There’s just something about ice cream. I’ve been reminiscing about all kinds of events in my past, from my childhood, my teenage years, great summers and all sorts of celebrations and many of the happy memories involve my favourite treat of all: ice cream!

For instance, when I think back to past family holidays, whether they be day trips to the beach in Torquay or holidays driving along the coast all the way to Brisbane or even the trip I took to the States when I was 10, I remember eating LOTS of ice cream. I remember our trip to sunny Queensland when I was 8, driving for what seemed like eternity along the eastern coast, right in the heart of summer and was just so damn hot, with the temperature in the mid 40s everyday.  There is nothing worse for a kid (or a anyone for that matter) than to be stuck inside a hot car for hours on end and with nothing but a Gameboy and Tetris to keep me occupied (fun things like iPods and the Nintendo DSi weren’t invented yet) and on that trip, nothing made me happier than to stop at a service station, to get out of the sticky car, stretch my legs and cooling down with an icypole (aka popscicle) or a Paddle Pop ice cream. Bliss!!

I remember when I was 17 and thinking about my first few months dating Z. We would be the uber cool kids, taking the train into the city and just hanging out. We didn’t really do anything special on our city dates, being students with student budgets and all, but I recall roaming the streets, holding hands, watching yet another movie or playing endless arcade games until we ran out of change and winning absolutely nothing. We would always visit the Crown complex and get huge ice creams and then just sit and talk. We’d share flavours (“here, have a lick”) and Z would always tease me and more often than not he would try to squash his ice cream in my face, just for a laugh. To this day, when we visit an ice cream shop, we still get huge ice creams, always getting different flavours so we can share and he still thinks his ice-cream-smooshed-in-my-face routine is funny!

I know that as life goes on, more and more ice cream memories will be made and my stomach and I are very much looking forward to them!

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Drooooooooooooool. That’s all I can say about this ice cream. The flavours in this ice cream are AMAZING!! It’s sweet, little salty, crunchy and smooth all at once. An ice cream party in your mouth!

To make it, visit David Lebovitz’s website and find the ingredients and instructions here.

Enjoy!

Dear Summer,

I really, really miss you. Melbourne is now well and truly into it’s winter season and boy, am I already over it. I know I shouldn’t complain since Winter is pretty bearable, but I want you here NOW! You’re only five months away, but it seems like way too long to wait for some warmth and energy. I am eagerly anticipating your arrival like a little kid awaits Santa come December.

I am not as content as I can be in this current season, with the short days and chilly winds of July kind of  getting me down. I hate waking up with no sunlight streaming through my window, I hate leaving work at 5.30pm to drive home in complete darkness and although I do love my winter scarf collection very much, I really just want to throw on a pair of shorts and have my flip-flops permanently stuck to my feet. I want to be at the park at yet another BBQ, eating yet another burnt sausage in plasticky white bread and downing a beer or two. I want to go indulge myself in the gorgeous fruits of the season: peaches, apricots, nectarines, mangoes, cherries, strawberries, melons, plums… oh I could go on and on.

I do admit, sometimes you can get on my nerves. It sometimes gets so hot, it gets so sticky, so exasperatingly unbearable with the sun burning down so fiercely that I then wish for you to go away, but I do want you here.  I love the sunshine. I love the longer, leisurely days. I love the happiness you bring.

I made this batch of raspberry ice-cream to remind me of what you’re all about. Endless days, warm nights and good times with great friends. I miss that.

Come back soon.

With love,

Linda xox

Raspberry Ice-Cream

Recipe from David Lebovitz’s ‘The Perfect Scoop’, probably one of the best ever ice-cream books I have ever read/used.

1½ cups (375ml) of half-and-half (this isn’t available in Australia, so I substituted 1 cup for milk and ½ cup cream)

1 cup (200g) caster sugar

1½ cups (375ml) heavy cream

4 large egg yolks

1½ cups (375ml) strained raspberry puree (I used frozen ones)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Warm the half-and-half (or alternative) and sugar in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.
2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
3. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Mix in the raspberry puree and lemon juice, then stir until cool over an ice bath.
4. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, but to preserve the fresh raspberry taste, churn the ice cream within 4 hours after making the mixture.

Why is it that whenever I visit the local grocer, I always seem to bring home more than expected? Am I just a sucker for fresh produce? Does the big green enviro bag I carry need to be brought back filled to the brim? Can I not resist the colourful rows of fruit and vegetables just begging to be brought home? Does the big fat Italian man at the front of the store yelling at me, “ah, molto bella! Fresh-a peach-a for you-a dahling! Cheapa, cheapa! For you bella, only dollar fifty a kilo! Just for you, buy please!” tempt me into parting with more money? I have no idea!

I had the intention of only buying a few potatoes and carrots for my mum to make soup today, but instead, I came home with a kilo each of plums, bananas, peaches, nectarines and two punnets of strawberries and four pineapples (they were 50c each and no, that’s not a typo). With so much beautiful fruit and summer nearing its end in a few weeks, I thought a few batches of fruity ice-cream would be one of my last hurrahs to seasonal fruit. Enjoy! :)

Ice-cream

Both recipes follow the exact same steps and the ingredients are pretty much the same, with a hint more sugar for the plum version and a bit of water to help cook the peaches.

