Tag Archives: Ice Cream

Strawberry Rhubarb Swirl Ice cream

It’s no secret to regular readers of this blog that I adore rhubarb. That being said, I was shocked to discover there are 18 rhubarb recipes in the archives of my blog! I love the tartness that rhubarb brings to desserts. It’s a great way to achieve flavour balance in desserts, keeping the sweetness at bay.

Local rhubarb does not really arrive in Ottawa until early July and right now I am awash in a sea of rhubarb. Because I no longer have a garden (I’m in a condo now), my son planted a rhubarb patch in his backyard for me for Mother’s Day a few years ago. Rhubarb is a prolific perennial. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

This ice cream is a vanilla base with roasted strawberry-rhubarb compote mixed in. Roasting is an excellent way to boost the flavour profile of fruit. Mix 1.5 cups of halved strawberries, 1 cup sliced rhubarb and 2 tablespoons sugar together on a sheet pan, and roast it in a 350°F oven for about 15 minutes, until the fruit is tender. Mash the fruit with a potato masher until it becomes a chunky sauce. Chill the sauce while you make the ice cream.

If you find yourself with a plethora of rhubarb, slice it and freeze it. Then all winter long you can roast it with frozen strawberries and spoon it over your morning yogurt. It makes winter more bearable.

I used the basic vanilla ice cream recipe from my Cuisinart Ice Cream recipe book. It’s an excellent base for all kinds of flavour mix-ins. The strawberry rhubarb mixture gets swirled in once the ice cream is churned but still soft.

Feel free to serve the ice cream in cones or if you want to make a special sundae dessert, serve it in pretty glasses with this Salted Pistachio Crumble on top. I’m all about texture. Save some of the strawberry rhubarb juice to drizzle on the sundaes.

Click here to print recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Swirl Ice cream with Salted Pistachio Crumble.

Turtle Ice cream

The inspiration for this ice cream came from Turtles Chocolates. Creamy caramel and crunchy pecans coated in rich chocolate. Mmmmmm, I love turtles. When I told my husband I was creating Turtle Ice cream, he had no idea what I was talking about. Clearly, his mother did not have a candy drawer in the living room where she “hid” the chocolates that were meant for company.

Of course that drawer was a magnet for my sisters and I. We’d try to quietly sneak chocolates, but the drawer had a brass knocker handle that would clunk every time we opened and closed the drawer. The variety box of chocolates would be filled with half-eaten cherry and cream filled chocolates. All the nut and caramel ones were gone. My mother would be so embarrassed and angry at us when she went to serve the chocolates to company. Ah, sweet childhood memories!

Turtles were the most coveted box in the drawer and it was always filled with empty candy cups. For my version of Turtle Ice Cream, I started with a base of salted caramel ice cream from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s book, “Rose’s Ice Cream Bliss.” You will need an ice cream machine to make this recipe.

The blogosphere is awash with quick, no-churn ice cream recipes. Essentially, no churn ice cream does not contain eggs, and relies on sweetened condensed milk to thicken the ice cream. The big draw to most of these recipes is that they do not require an ice cream machine. You just mix the ingredients and freeze. Sound perfect until you taste the ice cream. No matter what flavour you add, I find that the sweetened condensed milk overpowers everything. Plus, it has a strange texture. I don’t understand the appeal.

Rose’s recipe is extremely detailed and fool proof. She walks you through all the steps and explains why things work. I’m a big fan. Her first book “The Cake Bible” is the most dog eared book on my shelf. Published in 1988, it has stood the test of time.

I dipped the top of the sugar cones with melted chocolate and rolled it in toasted pecans, because we’re fancy here at saltandserenity. Plus, it makes a pretty picture. It’s all in the details.

To the base of salted caramel ice cream, I added buttered toasted pecans and chunks of caramel candy. You can make your own caramel candy, or just buy the Kraft caramels and cut them into quarters. For the chocolate, I envisioned ribbons of hot fudge sauce rippling through the ice cream. I made a simple hot fudge sauce and layered it through the ice cream before freezing. Then I drizzled on some extra after scooping.

Mocha Almond Fudge Swirl Ice Cream

One of my strongest childhood memories, is spending Sundays with my dad. He would take me and my sisters out for the day to give my mom a break. In the summer it would be swimming and then dinner and ice cream. In the winter, it was usually a movie, dinner and ice cream. I recall seeing Mary Poppins 7 1/2 times. The 1/2 was because my little sister threw up and we had to leave.

Dinner was usually at the Copper Kettle. We’d always have fried chicken in a basket. I fondly remember the little packets of honey that we’d open with our teeth, and drizzle all over the chicken and fries. After dinner, we’d go to Bresslers Ice Cream at Bayview Village. That was when Bayview Village was a strip mall, and not the fancy place it is now.

