We all love ice cream
Regina Murphy
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Oh yes! It’s ice cream season!
Although I generally have to go for the fat-free, cholesterol-free, sugar-free, cream-free ice cream many of you don’t, so here’s a few absolutely delicious homemade ice cream recipes.
We’ve talked about pralines before — they’re a sugary pecan cookie-like confection, so delicious and caramelly, from the Deep South. Pralines add a great crunch to this rich dish (but you could use any cookie you like). You can sauté some fresh fruit (peaches, bananas, etc.) with a little sugar until it caramelizes and serve that on top.
BUTTERMILK-PRALINE ICE CREAM
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 cups buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup crumbled pralines
Combine the cream and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool completely.
Combine the sweetened cream with the buttermilk and vanilla. Refrigerate until well-chilled, about 1 hour.
Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream is nearly firm, add the crumbled pralines. Continue to churn until the ice cream freezes, about 5 minutes. If you don’t eat it straight out of the canister, then place the ice cream in a plastic container and freeze until you need it. It probably won’t last that long!
A lot of recipes call for an egg base. Knowing what we know now about salmonella, it’s a good idea to cook those eggs. Kelly Whitfield wrote a couple of weeks ago that you can use pasteurized eggs and egg substitute for recipes that call for raw eggs.
Fruity ice creams are great during summer — imagine mango, banana, or papaya ice cream. My mother once made a peach ice cream, but put chunks of the fruit in at the beginning of the process (she was experimenting). Once it was frozen, we had a very nice vanilla ice cream with rock-hard chunks of frozen peaches all the way through. After that, she pureed part of the fruit to use in the base, and then added fresh chunks when it was almost done freezing. That worked out just fine.
“YOUR FRUIT HERE”
ICE CREAM
6 large eggs yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
Pinch fine salt
3 cups pureed fruit
Lightly whisk the yolks together with a 1/4 cup of the sugar. Set aside.
In a non-reactive saucepan, combine the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 cups of cream and the salt. Heat the cream mixture over medium-high heat until just boiling (stir to prevent scorching!). Remove from the heat; whisk the eggs constantly while gradually pouring the hot liquid into the yolks. Return the egg mixture to the saucepan.
Cook over medium-low heat while stirring constantly with a spoon in a figure 8 motion (Mom said that was important). It will take about 5 minutes to thicken. Pull it from the heat; add the reserved 1/2 cup cream, and strain it into a medium bowl to catch any curds that may have formed.
Cool the ice cream base by setting it in a bowl of ice and whisking. Add the fruit puree (taste it to see if it needs sweetening, and add a little honey if you need to). Freeze in the ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions and serve with extra slices of fresh fruit to complement the flavor in the cream.
CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
1/3 cup of unsweetened chocolate cocoa
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 can evaporated milk
2 cups whipping cream
1 tsp. real vanilla extract
Whisk the cocoa and sugar together in a saucepan. After they are well mixed, take a spatula and press the mixture against the side of the pan to remove any lumps. Stir in the evaporated milk and set on medium heat. Stir constantly until all of the cocoa is dissolved into the evaporated milk. Remove it from the burner and chill in the refrigerator.
Next, mix in the whipping cream and vanilla extract and put the ice cream in your ice cream maker. This ice cream recipe takes about 10 minutes longer than most to freeze, but it’s so delicious you won’t mind! Put a little hot fudge on top if you’re feeling extravagant.
Well it’s Fair Time here in the Twin River City, and that means cooking contests. There are many open classes that you can enter, the rules are easy, there’s no entry fee and most classifications have extra prizes on top of the ribbons.
Kelly Whitfield told me the open class spotlight event this year is zucchini (main dish, desserts and breads). The Sweepstakes Award is $20.00 and there’s a little cash for second and third as well. If you’d like to know more, you can call the Lyon County Extension office or look at the fair book on www.oznet.ksu.edu/lyon
Next week I have a special column on “The White House Cookbook” that Judy Patton loaned me. For after that, your challenge is to come up with a recipe for something very special, very dear to our hearts, and usually very, very secret — barbecue sauce. What’s your favorite marinade, baste or sauce for the roasting of the meat? That Greater Emporia Barbecue Festival is coming up any day now.
Send your best recipe to Murphy’s Menu, The Emporia Gazette, PO Drawer C, Emporia or e-mail to murphysmenu@yahoo.com. The deadline is 5 p.m. Monday. Let’s get cooking!