The Gourmet Cookbook's Ice Cream #4 {Italian Lemon Ice} So Cold and Refreshing!

Here at Stirring the Pot, we absolutely go crazy for lemon desserts! I wanted to take a break from the cream-based, egg custard ice creams and go with something lighter this week so I selected the Italian Lemon Ice!

I've made granitas and ices in the freezer before, by putting the mixture in a tray and scraping the ice every so often over the course of a few hours, but I wanted to try my hand at making an ice using my ice cream machine. Boy, am I glad I did!

This Italian Ice is so, so easy! You just make a simply syrup, boiling water and sugar and then add in lemon juice, zest, and salt. Let it cool in the fridge and then add to the ice cream machine.

There is no milk or cream in this recipe but the end result is somewhat creamy! The ice is supremely cold (colder than ice cream) and bursting with zingy zippy lemon flavor. So much so that it will make your mouth pucker. This is the perfect cool refreshing treat to give you a refresh on a hot summer day. It also makes for a really good palate cleanser! And, lastly, a little goes a long way. One scoop will have you nice and refresh in no time!

Italian Lemon Ice

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

by Ruth Reichl

Makes about 1 quart

1-1/2 cups water

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar 

1 tablespoon finely grated fresh lemon zest

1 cup fresh lemon juice

pinch of salt

Bring water and sugar to a boil in a 1quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in zest, juice, and salt. Transfer to a metal bowl and cool syrup to room temperature. Refrigerate syrup, covered, for at least 1 hour.

Freeze syrup in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm, about 2 hours.

Summer Fun @ I Heart Cooking Clubs!
 

American Cookie #7 {Ruth Wakefield's 1930's Era Chocolate Crunch Cookies and The Origin of The Chocolate Chip Cookie!}

 Each week, I'm going to be highlighting a new American Cookie and sharing its history, as well as my results. This is the seventh week of baking with American Cookie by Anne Byrn, and I'm sharing Ruth Wakefield's Chocolate Crunch Cookies, which is essentially a chocolate chip cookie!

The History of Chocolate Crunch (Chip) Cookies: The history of the chocolate crunch, or chocolate chip cookie, starts with a woman named Ruth Graves Wakefield. Ruth worked at the Toll House Inn located in Whitman, Massachusetts. One day, Ruth ran out of cocoa for her chocolate jumble cookies and needed to make a substitution. It was the late 1930's, which was still the Depression Era, and cooks were making do with what they had on hand and frequently making substitutions.

Ruth found two chocolate bars which she chopped up and folded into her cookie dough. She thought the chocolate would melt as the cookies baked, but it didn't! And just like that, the Toll House Cookies we all know and love were born! Ruth didn't know it at the time, but this new recipe would turn the cookie world upside down! Nestle made a deal with Ruth, giving her a lifetime supply of chocolate if Ruth would let them put the recipe on the back of the chocolate bar. Before long the chocolate bar turned into chocolate chips and the cookies were renamed.

Here is the original recipe for the cookies the changed the world! It comes from the 1938 Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes book. Something different about this original recipe is that you dissolve the baking soda in hot water, which was how it was done in the Toll House Inn back in the 1930's.

My Results: These cookies are total perfection! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but Anne Byrn's American Cookie cookbook produces cookies that are just complete perfection, time after time. This recipe has loads of chocolate, which we loved! I had never dissolved baking soda into hot water before when making cookies so I found it interesting. I'm not sure that it makes a difference, but it's an easy step which I was happy to try. These cookies are chewy and loaded with chocolate chips. I'm pretty sure this is my new favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe!

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars! Total perfection, tons of chocolate, and they really satisfy! I will definitely be making them again!

I'm going to be rating all the cookies with the five-star format, one-star being the lowest rating and five-star being the highest!

 Ruth Wakefield's Chocolate Crunch Cookies

Recipe adapted from American Cookie

by Anne Byrn

Makes 6 to 7 dozen 2" cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed*

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 to 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts*

1 pound semisweet chocolate, chopped (or chocolate chips)

Note: I only had light brown sugar so I used that. In the notes of the cookbook it said you could use either dark brown or light brown sugar. My son is allergic to nuts, and I can't eat them, so I left them out of the recipe. I also didn't have chocolate bars on hand, but I did have chocolate chips so I used those. Either would be fine! It calls for 2 to 2-1/4 cups flour. I wasn't sure what to here so I split the difference and used 2-1/8 cups. Go with your gut and make it your own! In addition, I chilled my cookie dough for about an hour. I've learned while cooking from this book that I always pays to chill your cookie dough, even if the recipe doesn't call for it!

Place a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 375F. Set aside 2 baking sheets, covered with parchment paper.

Place the soft butter and sugars in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium-high speed until creamy and light, 1 to 1-1/2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until just combined.