Everyone had their favourite flavour of ice cream. My sisters ordered strawberry (Jody), bubblegum, (Lynne), and maple walnut (Faith). My baby sister (Bo) was too little to come and my baby brother (Jay) wasn’t even born yet! I always got two scoops, chocolate on the bottom and pistachio on top. My dad always got pistachio. He loved all nuts.

When I was a teenager, I discovered Jamoca Almond Fudge Ice Cream at Baskin and Robbins. I adored the deep, slightly bitter coffee flavour, balanced by ripples of chocolate fudge sauce. And the little pop of crunch when you’d bite into a nugget of almond was easily the best part for me.

Thanks to my friend Brigitte, I have recreated this iconic flavour at home. The base coffee recipe is hers. I added swirls of hot fudge sauce and toasted salted almonds. It comes together really quickly. Store-bought fudge sauce will totally work, but it only takes a few minutes to make your own. My favourite recipe is from Deb.

Extra hot fudge sauce and almonds are totally optional, but highly recommended!

No Churn Malted Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream

No churn ice cream means that no ice cream machine is required. You just mix all the ingredients together, freeze, and voila, creamy, smooth, luscious ice cream. How is that possible you ask?

When you make ice cream the traditional way, in an ice cream machine, the action of the paddle, churning the mixture, is actually incorporating air into the ice cream, so you end up with a light and fluffy finished product.

The secret to no churn ice cream is two key ingredients. The first is whipped cream. You whip the cream before mixing it into the other ingredients. The act of whipping causes the volume to increase and incorporates air into the cream. Whipping the cream replaces the work of the ice cream machine.

The second key ingredient is sweetened condensed milk which has a very high sugar content. Sugar lowers the freezing point and prevents the ice cream from becoming rock hard. The “condensed” in sweetened condensed milk, means that the milk has been cooked down to reduce the water content. Less water means that you will not form ice crystals. So you end up with a smooth and velvety ice cream.

But sweetened condensed milk is a mixed blessing. While the high sugar content keeps it creamy, it can also produce some very queasily sweet ice cream. The solution, I have discovered, it to be strategic about the flavours that you incorporate into it. I would not add crushed Oreos to make Cookies and Cream, or fudge and marshmallows to make Rocky Road ice cream.

I added malted milk powder to my no churn ice cream. Stella Parks calls malted milk powder the umami bomb of desserts. Malted milk powder contains barley malt, wheat flour, milk powder, and salt. The barley malt gives malted milk powder a roasted, toasty earthy flavour. The salt aids in tempering the sweetness, and enhancing all the other flavours in whatever it is combined with.

Malted milk powder is mixed with some heated 1% milk to dissolve it. That gets cooled down while you whip the cream. Mix the sweetened condensed milk with the malted milk mixture and fold in the whipped cream, some vanilla bean paste and a pinch of salt. Pour that into a 9x 5 inch loaf pan.

I decided to add a chocolate swirl to my ice cream. A touch of coconut oil added to the melted chocolate keeps it from becoming too brittle when it freezes. Put the ice cream in the freezer for at least 5 hours before scooping.

Creamy, rich and smooth, with a real toasty depth of flavour, this is ice cream for grownups. If I weren’t socially distancing this summer, I would invite my friend Mrs Grizzly over for a few scoops. She is a malted milk aficionado.

Feel free to drizzle a little extra melted chocolate on top. I don’t think anyone will complain.

Malted Milk Ice Cream Sandwiches

If you’re not a food photographer, you might think that shooting ice cream sandwiches is fun. Nothing could be further from the truth. Photographing ice cream is one of the most challenging foods, because it melts so quickly.

I made the mistake of trying to shoot this last Saturday at the cottage, where it was a sweltering 32°C, with a humidex of 41°C! The ice cream wasn’t the only thing melting. We were sweating just standing still. I finally shoved the sandwiches back into the freezer and spent the afternoon on the hammock, in the shade. I got up very early Sunday morning before the heat got too bad and managed to get a few good shots.

Do you remember ice cream sandwiches before they got all fancy? That squidgey chocolate wafer, so moist, it stuck to the paper wrapper. How you had to lick the chocolate crumbs off your fingers after you were all done. The familiar, bland, slightly too sweet, vanilla ice cream center.

I wanted to recreate the ice cream sandwiches of my youth, but with a bit of an update. I’d keep the fudgy chocolate wafer but elevate the ice cream center. I decided to fill mine with malted milk ice cream.

Cook’s Illustrated has a fantastic recipe for the chocolate wafers. The addition of chocolate syrup keeps them super fudgy. All the ingredients are mixed in a bowl and spread into a thin layer on a baking sheet. Once they are baked and cooled, you can cut them into any shape you like.

If you would prefer not to make ice cream, just soften some storebought and spread it out onto a baking sheet. Freeze until solid and then cut into the same shape as the chocolate wafers.

They are delicious as is or you can go deluxe and embellish them with melted chocolate and various toppings. I used chopped Malteasers, mini chocolate chips and Skor bits.