Plum

800g ripe plums, halved and stoned

200g sugar

500ml cream

200ml full-cream milk

2.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 egg yolks

Peach

800g ripe peaches, halved and stoned

180g sugar

¼ cup (60ml) water

500ml cream

200ml full-cream milk

2.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 egg yolks

1. Place the fruit and 50g sugar in a medium saucepan, cover with a lid and cook over medium heat for around 10-15 minutes or until the fruit is just cooked and soft (for the peach version, add the 60ml of water). Allow to cool. Blend the cooked fruit until smooth. Strain the puree and discard the skins and other bits and pieces. Set aside in the fridge.
2. In a bowl, whisk the remaining sugar and egg yolks. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and milk and bring it to the boil. Remove from heat, add the vanilla extract. Add this hot liquid to the egg/sugar mix and whisk until combined. Pour this mixture into a clean saucepan and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly until it is thick enough to coat a wooden spoon. If you find that there are little eggy bits floating in your custard, grab a balloon whisk and whisk like mad.
3. Once the custard is ready, transfer to a clean bowl and place in the fridge until thoroughly chilled.
4. Combine the chilled custard and fruit puree and churn in an ice-cream maker for 30 minutes or until thick.

Each recipe yields around 1.5L.

I have also made a strawberry version on this blog. See here.

I’ve already discussed my cookbook addiction before, but I’ll tell you how it all started and why I am a cookbook fiend. I’ve always had an obsession with food as a kid, always wanting to learn about different cuisines and foods from around the world. I was an only child for 11 years and was often alone with no-one to play with, so I turned to books for company and became an extremely avid reader. Coupled with my interest in food, I would borrow massive piles of cookbooks from my local library each week and pore over them as soon as I brought them home. My parents thought I was a strange kid, but relieved I wasn’t outside eating bugs or something…

At last count, I currently have 75 foodie books on my shelf! I know 75 doesn’t sound like many, but for the average 21-year old, that is just a tad more than a few. I also have a huge collection of Donna Hay, delicious and Gourmet Traveller magazines. I love perusing them, trying recipes, admiring the photography and simply reading and learning about food (I sound like such a geek) :)

My most recent purchase has been David Lebovitz’s ‘The Perfect Scoop’. This book is chock-a-block with recipes and tips for making all sorts of ice-creams, gelati and sorbets. I attempted my first recipe today using a recent Christmas gift from Z: an ice-cream maker attachment for my Kenwood mixer! I made Lebovitz’s recipe for gianduja gelato and decided to ripple a simple chocolate sauce throughout. Keiko from one of my favourite blogs, Nordljus, also made this gelato a few months ago and it turned out great!

Gianduja is a blend of chocolate and hazelnuts formed into a paste and the combination of the two in this gelato is perfect. I didn’t think I would obtain such a pronounced hazelnut flavour, but I did and am very pleased indeed! I’ve made quite a few ice-cream recipes and this gelato is one of the best. It is hazelnutty, sweet and and has just the right amount of chocolate. Try it for yourself and you’ll see why I ate half a litre on my own! :)

Gianduja Gelato

(recipe by David Lebovitz in ‘The Perfect Scoop’)

1.5 cups (185g) hazelnuts

1 cup (250ml) milk

2 cups (500ml) cream

¾ cup (150g) caster sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

5 egg yolks

115g milk chocolate, chopped

splash of vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. On a baking tray, spread the hazelnuts in one layer and bake the nuts for around 10 minutes. The nuts are ready when they are light golden brown throughout.
   
2. Finely chop the nuts in a processor or blender and set aside.
   
3. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, one cup (250ml) of the cream, sugar and salt until warm. Add the hazelnuts, cover and allow to steep for at least one hour (at this point, it’s best to prepare the chocolate ripple sauce below).
4. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium saucepan. Heat the remaining cream in another small saucepan until it just comes to the boil. Pour the heated cream over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate has melted and the mixture and shiny and smooth.
5. Strain the hazelnut infused milk mixture into another medium saucepan (I used a sieve and muslin and re-used the saucepan used to heat the cream, saves washing!). Be sure to squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Discard the nuts.
6. In yet another freaking medium saucepan, whisk the egg yolks. Heat the hazelnut infused milk until warm and add to the egg yolks. Place this mixture over medium heat and constantly stir until the mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon (this should take no longer than 5 minutes).
7. Once thickened, add this custard and vanilla to the chocolate mixture and allow to cool in an ice bath (I fill my sink up with cold water and add ice).
8. Chill the mixture in the fridge, then churn in your ice-cream maker for 20 minutes or until thick. Makes approximately one litre.
   

Chocolate Ripple Sauce

75g dark chocolate

1 tablespoon golden syrup

15g unsalted butter

60ml (¼ cup) cream

1. In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate, golden syrup and butter. Add the cream and whisk until smooth. Set aside and allow to cool.