Place the baking soda in a small measuring cup and stir in the teaspoon of hot water to dissolve the soda. Spoon this into the butter and sugar mixture along with the vanilla. Beat on low speed until just combined, 15 seconds. Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium-size bowl, and add to the batter, beating on low speed until just combined. Turn off the mixer, and fold in the nuts (if using) and chocolate with the spatula until well distributed (I like to use a wooden spoon).

Drop the dough by teaspoons onto the baking sheets, (I like to use a small cookie scoop) spacing the dough about 2" apart (I baked about 6 cookies per sheet, but my cookies were a little bigger than the recipes calls for). Place 1 pan in the oven.

Bake the cookies until lightly golden brown, 7 to 9 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the cookies to wire racks. Repeat baking with the remaining dough, making sure you allow your sheet pans to cool down before adding the dough (a hot pan will melt the dough and make your cookies spread out and become too crisp). Store the cookies in an airtight container.

 

 

The Gourmet Cookbook's Ice Cream #3: {Cream Cheese Ice Cream with Blueberry Swirl}

 

This is a thick and dreamy ice cream that is perfect for first time ice cream makers, or beginners, as you can blend up all the ingredients in a blender, chill, and then freeze in your ice cream maker! There is no worry with making a custard. You can have this recipe ready in mere minutes!

Ruth Reichl says, "the perfect recipe for anyone who thinks that making ice cream is complicated, this delightful shortcut came to us from the French chef Michel Richard, of Citronelle, in Washington D.C., who was fascinated by American cream cheese. This ice cream is rich, creamy, and taqngy- absolutely unlike anything you can buy in the store."

I loved the tang of this ice cream and found that it is, in fact, very unlike anything any other ice cream I've ever had before. This ice cream would be great as is, but also as a topper for any homemade fruit pie and/or brownies! However, I wanted to experiment with adding fruit to the ice cream and I just happened to win a jar of homemade blueberry jam from my local farmer's market so I went with that! It was so, so delicious! I went ahead and froze the ice cream in the ice cream maker, then put it into an airtight container, then I took about 1 to 2 tablespoons of the blueberry jam and swirled it into the cream cheese ice cream. The results were so, so good! This might just be my favorite ice cream recipe so far and I will definitely be making it again!

Cream Cheese Ice Cream with Blueberry Swirl

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

by Ruth Reichl

Makes 1 quart

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional: items to stir into the ice cream, such as jams or fruit or anything you like!

Combine cream cheese, milk, lemon juice, sugar, and salt in a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in cream and vanilla. Chill completely.

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container (this was when I took about a tablespoon or so of my blueberry jam and swirled it into the ice cream, making a pattern), put in freezer to harden. Let ice cream soften for 5 minutes before serving.  

Gourmet Fun @ I Heart Cooking Clubs

The Gourmet Cookbook's Ice Cream #2 {Burnt Orange Ice Cream}

 This is THE ice cream recipe that started me on my ice cream path! Burnt Orange Ice Cream, meaning essentially caramelized orange ice cream. Hello? I mean if that doesn't sound supremely delicious then I don't know what does!

This Burnt Orange Ice Cream is infused with orange zest and orange caramel. Initially the cream and milk steam with bits or orange zest, which imparts a lovely aroma to the milk and cream mixture. Then you combine fresh orange juice and sugar and cook it down, without stirring, to create a deeply colored orange caramel. Now we've got two mixtures both infused with the heady aroma of orange!

We combine the milk, cream, and orange zest mixture with the orange caramel, then mix it slowly with the egg yolks and remaining sugar. This mixture cooks until it reaches 170F and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Then we finish the mixture with vanilla extract.

The result is an ice cream that is delicious and unique. It is pale orange ice cream with bits of orange zest and it is heady with orange flavor and aroma. The orange caramel, or burnt orange, gives the ice cream a depth that isn't there with other ice cream recipes. Just a hint of caramel, a hint of depth, something deep. The six egg yolks provide a thickness and density to the ice cream that sets it apart from other recipes. It is somewhat exotic and enticing. It feels luxurious and addictive and you keep going back for one more bite...

 Burnt Orange Ice Cream

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

by Ruth Reichl

Makes about 1-1/2 Quarts

1-1/2 cups heavy cream

1/12 cups whole milk

2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest (from 3 large navel oranges)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup strained fresh orange juice

6 large egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Equipment: instant-read thermometer and an ice cream maker

Combine cream, milk, and zest in a 2 to 3 quart heavy saucepan and bring just to a boil. Remove pan from heat, cover and let stand for 30 minutes.

