Malted Milk Ice Cream Cake with Blackberry Sauce

For Mother's Day my sister and I made brunch, we pretty much copied the Mother's Day brunch menu from A Cup of Jo, and it was delicious.  However, for Father's Day we decided to make dinner and unfortunately Joanna Goddard did not oblige us with a complete dinner menu to draw from.  Fortunately my sister had some apps she wanted to try out (pear slices with goat cheese and craisins), and a limoncello cocktail (lemonade for grownups) and we have our Sister Shrimp Pasta that is always a hit.  As for dessert, well I took that on.  I was going to make a truly decadent coconut cream pie, BUT we ended up picking up a friends CSA share for that week (thanks Lisa!), a box full of the most delicious strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries and the coconut cream pie idea went out the window because I needed to make something involving berries in some way.  Which is where this ice cream cake comes in.  You make a thin cake layer, top it off with malted milk ice cream, then drench each slice with blackberry sauce.
 

The recipe calls for homemade malted milk ice cream, and while I have an ice cream maker, I also have a family that let out a collective shudder at the thought of using 11 egg yolks in a single item, so instead I used store bought french vanilla ice cream, which I'm sure also has egg yolks in it, but I have no idea just how many and ignorance is bliss.  Anyways, I softened the ice cream in the fridge for about 5 minutes and then mixed in 3/4 cup of malted milk powder, the chocolate flavor as that was all I could find.  The mixing was a pain, so I left as more of a "swirl" aka I got tired and decided it was mixed enough and put it back in the freezer until I needed it again.

Then I moved on to the cake, it was a pretty basic yellow cake but with tiny portions because you are only making one 1/2 inch layer, it was like baking for an Easy Bake Oven.  The recipe said to sift the dry ingredients 3 times, which I think we can all agree is a bit excessive and in protest I didn't sift them at all.  I noticed no ill effects from the lack of sifting, but then again, I probably wouldn't, I hardly ever sift.  You bake the cake in a spring form pan for about 15 minutes, and you may want to put the pan on a cookie sheet when you bake it in case your spring form pan doesn't have the tightest seal and some starts leaking out.  Just a suggestion.

Once the cake is cool, soften the ice cream again and spread it over the cake, leaving the sides on the pan for the time being.  Pop it back in the freezer, you can leave it in the freezer for a few days at this point.

Now, onto the blackberry sauce, take 1/2 of your huge luscious blackberries, 1/2 cup of water, 6 tablespoons of sugar (or more depending on how tart your berries are) and boil them together.

You may may to mash some of the berries with a fork to help them along, when they are adequately saucy, take the pan off the heat and stir in the rest of the berries.  My berries were huge so I mashed them once or twice with a potato masher to incorporate them into the sauce a bit more. 

 

To serve, take the ring off and slice the cake, topping with plenty of blackberry sauce and enjoy!

Malted Milk Ice Cream Cake with Blackberry Sauce, from Bon Appetit 

For the cake:

1 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter, room temp

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Beat in the egg and vanilla.  Add the dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with the milk.  Pour into a spring form pan and bake for 15 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  If you quite particular you can shave off the top of the cake when it is done to make it an even 1/2 inch all around.  I am not.

For the ice cream:

1.5 quarts vanilla ice cream

3/4 cup malted milk powder

Soften ice cream in fridge for about 5-10 minutes, until it is soft enough to work with but not melted.  Mix in malted milk powder and return to freezer.  Alternately, make it from scratch from this recipe.

For the blackberry sauce:

2 pints blackberries

1/2 cup water

6 tablespoons sugar

Mix the sugar, water and 1 pint blackberries in a saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, mashing the berries as necessary, until the sauce thickens.  Remove from heat and stir in the rest of the berries, cool.

Assembling the cake:

Top the cake with the ice cream and return to freezer.  When ready to serve remove the sides of the pan, slice the cake and top with the blackberry sauce.

People's Pops

I just stumbled across a delightful looking new cookbook for the summer, called People's Pops.  The people behind the trendy (ok, honestly I have never been and can in no way vouch for its trendiness but I for sure want to check it out the next time I am in New York) popsicle stand of the same name are releasing a book in June with recipes for gems such as peach and bourbon popsicles.  I may need a copy.  I dare you to check out their website  or their blog and not want to try some of their creations.  You can pre-order from Powell's. (P.S. People's Pops have no idea I even exist, this is not a sponsored post, but if they want to throw a book my way I would be game...  Just kidding.  Sort of...)

