Cinnamon Ice Cream – Sweet Pea’s Kitchen

It’s supposed to be 80 degrees today, so it seems like a good time for the first ice cream post of the season!  I discovered home-made ice cream when I first got my KitchenAid mixer, and every time I make it I struggle to remember why I don’t do it more often (other than the fact that it’s a 24-hour gratification process, which might really be enough of a reason).

 

I actually  made this cinnamon ice cream for Thanksgiving last fall, to go with mom’s apple pie, and it was amazing.  My favorite part of making my own ice cream is that the flavor is entirely up to me – if I want more or less of something, I don’t have to whine about Breyer’s choices – I just have to change the recipe!  I have big plans for the ice cream season this year – chocolate, black raspberry, ginger…   I also want to experiment with some sorbets and frozen yogert. We’ll see what I actually get around to.

Like the cardamom rose ice cream, this was a custard base, which I’m pretty sure just means you cook it.  It’s a little time consuming because you have to watch and stir it constantly, but not terribly so, and the results are much creamier than an uncooked base.

Once the custard base is cooked, it has to be strained to make sure you didn’t get any clotted milk clumps (because that’s what milk and cream do when you cook them).  This part involves too many hands, but it’s actually sort of fun.  And ice baths look neat.

Once it’s strained and cooled a little, it has to be refrigerated overnight to completely chill it.  Before you do that, you usually add most of the spices and flavorings (if they weren’t already in the custard).  I use the same air-tight plastic containers for chilling that I do for freezing the completed ice cream, because I have tons of them.

I didn’t end up taking any pictures of the churning this time, for some reason, but it worked a lot like the cardamom rose or the peach ice cream I made ages ago – pour the chilled custard in the frozen mixer bowl (They have a separate bowl for this that also has to be frozen, so don’t let that throw you off if you’re making ice cream yourself.  It needs at least 18 hours frozen, so I just keep mine in our chest freezer at the ready for “spontaneous” ice cream making.) and churn until it’s done, following the instructions in the ice cream maker manual.  And every now and then sneak a taste of what’s splashed up the sides. (They always leave that part out of the directions, for some reason…)

Cinnamon ice cream was perfect with apple pie.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of this years ago – I’m pretty sure it’s going to become an annual occurrence. (Ha. I like to predict things, but I’m not so big on going back to see if I ever follow through.  Don’t hold me to that.) But it’s also a really easy mix, since it’s just flavorings and no extra ingredients.  Highly recommended!

Mmm, now I may need to sneak out for ice cream after my lunch.

~*~

Cinnamon Ice Cream
Sweat Pea’s Kitchen

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 4 inch piece vanilla bean, slit lengthwise and seeds removed, pod reserved OR 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Set a fine mesh strainer over a medium sized bowl and set the bowl over a large container of ice water.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the milk, cream, 1/2 cup sugar and the vanilla seeds and pod, stirring occasionally to break up the vanilla seeds, until steam appears and the liquid is hot (175 degrees) about 5 minutes.
3. When the milk mixture is cooking, in a separate bowl, whisk the yolks and 1/4 cup of sugar together until smooth.
4. Slowly whisk about 1 cup of the hot milk mixture into the yolks to temper them.
5. Then slowly whisk the tempered yolk mixture back into the remaining hot milk mixture.
6. Continue to cook the custard mixture over medium heat until it is very hot but not simmering (180-185 degrees).
7. Pour the custard mixture into the strainer bowl set in the ice bath and let cool, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
8. Remove the custard mixture from the ice bath and add cinnamon.
9. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold (40 degrees), about 3 hours.
10. Remove and discard the vanilla pod from the custard (or add the vanilla extract, if using) and stir well.
11. Pour the custard into the ice cream machine canister and churn, following the manufacturer’s instructions, until the mixture resembles soft-serve ice cream, about 20 minutes.
12. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container, press plastic wrap flush against the surface, cover the container, and freeze the ice cream until firm, at least 2 hours.

Recipe Note: Two teaspoons of vanilla extract may be substituted for the vanilla bean. Stir it into the chilled custard just before churning. (I don’t like vanilla specks in my vanilla, so I went with extract.  Also, beans are much more difficult than just pouring things out of a bottle.)

Gooey Cinnamon Squares – Smitten Kitchen

It’s another Smitten Kitchen post!  Huzzah! It’s been a weird year, so I haven’t gotten to nearly as many of my planned recipes as I had intended, but I think I’m headed back into it.  Honestly, though, I made these months ago and just never got around to sharing them with you.