Combine 1/2 cup sugar and orange juice in another 2 to 3 quart heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over moderately high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring, swirling pan occasionally, until syrup becomes a deep golden caramel. Remove pan from heat, carefully add 1/2 cup cream mixture (mixture will bubble and steam), and whisk until smooth. Add remaining cream mixture in a steady stream, whisking. Cook caramel mixture over very low heat, whisking, until caramel has dissolved and mixture is hot. Remove from heat.

Whisk together yolks, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and salt in a medium metal bowl. Add hot caramel mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Return mixture to a saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until custard is thick enough to coat back of spoon and registers 170F on thermometer; do not let boil.

Pour custard through a fine mesh sieve into cleaned metal bowl and stir in vanilla. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate, covered, until cold, at least 3 hours. 

Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden. 

 Fruity Fun @ I Heart Cooking Clubs!

American Cookie #6: {1917 WWI Era Banana Drop Cookies}

Each week, I'm going to be highlighting a new American Cookie and sharing its history, as well as my results. This is the sixth week of baking with American Cookie by Anne Byrn, and I'm sharing Banana Drop Cookies, dating back to 1917! 

The History of the Banana Drop Cookie, as well as other popular banana desserts: In 1917, America had just entered WWI and all the ships that transported things like bananas to America from Hawaii, were busy with the war effort! The problem was, the banana crop was BOOMING! The Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station had a director that pleaded with everyone in Hawaii (which was not a state but a U.S. Territory back then) eat one banana per day, hoping this would boost banana consumption. With the ripening, rotting surplus of Hawaiian bananas on hand, the wife of the director of Hawaiian Agriculture went into the kitchen and started cooking up ideas. She developed recipes for banana pudding, banana bread, banana custard, banana dumplings, banana fritters, and this banana drop cookie recipe, which she shared with the Honolulu newspaper.

My Results:  If you love banana bread, then you will love these cookies! They are pillowy and soft with a subtle banana and cinnamon flavor, and not too sweet. In the book, she says you can cook them for 8 minutes, or up to 10 minutes if you want them to be crisper. I don't usually love crisp cookies (I prefer them chewy) but these cookies have a little more flavor when they cook a little longer and I found that 10 minutes was perfect. They are addictive and irresistible and I had to slap my hand away from the cookie jar!

My Rating:  5 out of 5 stars! I really loved these and can see myself making them again. I think of them as more of a breakfast cookie as they are much less sweet than a traditional cookie. I will definitely make them again!

I'm going to be rating all the cookies with the five-star format, one-star being the lowest rating and five-star being the highest. 

 Banana Drop Cookies

Adapted from American Cookie

by Anne Byrn

Makes about 4 dozen

2 large ripe bananas

10 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375F. Set aside 2 ungreased baking sheets.

Peel and slice the bananas into a small bowl. Mash with a fork until smooth. Set aside .You should have a generous 1 cup.

Place the soft butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the vanilla and eggs, and beat until incorporated, 30 seconds. Fold in the mashed bananas.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl. Add the flour mixture into the butter and sugar mixture and beat on low until combined, 30 to 45 seconds. 

Spoon tablespoons of dough about 2" apart onto the prepared baking sheets.

Bake the cookies until golden brown around the edges but still a little soft in the center, about 8 minutes. Or bake them until crispy, a full 10 minutes. Let the cookies rest on the pans for 1 minute, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

 

The Gourmet Cookbook's Ice Cream #1 {The Most Amazing Vanilla Bean Ice Cream}

I am in my Ice Cream Era at the moment. It's summer y'all and I am going through some ice cream. I happened to be looking through my tome of a cookbook, The Gourmet Cookbook, and I found SOOOOOOO MANY ice cream recipes I wanted to try; namely, Burnt Orange Ice Cream (made with a caramelized orange sauce); Cream Cheese Ice Cream; Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream; Raspberry Ice Cream; Lemon Meringue Ice Cream; Maple Walnut Ice Cream; Prune Armagnac Ice Cream; and then even some delicious sounding sorbets like Green Apple Sorbet; Roasted Apricot Sorbet; Kir Royale Sorbet, and many more.

So, I'll see how far I get with all those delicious sounding recipes! But, in the meantime, it's been awhile since I've made ice cream and used my ice cream maker, so I'm starting basic with Gourmet's Vanilla Bean Ice Cream! 

Making custard can be tricky as we don't want to overcook or boil the cream and we definitely don't want to scramble the eggs, but I succeeded on the first try and the custard base was thick and tasty. If you're a first time ice cream maker, or even if it's been awhile since you've made ice cream, I suggest buying extra cream and milk, just in case things go astray and then you can just start over and try again!

This Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is total perfection! It is smooth and rich and thick and creamy and velvety with lots of vanilla bean flecks throughout and just the right amount of vanilla flavor. I think it may be the best ice cream I've ever made! We all loved it.

Things are off to a great start, can't wait to see how next week's ice cream turns out! 

