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Easiest No-Churn Mango Ice Cream

13 Sep

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Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be sitting here telling you about a recipe that contains two processed milk items that hail from sealed cans, but sometimes life takes a funny turn. And then you find yourself sitting around eating the best mango ice cream you’ve ever had, wondering what took you so long to discover such a fantastic recipe. With just mangoes, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and a bit of heavy cream to make things just that much more decadent, you, too, can create this wonderful ice cream in your very own kitchen, no ice cream maker required.

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Last Year: Tzatziki Biscuits with Caramelized Shallot Butter and Spice Cake with Salted Brown Butter Frosting

Mango Ice Cream

Heavily adapted from several different no-churn ice cream recipes

24 ounces of mango chunks (you can use frozen mango chunks, as I did, or you can get this amount of mango flesh from anywhere from 4-8 mangoes, depending on the size and ripeness of the mangoes you use—yes, it really can vary that much)

1 ¼ cups sweetened condensed milk

1 1/3 cups evaporated milk

½ cup heavy cream

juice of ½ a lime

pinch of salt

In the bowl of a food processor or large blender, puree mango chunks until smooth. Add sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream, and blend until combined. Add lime juice and salt, and blend once more.

Now, you have three different options at this point. You can either pour the mixture into a large freezer-safe container and freeze until firm, you can freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker, or you can pour the mixture into popsicle molds and freeze until completely firm (warning: this amount of ice cream mixture will make a huge number of popsicles—we’re talking more than a dozen).

The ice cream will be done freezing when it is firm, but it will remain a bit grainy when frozen solid. If you allow the ice cream to soften at room temperature for just a bit before scooping it, you will be rewarded handsomely with the creamiest ice cream you’ve ever produced in the comfort of your own home.

Makes around 6 cups of ice cream.

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookie and Caramel Ice Cream Sandwiches

5 Jul

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I did not come up with this genius ice cream sandwich combination. The combo was the work of Asha Dornfest, the lovely mind behind Parent Hacks and the author of several different books. Asha was able to dream up her own ice cream sandwich combination when she made a donation to this great campaign, of which I was greatly honored to be a part. Ask for an ice cream sandwich combo and I shall deliver.

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One warning about this very delicious caramel ice cream–it stays very soft, even after a prolonged freezing. Consider this when biting into your ice cream sandwich, and anticipate some sticky activity.

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Last Year: Blueberry Cream Pie in a Gingersnap Crust and Olive, Lemon, and Herb-Stuffed Sole 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookie and Caramel Ice Cream Sandwiches

Caramel Ice Cream

Adapted slightly from Room for Dessert, by David Lebovitz

1 ½ cups sugar

1 vanilla bean, split

2 ¾ cups heavy cream

¾ cup milk, not skim

pinch of sea salt

5 egg yolks

Sprinkle an even layer of sugar into a heavy, medium-sized saucepan (at least 2 quarts). Add the vanilla bean, then cook the sugar over medium heat until it begins to liquefy around the edges. As the sugar melts, swirl the pan to move the sugar around, and occasionally give the sugar a stir with a wooden spoon or heat-resistant spatula to prevent it from burning in any one spot.

Once the sugar has begun to darken, it will finish cooking very quickly. When the edges begin to bubble and the lighter, amber-colored sugar has begun to smoke, remove the pan from the heat and very quickly pour in the heavy cream, stirring to dissolve the caramel. The mixture will bubble and steam furiously, so be cautious with your pouring and stirring. If your caramel begins to seize up, do not fear. Simply return the pan to low heat, and gently stir the caramel cream mixture until the caramel pieces dissolve.

Whisk the milk and salt into the caramel mixture. Lightly whisk together the egg yolks in a bowl, and very slowly add the caramel cream, whisking constantly as you pour in the hot liquid. Return the mixture to the saucepan in which you cooked the caramel, and gently heat the custard mixture over low heat until it reaches around 165 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. The mixture should easily coat the back of a spoon.

Strain the custard mixture into a medium or large bowl, and refrigerate until completely chilled, overnight, or at a minimum, 3 hours. When chilled, pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. When ice cream is frozen, remove to a container and freeze several hours or overnight, until firmed up enough for scooping.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Sandwich Cookies

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

2/3 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

6 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups rolled oats, not instant or quick-cooking

½ cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips

½ cup unflavored vegetable oil

3 tablespoons milk

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 2 or 3 baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, both sugars, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, being sure to break up any large lumps of brown sugar. Stir in the oats and chocolate chunks.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then pour in the oil and milk. Add the vanilla and egg and stir until the batter is smooth.

Scoop the batter onto a prepared baking sheet, measuring out each scoop to be a heaping tablespoon. You will be able to fit 6 scoops on 1 sheet—try to fit any more and your cookies will spread into one another. Flatten out each scoop slightly, until the top is no longer rounded.

Bake a sheet of cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until golden at the edges, rotating the sheets halfway through baking (Lebovitz’s book dictates that you bake the cookies for twice as long as this, for reasons unknown. I followed his instructions at first, but the cookies came out burned and hard as rocks). Remove cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Finish baking all cookies in this manner. You should end up with 16 large cookies.

To assemble ice cream sandwiches, top one cookie with a generous scoop of ice cream, then top the ice cream with another cookie. Press down slightly to help the ice cream fill out the circumference of the cookie. Freeze ice cream sandwiches, wrapped in plastic wrap, if you wish, until firm enough to not splat out everywhere when you bite down on them, at least a few hours.

Makes 8 large ice cream sandwiches, with ice cream leftover (yay!).

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Homemade Fudge Pops

25 Apr

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A fudge popsicle (or fudgesicle) is a closer relative to ice cream than proper fudge, and lord knows there is pretty much no situation during which I would turn down an offer to eat some ice cream. These fudge pops offer a nice in between, for those of you who are fans of both ice cream and simpler popsicles. While not as rich as chocolate ice cream, there is certainly more going on here than what one finds in a standard popsicle. Creamy and rich, yet also light and refreshing, I think I have found my new favorite warm weather treat.

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Last Year: Two of my favorites, Lemon, Almond, and Cornmeal Cake and How to Make Homemade Crunchy Herb and Chèvre Croutons

Homemade Fudge Pops (Fudgesicles)

Adapted from On a Stick, by Matt Armendariz

Using the best semi-sweet dark chocolate you can find definitely makes a difference (I used 54% Belgian chocolate with a nice smoky aftertaste).

2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) chopped semi-sweet dark chocolate

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups milk
(I used 1%, and I suspect that a heavier fat milk, or even a mix of milk and heavy cream, would be great here as well)

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan set over very low heat, gently melt the chopped chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth. Stir in sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, milk and salt. Increase heat to medium and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon or spatula (my mixture took about 5 minutes to thicken up nicely).

Remove from heat, add vanilla, and stir gently until combined.

Set aside to cool slightly (the mixture will thicken even more as it cools) then pour into popsicle molds of your choosing. Freeze for at least 8 hours, but preferably overnight in order to obtain the best texture.

Note: After a bit of trial and error, I have found that the best way to release these things from their molds is to run the popsicle molds under a bit of warm water, then gently wiggle the fudge pops free. Trying to pull them out without first warming the molds will result in you most likely just yanking the handles free from the fudge pops themselves, which is just sad.

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