Dutch Crunch Bread

This weekend I stumbled upon a picture of a sandwich on a delicious dutch crunch roll, which naturally I decided looked pretty darn fabulous and that I needed one of my own asap.  And naturally, the only place I have ever seen dutch crunch rolls is California (for those of you who don't have family in California to introduce to you to the wonders of dutch crunch, it is a crunchy, crackly topping on white bread and it is delicious).  And no, I don't live in California, in case you didn't know, I live 3,000 miles away from California, but that was not going to stop me, o no.  I researched and found a crazy informative blog about the crackle topping here, which it turns out is actually made from rice flour/sugar/yeast/water paste slathered on regular white bread before baking.  Easy right?  That blog mentioned the recipe being from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book The Bread Bible so I promptly went to the library and picked it up, and didn't find anything about dutch crunch in there, which I now realize is because she calls it tiger bread.  Anyways, I used her soft white bread recipe, which is a bit more involved than some bread recipes, but has great flavor, you could use whatever recipe you want and top it with the very first rice flour paste recipe from this blog, which you should probably cut in half because it makes a massive amount (and as I discovered baking the leftover paste on a cookie sheet does NOT make a delicious crunchy snack but rather makes a strangely textured blob).

Start out with your favorite bread dough, whatever you like to use for sammies, I have only seen it with white bread but you could use wheat if that is what floats your boat.  This is the Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf and I would give you the recipe except it is a full 5 pages in The Bread Bible.  So I won't.

Timing wise, you want to form your rolls so that they can start in on their final rise while you mix the crunch topping and let that sit for its 15 minutes to meld.

The crunch mix is odd, I ended up adding more rice flour to get it to the stiff royal icing consistency called for, I don't really know how much, I sort of got frustrated and dumped a bunch in and that ended up being the right amount, magic.

This is another strange part, these snowballs are the rolls after I slathered the crunch goop on them with my fingers, make sure to cover the whole roll with a relatively thick coat, if it's too thin it won't crackle properly and it won't crackle much at all if it's too thick.  It is messy.  Just a warning.

Bake them up and enjoy.  If you need any clarification regarding the crunch topping check out this blog ( I know, I know, this is the third time I have linked to it, but really, it is quite useful)

Dutch Crunch Topping (this is the halved version, should make enough for about a dozen rolls/ one standard batch of bread dough, if there is such a thing)
1 Tbs yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs veggie oil
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup rice flour

Mix all the ingredients together, adding more water or rice flour as needed to make it the consistency of a stiff royal icing.
Let sit 15 min.
Slather a good coat on your rolls or bread and bake according to the bread instructions.

Red Shrimp and Mango Curry

I love curry.  A lot.  I could probably eat a different type of curry every week for quite some time without getting tired of it.  Lemongrass has a delicious masaman curry and the yellow curry simmer sauce from Trader Joe's is quite tasty as well, but after seeing several recipes in various cookbooks by Nigella Lawson (love her, even more than I love curry) I decided to try my hand at making some on my own, after all if Nigella can do it so can I.  She claims it is quite simple to make, and it is, provided you find the butternut squash, sweet potato and mango already peeled and cubed, it really is.  If not, be prepared to add on a bit of time consuming prep work.  I did not find the prepackaged stuff, and as such peeled and cubed it the night before to save time.  In other news, I realized that I have never dealt with a whole mango before and doing so is not what one would call one of my innate skills.  I am too timid to wield a sharp knife while dealing with something so slippery.  Here is the link to the recipe.

It really is a simple recipe, the hardest part is the slicing and dicing.  You start out by sauteing some green onions and the curry paste.  Then pour in the broth, coconut milk (the whole can) and fish sauce (don't worry if you don't have fish sauce, just make sure to add a little extra salt).  Toss in the sweet potatoes and squash and simmer until they are cooked through (it always takes longer than 15 min. for me).

When the squash is done stir in the shrimp and continue cooking until the shrimp is cooked through.  Add the mango and a splash of lime juice right before you take it off the heat.  Serve it over rice, topped with cilantro.  This is a Nigella Lawson recipe, you can find it here.

Infused Vodka Update #2

I know you have all been waiting on the edges of your seats to hear how the rest of the infused vodka turned out, and I finally got around to taking some pictures of the results so here you go.  I do believe the pomegranate is my favorite of the three combinations (the other two being cranberry and a cran/pom combo in case you forgot, I know it's been awhile).  In general I would say that all three are not as strongly flavored as I expected them to be, but are still quite tasty nonetheless.  I have been drinking them with soda water, which makes for a beautifully rosy cocktail that is refreshing and light.  I think if you added a splash of Pom or cranberry juice it would bump up the flavor nicely, although I still need to experiment a bit more with various cocktail combinations.  All in all they are more subtly flavored than the flavored vodka you can buy but with none of the chemically, fake taste which is a major plus, for me at least.