Rippling

When the ice-cream has finished churning and is lovely and thick, transfer it into a shallow plastic container. Drop big spoonfuls of the chocolate sauce onto the gelato and use a blunt knife to ripple throughout. Cover and place in the freezer until firm.

Answer: nothing!

After 18 looooong years, my parents have finally decided to update our kitchen. Currently it is an empty shell, with bits of plaster and tiling just lying about… Gone are the cupboards, the sink, the oven, the tiles, the benchtops, the fridge, the rangehood, the shelves, everything! I have no idea why it’s taken them this long to renovate, because seriously, who wouldn’t want to keep the poo brown laminex benchtops, a broken Mistral rangehood and 80s beige cupboards? (that’s a rhetorical question, people!)

So, no kitchen = no oven = no baking = something non-baked for the blog. We have an additional kitchen outside in our carport/garage (all of you who have Asian or European parents will understand) but the oven isn’t all too flash, so I can’t use it.

In anticipation of summer, I decided to make ice-cream this week. Many people scoff at the idea of going to all the trouble of making your own ice-cream, especially with so many good-quality ice-creams on the market. But real ice-cream, made from scratch, lovingly stirred and whipped, is quite simply, one of the greatest pleasures in life (oh, I’m in love!).

Homemade ice-cream is easier than it sounds. It is easy as making a custard base, adding a few flavours, popping it into the freezer and taking it out every few hours and beating it up. The constant beating breaks up any ice crystals that form and incorporates air, giving it that dreamy and light mouthfeel. If you own an ice-cream machine, it’s even easier, less labour intensive and much quicker (I’ve had my eye on a few on eBay, so fingers crossed I can get one soon!).

I decided to make strawberry ice-cream because after visiting the Queen Victoria Market today, strawberries seemed to be everywhere, and luckily, they were rather cheap. To be honest, I used to hate strawberries. I was even given a strawberry adorned cake for my 17th birthday (or was it my 16th?) by Z (bought, not made) and I turned my nose up at it. Of course I ate it with a smile on my face, but I didn’t enjoy it (we’ll see if he mentions anything – I don’t believe him when he says he reads this blog).

So as I wait for summer to approach me with the sunshine and heat, I’ll just continue to make batches of ice-cream, sit outside and eat it all.

I made Vanilla Bean Ice-cream and a variation: Strawberry Ice-cream. The vanilla flavoured ice-cream is fantastic on its own, but I use it as an ice-cream base for different flavours.

Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream (makes 1 litre)

(adapted from a recipe in Delicious magazine)

5 egg yolks

125g caster sugar

400ml milk

half a vanilla bean

300ml cream

1. Place egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl and using an hand-held mixer, beat until it is thick and pale yellow. Pour the milk into a small saucepan, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and put the whole bean into the milk. Cook over medium heat until the milk comes to the boil. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the pod to infuse its wonderful flavour into the milk for 15 minutes.
2. Add the milk to the egg/sugar mix and whisk well. Strain this custard base into a new saucepan. Place the saucepan over low heat and stir continuously until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon – unfortunately this can take up to 15 minutes, but be patient! Don’t let the custard come to the boil and if it splits, plunge the pan straight into a sink full of cold water and whisk madly.
3. Once the custard is thick, place a large metal bowl in the kitchen sink, half full with water. Let the custard sit in its bath to cool down. Add the cream and mix until well combined.
4. Pour the custard into a shallow plastic container, cover and freeze until it is frozen at the edges (approximately 3 hours).*
5. Beat the ice-cream with a hand-held mixer until smooth and repeat this process four more times after every few hours.

* If you have an ice-cream machine, churn the custard at step 4 for approximately twenty minutes or according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Strawberry Ice-Cream

1 quantity of Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream custard mix

500g strawberries

1. Process the strawberries in a food processor or blender – I like to leave it a bit chunky as it adds a bit of interest to the ice cream. Add this fruit puree to the custard at Step 4 and continue on from Step 5.

I originally intended to make Strawberry Ripple Ice-cream and I even prepared the syrup to mix into the vanilla ice-cream base, but I fell asleep and it was too late to marble it through. Oops! I’ve still included the recipe though:

1 quantity of Vanilla Bean Ice-Cream (partially frozen)

250g strawberries

75g sugar

1. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and 60ml of water and heat until dissolved. Set aside.
2. Process the strawberries in a food processor or blender and strain the puree, removing all the seeds and lumpy bits.
3. Add the strawberry juice to the sugar syrup in the saucepan and return to the heat. Boil the syrup for around 2 minutes. Allow to cool and place in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
4. Once the ice-cream has been placed in the freezer and beaten a few times, it should be partially frozen and quite thick. Remove from the freezer and alternate spoonfuls of the ice cream and syrup to another plastic container. Using a spatula, stir through the syrup and ice cream to create a marbled effect. Freeze and beat the ice-cream with a hand-held mixer until smooth and repeat twice more every few hours.