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

by Ruth Reichl

Makes about 1 quart

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 vanilla beans, halved lengthwise*

2 large eggs

Equipment: an instant read thermometer and an ice cream maker

*Note: If you don't have vanilla beans, use 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.

Combine cream, milk, sugar, and salt in a 2- to 3 quart heavy saucepan. With tip of a knife, scrape seeds from vanilla beans into cream mixture, then drop in pods. Bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, whisk eggs in a large metal bowl. Add hot cream mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then pour mixture into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until custard is thick enough to coat back of spoon and registers 170-175F on thermometer (Note: my ice cream mixture was already at 160F when I added the egg and hot cream mixture back into the pan - it did not take very long at all for the mixture to come to 170-175F - just a minute or two); do not let boil.

Pour custard through a fine mesh sieve into cleaned metal bowl; discard pods. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, then refrigerate, covered, until cold, at least 3 hours.

Freeze custard in ice cream maker. Note: I have a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker and it took 20 minutes to freeze up and harden. With my Cuisinart machine the ice cream usually has to finish sitting up overnight to harden completely. Transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

Barbecue Fun @ I Heart Cooking Clubs
 

American Cookie #5 {1891 Snickerdoodles}

Each week, I'm going to be highlighting a new American Cookie and sharing its history, as well as my results. This is the fifth week of baking with American Cookie by Anne Byrn, and I'm sharing one of America's most cherised cookies, the Snickerdoodle.

 

The History of Snickerdoodles: Cornelia Campbell Bedford was a New York City cooking teacher and newspaper columnist, better known as "Nellie." Nellie was developing recipes for the Cleveland Baking Powder company when her recipe for snickerdoodles, which was essentially sugar cookie dough spread into a pan and sprinkled liberally with cinnamon and sugar, went viral. At the end of the 19th century, going viral meant that Nellie's bar cookie was discussed in newspaper columns daily for the next year! Good job, Nellie! 

Earlier Snickerdoodle recipes called for butter, but in 1923 Crisco marketed Mrs. T's Snicker Doodles: the favorite recipes of an English-woman in their advertising and sometime after that there was a shift from using butter in the recipe to using vegetable shortening. Somewhere around the 1930s, the Snicker Doodle was changed from a bar cookie to a cookie. 

The quirky name, "Snickerdoodle," has always been part of the appeal. John Mariana says in The Dictionary of American Food and Drink, that this nonsense word "Snickerdoodle" implied the cookie was quick to make. Others think Snickerdoodle sounds like Yankee Doodle and also characters out of Raggedy Ann, like Snickersnapper, Snitznoodle, and Snarlydoodle. It just makes us smile!

My Results: I don't think I've made a Snickerdoodle before, but I was excited to give it a try! The cookie dough was in fact easy to come together and didn't require any chilling prior to baking. The dough calls for both butter and vegetable shortening and the baking notes in the book said that baking with butter and vegetable shortening is the best of both worlds because butter adds flavor and shortening helps the cookies keep a rounded shape while baking. The cookie dough has to be spread about 2" apart on the cookie sheet because they do tend to spread out quite a bit, but they did bake up flavorful and round with just the perfect hint of cinnamon and sugar. Everything about the recipe was perfect and we really loved them!

My Rating: I would give this recipe a 4 out of 5! The recipe itself is a perfect recipe and turns out perfectly (deserving a 5 star rating), but I am rating them based on my taste preferences and while I loved these, I do tend to prefer a thicker, chewier cookie. 

I'm going to be rating all the cookies with the five-star format, one star being the lowest rating and five-star being the highest.

Notes on the recipes in American Cookie: After making my fifth cookie recipe from American Cookie, one thing I can say is that this cookbook produces some of the most perfect cookies I've ever made (and I've made a lot of cookies)! I highly recommend this cookbook!

 

Snickerdoodles

Adapted from American Cookie

by Anne Bryn

Makes about 4 dozen

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

topping: 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 375F.

For dough, place the sugar, soft butter, and shortening in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the side of the bowl once with a rubber spatula. Add vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, continuing to beat on medium speed for about 30 seconds.

Place the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda in a medium size bowl and stir with a fork to combine. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mixture, and beat on low speed until incorporated, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed.

For the topping, stir together the sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl.

Using a teaspoon, of cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough into balls about 1-1/4" in diameter. The dough will be soft but manageable. Sprinkle the balls with the cinnamon sugar mixture until evenly coated (or roll the balls in the mixture). Drop them about 2" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake the cookies until the edges are lightly golden but the centers are still a little soft to the touch, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies rest on the pan 1 minute. Using a metal spatula, transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Scrape the baking sheet, then repeat the process with the remaining cookie dough, letting the baking sheet cool first so the dough does not spread too much. Store the cookies in an airtight container.