Infused Vodka Update

Well dear readers, after 2 weeks I strained the apple cinnamon vodka and brought it to my sister's for a little cocktail party.  We set it out with a pitcher of apple cider and let people spike their own drinks with it and it was quite a hit.  The flavors blended so well that you couldn't even tell there was vodka in the cider even though you poured it in there yourself.  I didn't get to try any of it in tea, but I think that would be quite delicious as well.  All in all, vodka #1 was a success, and I just taste tested #2-4 and they are all quite good.  I believe they could be drunk at any point now, but I am going to let them steep until I need them/save a few bottles to put them in (it is a bit to difficult to pour from quart size mason jars for my level of clumsiness).

Infused Vodka

I began an infusing project today, it's like canning for lazy people, you pop some fruit and sugar and vodka in a mason jar, screw on the top and wait.  According to my research it is not at all as fiddly as real canning where if you do it wrong you can give everyone botulism, The New York Times says "preserving with alcohol is the lowest rung of entry for canning enthusiasts because it's hard to mess up."  And with that kind of endorsement, how can you resist?  I am not entirely sure how long you wait, I am just going to play it by ear and do some periodic taste testing.  In honor of the upcoming holiday season I decided to do a cranberry vodka, a pomegranate vodka and an apple/honey/cinnamon/clove vodka (and then a cranberry and pomegranate combined one because I had leftovers).  The red fruits look lusciously christmasy already, and this is an acceptable pre-Christmas sort of thing, unlike stores that already have their holiday displays up or a certain shopping center that I drove by last night that has a lit up tree out already.  I mean come on, I LOVE Christmas and fully admit that after Thanksgiving dinner until Christmas day the only music I listen to is on my Christmas Carols playlist (there's 301 songs on it, soon to be 313, as soon as I get the She & Him cd....) but you have to show some restraint.    

            

To make the pomegranate vodka, start with a pomegranate (or two).  If you already have a technique for getting the little seeds out then by all means use it, but if you don't I would suggest cutting the fruit in half and then submerging it in water to remove the seeds, otherwise you may end up staining you entire self and kitchen with little splatters of bright red juice.  Then grab your mason jar, or other airtight container and add your pomegranate seeds.  My rule of thumb (which I use very loosely and developed today, so after I see how these turn out I may change it) is this, I have quart jars, I used two cups of fruit, however much sugar struck my fancy and then filled it up with vodka, when I had less fruit I used less vodka.  Anyways, toss in some sugar and then a bit of orange peel, put the lid on your jar and let it sit.  Possibly for several weeks, I will let you know when I figure that bit out.

To make the cranberry vodka, take a bag of cranberries, toss them in a sauce pan, add a bit of water, a generous sprinkle of sugar and boil until the cranberries start to pop, which brings me to the second guideline I developed today, fruit with a tough skin should be helped along, either cut open or cooked, and fruit with a coating should be skinned.  Remove from the heat and pour two cups of the cranberry/sugar water mixture into your jar and top it off with vodka.  I would have added some orange peel to this but my mother isn't such a big fan of the orange-cranberry combination so I left it out, but feel free to add it if you wish.  One bag of cranberries will probably give you a bit more fruit than you need, but my two pomegranates did as well, so I combined the extra in one jar and topped it off with vodka.  

For the apple vodka, because I used a grocery store apple with that lovely waxy coating on it, I peeled it first, but I would imagine that if you had a farm fresh, uncoated apple you could leave the peel on without any problem.  Then, because I have big plans to use this to spike some Good Earth tea, I poured honey in instead of using sugar, as the tea and honey combination is such a lovely one.  Toss in half a cinnamon stick and a whole clove and top with vodka.  I have a feeling this one will not take very long to infuse, considering that there is so much surface area of exposed apple flesh.  For now all of my vodkas are sitting on my bar cart, which considering how cold my house always is, is a cool place, although not very dark.  I imagine that due to my obsessive nature I will shake the jars every day to stir them up and see how it is going and will probably start tasting them in about a week to see how flavorful they are becoming.  When they taste good I will strain them through cheesecloth and pour them back into their mason jars until I can be bothered to find/repurpose suitable bottles.  I will let you know how they turn out.