The name is really fitting on these – they are the gooeyest things I think I’ve ever baked.  And since I spent several years inventing my own recipe-less cooking projects, that’s saying something.  They don’t look that gooey in the pictures, but trust me – it’s alllll goo.

Cupcake Friday: Pumpkin Mocha Cupcakes – LivingWithPurple Edition

This is a red letter blog post. It’s the first time I’ve turned a Cupcake Friday cupcake into a LivingWithPurple Edition! Huzzah! I’ll confess that the photos on Jamie’s blog are prettier, but I’d challenge her to prove that her cupcakes were tastier! These turned out amazingly well – we ate most of them at the Super Bowl party, and the rest were demolished the next day at work.

[Note: I did discover that while pumpkin coffee makes these amazing cupcakes, it does not make amazing coffee. So I'm hoarding the rest of the beans for when I have another pumpkin coffee recipe I'm enthralled with.]

Caramelized Brussels Sprouts – Joy of Cooking

My relationship with Joy of Cooking got off to a rocky start, but things are definitely looking up.  I don’t think I ever got around to telling my Joy of Cooking story, so now’s as good a time as any.  And then I’ll get around to the Brussels Sprouts.

Super Bowl Cooking Extravaganza

I’m slowly easing my way back into this here blogging thing…  And by “slowly” I mean “sometimes I get around to it”.  Anyway, back in February there was this thing called the Super Bowl, or at least that’s what they told me.  I have no interest in football at any point, and not a whole lot more when there’s a trophy at stake (although the Idaho Potato Bowl, which has a bowl of potatoes as a trophy, is pretty awesome), but I do like excuses to make tasty food.  And what better excuse to invite people over to eat said tasty food than this once-a-year commercial party that apparently people like to watch?

This year we ended up with more people than usual, because that’s the way these things seem to be going in my life (check back for the Easter post in about two months, there’ll be more of that).  I’m going to assume that’s because people like it when I cook things for them, and that it makes me a good party host, because that’s nicer than assuming that people just don’t say no.  But regardless, we had lots of mouths to feed this time around, and we decided to go a bit overboard.  The menu included Stuffed Baby Potatoes, Slow Cooker BBQ Cranberry Meatballs, Artichoke Spinach Dip, and Pumpkin Mocha Cupcakes (which I’ve been promising for a while). I’m actually going to give the cupcakes their own post, since they were featured on Cupcake Friday with the original recipe, and they deserve the honors of their own Cupcake Friday now that I actually made them. But the others I’ll write about here.

Most Excellent Pot Pies

In honor of the first day of Spring, I’m posting a recipe for a classic fall dish. Figures…

This was meant to be a collaborative post with Alimonkee, but sadly I wasn’t able to get the pictures put together in time. So I think we’re both going to be posting our own versions of the same cooking event. (And by “going to” I mean that Alice posted hers *months* ago, and I never finished my draft until now.) Also, due to some mishaps with lighting and trying to use a camera-phone, less of the documentation turned out well than I’d hoped, so the pictures are a little different.

Cupcake Friday: Gingerbread Cupcakes from Framed Cooks

Dear loyal LivingWithPurple followers,

First off, let me apologize for the past two and a half weeks of absenteeism. I started off the new year with a 1-post bang, and promptly got totally distracted and left you all to your own devices for almost three whole weeks. I’ve missed TWO Cupcake Fridays! I’ve failed you. But don’t give up on me yet. Let me make it up to you!

Today’s long-awaited cupcake is brought to you from Framed Cooks, a blog I’ve been following for quite a while because of the incredible recipes and amazing leaping girl in the header image.

Gingerbread is one of my favorite things, but gingerbread cookies are typically harder than I want them to be – I’m a big fan of the soft and chewy cookie, not as much the snap (although don’t get me started on Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger Snaps” – best snack ever). So gingerbread cupcakes seem like the perfect solution – guaranteed to be soft and fluffy, and conveniently served with frosting!

I’m half-consciously starting to plan our Super Bowl party, and I think these would be perfect. (But then again, so would the Pumpkin Mocha cupcakes, which I still haven’t made even though now I have the pumpkin coffee.) (Maybe we’ll just have lots of cupcakes.)

What are your favorite gingerbread things?

Happy New Year! Won’t 2013 be grand?

One of my (many) New Year’s Resolutions (they’re more like… guidelines, really) is to get this blog off the ground and running strong, which of course primarily means that I have to keep posting.   So what better way to start off the new year and the new pace than with a New Year’s Post?

