured out what the word blog meant. It is written by the wonderful Kelly, who finds recipes and pictures and books and jewelry and you name it from all over the planet, and gathers them all together with links on her one gorgeous blog. One day I realized that she had linked to one of my posts, and oh, happy day! We hit it off from there, and a little while ago she invited me to do a regular post on her site. So look for my guest post on Fridays on this beautiful blog, and if you don't already have it on your reader, or blogroll, or wherever you get your blog-reading, I promise you'll have your own crush on Design Crush very, very soon.

So here's the recipe for toasted marshmallow shakes, and here's my own toast to Design Crush - come visit me there on Fridays!

Toasted Marshmallow Shake, adapted from Spike Mendelsohn's recipe

1 ten ounce package marshmallows

2 cups whole milk

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1 tablespoon sour cream

1. Preheat the broiler to high. Line a cookie sheet with foil and lay marshmallows in a single layer. Broil until very dark brown, watching constantly and stirring halfway through. Cool.

2. Add mil, ice cream, sour cream and marshmallows to blender. Blend for 5 minutes. (You may have to do this in batches, depending on the size of your blender.

3. Chill in refrigerator until very cold, about one hour. Top with lightly toasted marshmallow and serve!

Click here for printable recipe

White Chocolate Vanilla Ice Cream...Without The Ice Cream Maker!

First of all, let me say that I DO own an ice cream maker. And as much as I love most of my kitchen appliances, from my rice cooker right on through to my popcorn popper (no microwave popcorn for me!), I just haven't been able to bond with the ice cream maker. It's a perfectly nice ice cream maker - it's just that it seems like such a production to freeze the inner liner, make the custard, put everything together the exact right way, and then say a prayer to the powers that be that it all comes out the right way.

So when I came across this recipe on the Cooks Country site, and read that it required exactly NO ice cream maker, I thought I better give it a try. And as it turns out, it was AMAZING ice cream. A gorgeously creamy consistency, a little hit of white chocolate taste, and all you need is your mixer and your microwave.

I thought it was feeling too good to be true, so I put it to the ultimate test, otherwise known as the teenager and her best friend. They loved it, and then told me that in return for their taste-testing services they were expecting to see their picture in this post. So here they are.

I love them dearly, but they don't usually look like this, just for the record. Nor did they actually go to the prom together, also for the record. But that's the most current picture I have of them, so there you go.

Back to the ice cream. You melt some condensed milk and a tiny amount of white chocolate chips in the microwave, and let it cool. Then you whip up some heavy cream in your mixer. Back to the melted chocolate chips: stir in some sour cream and some vanilla. Then you fold the whole thing together, freeze it for at least 6 hours (we let ours freeze overnight), and then you are ALMOST ready to dig in.I say almost because this fabulous ice cream is made completely perfect by adding some of this to the top of it.

Otherwise known as the best chocolate sauce on Planet Earth. (And by the way, if you haven't entered into my giveaway for a signed copy of STONEWALL KITCHEN FAVORITES, the completely fabulous cookbook from my friends at Stonewall Kitchen, then please click here without delay!)

So there you have it -- scrumptious ice cream, no ice cream maker, and with this amazing chocolate sauce...well, life doesn't get much better.

White Chocolate Vanilla Ice Cream, adapted from Cooks Country

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 ounce white chocolate chips
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Pinch salt
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cups cold heavy cream

1. Microwave condensed milk and chocolate chips in 30 second increments until chips are melted and smooth, stirring after each 30 seconds. Let cool, and then stir in vanilla, salt and sour cream.

2. Whip heavy cream on medium high speed until soft peaks form, 1-2 minutes. Whisk 1/3 cream into white chocolate mixture. Fold remaining cream in until well mixed and smooth.

3. Place in airtight container and freeze for at least 6 hours or up to 2 weeks.

Click here for printable recipe

Strawberry Sherbet

I am always too enthusiastic when it comes to buying fresh summer strawberries. They just look so dang good in the market, and I pile them into my cart with reckless abandon. But strawberries are fragile little things, and before I have been able to eat my way through the giant strawberry pile they start looking a little peaked. (I love that word, peaked. I just looked it up to make sure I had the definition absolutely correct, and it means "weak and wan." It reminds me of books like The Secret Garden.)

Anyway, this recipe is the answer to peaked strawberries. When they start to get a little weak and wan and sad and dried-looking, it's time to spring into action and make this absolutely mouthwatering silky smooth dessert, and all you need are the berries, a few other assorted ingredients, your food processor and your freezer. No need to haul out the ice cream maker.

