use real butter

I guess that heat wave found me! Actually, I met it part way just because it’s still tolerable up here in the mountains when it’s pushing the 90s down in Boulder. The hitch this time was that our town busted a huge leak in its water supply a few days ago and the geniuses who run the town didn’t start to tell anyone about it until today. Hot weather is one thing, but hot weather without water is something else entirely. And hot weather in the fire-prone Mountain West without water is dangerous. We got the news of the water shortage this evening at 6 pm and by 7:30 pm we heard that the leak had been found and fixed. We’re still conserving water (well, we try to in general - you shouldn’t need a shortage of something to convince you that it is ass stupid to waste it), but at least we can flush the toilets!

Well, it finally feels like summer to me because I am squinting my eyes under the blazing sun down in Boulder and wishing for two or three feet of fluffy powder to shred. As I think more about snow and powder, images of snow cones drizzled in syrupy colors and fruity flavors dance in my head. It’s the onset of delirium brought about by the heat, I tell you. Notice how the latest trend of sweets have all been refrigerator or freezer treats? It’s not just me - it’s everyone on this side of the planet. Today’s is no different.

some tea with your cream?

whisk it up

I’ve made this ice cream several times already because it is one of Jeremy’s most requested flavors. I just love to play with matcha powder. Since my aunt is coming back this weekend to retrieve my cousin from his 2-week summer program, I thought a dish of matcha ice cream would be a welcome relief after their long, hot drive from New Mexico.

milk and egg yolks

straining custard into the cream

It should be no surprise to anyone that this is a recipe from The Lebovitz (The Perfect Scoop). Perhaps one day I will move on to other ice cream recipes, but I am having too much fun (and success) with TPS this summer. As long as it doesn’t get too oppressively hot, I can stand stirring a custard over the stove top for the anticipated reward.

chill out and then churn in the ice cream maker

[I have to chill my custard on ice packs because we don’t own an ice maker. I know - a Southern-born dope (me) without an ice machine?! When we purchased our fridge/freezer years ago I knew there were two things I wanted: 1) full-width fridge and 2) no ice maker. Why? For making cakes and pastries… you need *s p a c e*.]

ready for freezing

Green tea is a truly refreshing and cleansing flavor for me. I’ve always had it as hot tea growing up - only discovering iced green teas and green tea ice creams and green tea candies when I went away to college. The beauty of a small nip of green tea ice cream is how smooth and silky the texture is, while the cool temperature and uplifting green tea flavor feel so lively and bright. It soothes and awakens at the same time, which is just what you need when the mercury is on the rise.

just a spot of (green) tea (ice cream)

Green Tea Ice Cream
from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
4 tsp matcha (green tea powder)
6 large egg yolks

Warm milk, sugar, and salt in medium saucepan. Pour cream into a large bowl and whisk in green tea powder. Set mesh strainer on top. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks together and slowly pour in the warmed milk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the contents back into the pan and stir over medium heat with a heatproof spatula. Continue to stir until mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Remove from heat and pour the custard through the strainer, stirring it into the cream. Whisk vigorously to dissolve the green tea powder. Stir until cool over an ice bath (or a bunch of reusable drugstore ice packs). Chill mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

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.