2012 was a pretty great year.  I won’t go into the details – you’ve seen most of the exciting bits here – but it surpassed my expectations.  I have big plans for 2013, most of which involve reading, cooking, or gardening, but I’m not going to go into details there either because I don’t want you to hold me to anything. :)  But the past week has held promise, and I’m looking forward to infinite projects, goals, book lists, recipes, friends, family, trips, stay-at-homes, food, kitties, and much, much more for 2013.

Here are a few snippets of my holiday season for you, since I’ve been a bit off the ball. A look back at year’s end, if you will:

First, Reenie enjoying the Christmas tree.  Can you find him?

Then, a light and brief snow flurry, with some of the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen. (We didn’t have a white Christmas, but we did have snow the day before, snow and ice the day after, and more snow two days later. All of which disappeared from the ground within an hour after the actual precipitation stopped.)

And finally, a home-made peppermint “mocha” in Hubby’s new, incredibly beautiful pottery coffee mug made by Cousin Bootsy.

Plus, I hinted at this earlier, but I was given a pasta maker attachment for my KitchenAid for Christmas, which I tried out in an undocumented lasagna attempt (mostly successful) this weekend, and which I promise I will be trying again in an actual, documented adventure that I’ll share with you. (I’m planning to make spinach linguine and butternut squash ravioli! But not at the same time.)

A very smart person once told me that the best way to stick to your resolutions was to tell everyone, so you’re held accountable.  (Clearly I’m not following through on this, but it was very good advice.)  What fun-filled or thrill-seeking plans have you made for your new year?  Any exciting (or necessary) resolutions?

Happy New Year, everyone.

 

Cupcake Friday: New Year’s Edition – Eggnog Cupcakes from Bird on a Cake

This is a bit of a last minute post – I’ve been off work since the Friday before Christmas, and the 11 day vacation is starting to go to my head.  Or maybe it’s just the amount of “family time” involved in the first half of that vacation.  Don’t get me wrong – I love my family, but my sense of timing and days of the week is a bit off right now…  Sleeping until 8:30 and making coffee for sisters and husbands at 10:00 really throws me off. (Okay, really only one sister and one husband.)

Anyway, it’s apparently Friday, and I nearly missed it.  Just like I missed wishing everyone a merry Christmas and happy Solstice and all the other holidays we cram into this time of the year.  (Here, I’ll make it up to you via a quote from some of my favorite holiday cards this year: Merry Everything, Happy Always!)  But no, I can’t miss Cupcake Friday!  So here I am, in my pjs, getting ready to settle down in my scrumptious, pre-warmed bed with The Hobbit and my Elinor Sheep, and instead I’m writing you your Cupcake Friday post.  Don’t you feel loved?

I’ve been saving this one for you.  Some people think that Eggnog is a Christmas treat, but for me it’s honestly more associated with New Years.  I’m actually not sure why – maybe because until recently I didn’t drink eggnog at all, so my Christmas doesn’t have that affiliation?  But recently I’ve been introduced to some phenomenal eggnogs, homemade by clever, delicious-drink-concocting individuals, that makes me wonder why I avoided eggnog for all those years.  (Could it have had anything to do with all of those five-syllable words on the carton ingredients list?)

So for today’s Cupcake Friday, half way between Christmas and New Year’s, I bring you Eggnog Cupcakes with Nutmeg Frosting, from Bird On A Cake.

This lovely cupcake post talks about people who love eggnog and people who don’t, and how these cupcakes just might change your mind. As a recent eggnog convert, I would guess that I’d have made my conversion earlier if these had showed up along the way. And I’m 100% certain that if you used a homemade eggnog instead of store-bought (the recipe doesn’t specify), you’d be hooked on these as a holiday treat for life.  (Unless you’re just one of those people who don’t like eggnog, I guess…)

Happy Weekend, everybody.  And in case I miss it, Happy New Year!  I’ll be back sometime next week to tell you about my favorite kitchen-related presents and my personal New Year’s goals.

Cupcake Friday: Christmas Edition

Rather than limit myself to one cupcake today, I’m going to treat you all to a smorgasbord of adorable cupcake decoration ideas from blogs I’ve never heard of before!  I just can’t get over how cute these are.

Do, absolutely, try these at home.  I have no idea how, but apparently this lady teaches classes, so if you’re in Singapore stop in!

Here are my favorite cupcake ideas from Kuidore, which I discovered by Google-searching “Christmas cupcakes” (what a find!):

For another collection of incredibly cute Christmas cupcakes from various sources, also check out this compilation from Cute Food For Kids.  Here’s a snapshot: