use real butter

I’m not cooking or baking as much as I’d like and that’s mostly because I’m dealing with unpleasant physical issues related to my least favorite of my chemo drugs. [I know that the last infusion was almost 6 weeks ago, but please tell that to the drugs…] I met with my oncologist this morning and he hasn’t seen it before in his many years of poisoning cancer patients. Great! I’m exceptional in every frakking way… Meanwhile, it would seem that all of my medical appointments have piled together lately such that I fell asleep on the table last night during my heart scan. Well, I’d rather sleep through Journey wailing over the speakers than listen to it while isotopes go racing through my heart.

[While waiting for my radiation appointment this afternoon, I’m killing time by blogging from a bakery in Boulder. Dude half my age just walked past and winked at me. WTF?]

Yesterday evening as Jeremy drove me to my heart scan down on the flats, I spied some mammata forming in the distance. Mammata clouds are typical precursors to tornadoes. In very simple terms, they indicate instability in the atmosphere. We see a lot of them in the summer around these parts.

mammata: look like giant grapes or… boobies

The breast-like shape of the clouds is where the name comes from, but a few years ago I was hiking with 5 female atmospheric scientists in the Rockies when we spied mammata forming in the sky. They insisted on referring to them as testicular clouds. So there you have it. I just think they’re very cool (both the clouds and the female atmospheric scientists).

We had a wonderful, albeit short visit with my aunt and her family over the weekend. Everyone enjoyed the time spent together, particularly Kaweah because she received 150% more attention and love than usual. She also found a nice big stick to drag around the lake.

our guests

the happiest pup

going home so soon?

The weather has been getting warm as summer fast approaches our corner of the globe. Although it is usually cool enough where we live that baking in the oven doesn’t make me homicidal, there is nothing quite like serving up homemade ice cream to cool off in the afternoon heat. While Jeremy’s requests usually center on one of three caffeinated flavors (chocolate, coffee, or matcha green tea), I had summer on the brain.

blackberries

I am so enamored with David Lebovitz’s custard-based ice cream recipes from The Perfect Scoop that I had no choice (no choice!!) but to try his recipe for raspberry ice cream - except I subbed blackberries for the raspberries so I could make the stains on my t-shirt even more permanent.

make a purée

David suggests 6 cups of fresh raspberries to yield 1 1/2 cups of raspberry purée. I used 6 cups of blackberries and I can assure you that you only need 4 cups, tops. I also realized that what has been missing in my life is a food mill.

strain out the seeds

Pressing the purée through the sieve is just an exercise in incessant swearing and several extra stains on your clothes (well, several on my clothes anyway). I complained about this on my personal blog and my buddy Rob is now sending me a food mill! What a sweetheart. Or maybe he just wants me to shut up about it already? *snort*

sugar and half-and-half

straining the custard into the cream

This batch of blackberries is, me thinks, early for the season. The flavor is nice, but it isn’t out-of-this-world bursting with sun-ripened goodness. Oh well. And ever since my girl, Peabody, wrote about how the first time she saw a man picking blackberries on the roadside, she thought he was taking a leak… That image is now permanently lodged in my brain. Thanks lady ;)

stirring in the purée

I served the ice cream to our guests over the weekend and heard a lot of mmm mmm mmming. It’s a smooth and rich treat to be sure. The quality is entirely dependent on your ingredients, specifically the berries. So be sure to procure some damn tasty berries to make it worth the effort. It’s a gorgeous color, no?

purple love

Blackberry Ice Cream
adapted from Raspberry Ice Cream in The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups strained blackberry purée (from 4 cups whole blackberries)
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Warm half-and-half and sugar in medium saucepan. Pour cream into large bowl and set mesh strainer over top. In separate medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks. Slowly pour warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into saucepan. Stir mixture constantly over med heat with heatproof spatula, scraping bottom as you stir until mixture thickens and coats spatula. Pour custard through the strainer and stir into cream. Mix in purée and lemon juice then stir until cool over ice bath. Chill thoroughly in fridge and churn ice cream according to ice cream maker’s instructions within 4 hours after making mixture (to preserve the fresh berry taste). Makes 1 liter.

The Daring Bakers strike again, this time with cheesecake pops!

we knead to bake

Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah of Taste and Tell are our lovely co-hosts this month and they selected this recipe from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey.

beat the eggs into the cream cheese and sugar

oven-ready batter, pre water bath

Seeing as no one in this house is a cheesecake fan and that I have trouble eating during my chemo, I almost bailed on this one. Yeah, I know… But math is my friend and I took a cue from Ashley of eat me, delicious who successfully reduced the recipe by a fifth. I mean, I was willing to participate, but not with 4 dozen freaking cheesecake pops… I baked the cheesecake batter in two small ramekins.