Here's all you need to do. Cut the stems and any really suspicious looking areas off your sad strawberries. If you have any really big berries, cut them in half, and then put them all in a single layer on a cookie sheet, and freeze them solid. Once they are frozen, you drop them in the food processor with a little vanilla yogurt, some strawberry jam and a little bit of sugar. I like this brand of jam in the strawberry variety (although I have been known to fudge it if I have something in the red variety of jam that doesn't precisely fit the recipe.)

Press the button. About 60 seconds later, you will have this:

Creamy, sweet and delicious. Bring on those berries!

Strawberry Sherbet

• 1 pint ripe strawberries, tops cut off
• 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt, any variety
• 2 tablespoons strawberry jam
• 1 tablespoon sugar

1. Lay berries on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Freeze until solid.

2. Place berries and all remaining ingredients in food processor and process until smooth. You may have to stop the processor and scrape the sides a few times to make sure all the frozen berries are processed.

3. Serve at once. It is amazing with a little fresh grated lemon peel on top, if you have any handy.

Click here for printable recipe

Mascarpone Semifreddo with Strawberries and Black Pepper Honey

The other day I posted a great recipe for crostini with lemony mascarpone and peppers, created and cooked by the wonderful chef Jessica Marotta from Campagnia restaurant, and I promised that I would follow up promptly with Jessica's recipe for Mascarpone Semifreddo with Strawberries and Black Pepper Honey. And here it is!

Jessica is the latest chef that I have been lucky enough to photograph for our local Meet the Chefs series, and she taught us all about mascarpone. She makes her own, and she brought a delicious bowl of it with her.

And she also told us (phew!) that these recipes would work just fine if we used store-bought mascarpone, so hang in there with me. We are now going to make mascarpone semifreddo. Which means ice cream. Really, really, really good ice cream. First Jessica beat some egg yolks and confectioner's sugar until it was gorgeously fluffy.

Then she whipped up some heavy cream, vanilla and more confectioner's sugar, and mixed that with some of the mascarpone. Then she folded it into the egg yolk mixture.

At this point you are supposed to freeze it for 8 hours until it is all chilled and ice creamish. Luckily for us in the audience, Jessica had made a lot of it ahead of time and was just walking us through the steps so we could immediately go home and make our own. Whew!

Next she cut up some gorgeous looking strawberries...

She had some leftover lemons from the crostini recipe, so she mixed a little lemon juice into the berries.

Yum.

Then it was time for the assembly. A few scoops of the semifreddo. Some strawberries on top...

Then...get ready...she combined some honey and some fresh ground black pepper together to make a sauce that was both sweet and spicy and out of this world. Which she then drizzled on the ice cream. I thought the audience was going to fall out of their folding chairs.

It was sweet and cold and a little bit spicy and 1000% delicious.

Jessica's amazing recipe is below. And if you are in the area, make sure you stop in at Campagnia. They have a whole menu that is as fabulous as this dessert. Thanks, Jessica!

Mascarpone Semifreddo with Strawberries and Black Pepper Honey, by Jessica Marotta

Ingredients

4 cups heavy cream

1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped or ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

8 ounces (1 cup) mascarpone

1/3 cup confectioners sugar

10 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 quart strawberries, cleaned and sliced into quarters

¼ cup wildflower honey, or any unfiltered honey

¼ teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper

To make the semifreddo; In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, combine yolks and 1 cup sugar. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, then turn mixer to high and beat for an additional 5 minutes, or until the yolks are light and fluffy. Transfer the yolk mixture to a large mixing bowl. In a clean, dry bowl of a stand mixer, combine heavy cream, vanilla bean seeds (or vanilla extract) and confectioners sugar. Whisk cream mixture on medium-low for 2 minutes, then increase speed to medium and whisk until soft peaks form. Add mascarpone, and whisk on low until incorporated. Gently fold cream mixture into yolk mixture, until there are no streaks. Transfer semifreddo to a frezzer proof container. Freeze at least 8 hours before serving.

To make the black pepper honey; Combine honey and pepper in a bowl and stir thoroughly.

To assemble; Scoop semifreddo into serving dishes, top with strawberries and drizzle with a small amount of black pepper honey. Let semifreddo stand for 3 to 5 minutes to soften before serving.

Click here for printable recipe

Waiting on 23rd Street

New Yorkers are notoriously not very good at waiting

 for things -- though they do a certain amount of it.

Crossing the road is somewhat safe -- 

at least in comparison with India and Morocco. 

This is a good place to text or talk on the cell phone.

Free snow cones to promote a new TV show!

Are they being offered only to young men wearing

blue, white or navy?

The little girls at the bus stops all had ice creams.