what a craptastic mess

taking great joy in skewering these sticky bastards

I started yesterday afternoon, the day before the deadline. I figured I’d be cutting it close with all of the refrigeration and freezing required. I let the ramekins cool in the fridge overnight. Then this morning at 4:30, I got fabulously ill and worried that I wouldn’t be able to finish the pops this morning (well, I worried that I might suffocate in the night too). But I rallied, I swore a lot, and I made a huge mess in my kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think cheesecake was meant to be scooped, let alone stuck with a stick.

i used semi-sweet chips for the coating

dippity dip

Normally, if it’s a recipe I’m jazzed about, I’ll go the distance and spring for Valrhona or some other lovely chocolate. Because I was not loving this recipe from the start, I bought generic Nestle semi-sweet chips for the coating and nuked it on half-power, stirring the shortening into the warm chocolate at the end. It’s a thick glaze which sets up in about 5 seconds on the frozen cheesecake balls. Since I didn’t want to purchase a bag of lolly sticks (I was pretty ornery about this one, wasn’t I?), I used some bamboo skewers we had on hand.

there was one casualty - just too soft

most of them held up just fine

The nice thing about using skewers was that the sharp ends stuck nicely in my styrofoam base so the pops could set up easily. The bad thing about the skewers was that the sharp ends also stuck nicely into my hand at times… Since the chocolate firms up in no time flat, I had to work quickly on rolling a few in chopped pistachio nuts.

drizzled with white chocolate

The end products are totally adorable and I hope my neighbors will dig on these because I don’t want to see the pops ever again. That was fun, but definitely not my thing. I hope all of you DBers know how much I freaking love you guys because I was not wanting to finish this challenge this morning…

jolly little lollies

a bouquet for you… no really

To see the different cheesecake pops cropping up all over the foodblogosphere, check out the Daring Bakers Blogroll. I think we’ve reached something like a billion members now. I’d also like to thank Lis, Ivonne, Andy, and Katrina for the new and wonderful DB website which doesn’t put me in the foulest of moods the way freaking Blogger did. Thank YOU!! xxoo

Cheesecake Pops
Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
makes 30–40 pops

5 8-oz pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream

boiling water as needed
thirty-forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 lb chocolate, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable shortening
assorted decorations: chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees (optional)

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

I’ve been on puke watch all day since 4 am.

No, not for me. Chemo has done everything else to me including making me feel like I want to puke, but so far I can report no hay pukeage para mi. Let’s be thankful for the little things.

Someone in our household engaged in some Unsupervised Dietary Indiscretions… Take a guess.

huh?

I think she’s on the mend now. The interesting thing is that Kaweah is such a creature of the moment that when she pukes she’s sad and traumatized, but then after she pukes her reaction is, “w00t! Someone left food on the floor!” If only life were that simple.

Yet some things in life are almost that simple. Over ten years ago, in the little college town of Ithaca, New York, Jeremy and I acquired an ice cream maker for $30. Living just above the poverty line in the name of Science, we figured it was high time to start making our own Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream instead of paying $3 for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. We even bought their recipe book. This was mostly Jeremy’s scheme since I don’t typically touch the stuff - it makes me spastic, as does all caffeine. He made a few batches. He said it was “okay”. We calculated the cost of making it ourselves and decided it was about the same as dealing through the Boys of Vermont… and their ice cream was better in quality, so we gave up.

But last summer I blew the dust off of Ye Olde Ice Cream Maker and tried some new recipes via The Lebovitz… David, that is. His custard-based ice creams really won me over. When I made his coffee ice cream recipe, Jeremy fried a circuit gushing over how rich, creamy, dense, smooth, and coffee-y it was. Good stuff, kids. Pure joy.

Fast forward to last week when Jeremy and I were cruising the aisle for after-Easter sale candy. I mentioned that I had some egg yolks to use up after the Daring Bakers Challenge and what flavor ice cream would he like me to make? He replied coffee (because he already had chocolate in the freezer that I made earlier). Sure, coffee. Why not put some Heath Bar in there while we’re at it?

why not?

Take care when smashing up the toffee because it can become powder in no time flat. Or maybe it’s that my superhuman strength turns a simple rolling pin into…

the pulverizer

That was fun. I was sure to leave plenty of large chunks of toffee for Jeremy’s snacking pleasure. So once the ice cream custard was cooled and I ran it through our ice cream machine for 30 minutes, it was the right consistency for adding the goods.

mix quickly

The yield is a quart and some change. I don’t actually know how much it costs to make - probably comparable to B&J’s prices… The difference is that this version is way the hell better than Ben and Jerry’s. The coffee flavor is stronger (I use dark roast beans) and the ice cream is richer and creamier. Jeremy friggin’ loves this stuff. It’s his new best friend. I had to pry the tupperware from his arms when he went to bed the other night, he loves it so much… Shazaam!

mission accomplished

You can get the recipe for the coffee ice cream here and mix in 4 crushed Heath Bar candy bars after turning in the ice cream maker, but before freezing.