Peppermint

Growing up, the holiday season did not begin until a healthy supply of Bobs' candy canes were acquired and the Christmas tree could be smelled throughout the house. But, now that I am living in an apartment, I do not have the conveniences of a mother to furnish the house with Christmas decorations and treats. This leaves me baking my own cookies, drinking bourbon/ eggnog (not a childhood tradition), checking out Creepy Santa Photos for the latest updates, watching Christmas Vacation, and making ice cream!

Thinking back to peppermint ice creams I ate growing up, there were always morsels of 'melted' peppermint candies in the ice cream. You know, the spoonful that you would get and find gooey pepperminty red streaks throughout? One of my goals when making the ice cream was to have these nuggets of flavor in every spoonful and that they would provide a little bit of crunch when you bit into it. Unlike the mint chocolate chip ice cream that you will find in the store, I did not want mine to have too much mint in the ice cream itself. Rather, I wanted the ground up mints to be the primary source of minty-ness.

The resulting ice cream came fairly close to my expectations of having the right amount of minty flavor contrasting with the vanilla cream base. However, and perhaps this was due to me wanting to use my food processor more often, the chunks of peppermint were either very very small or the size of half a mint. Looking back, I probably should have used either a rolling pin or a meat tenderizer to keep the mints from becoming dust.  In the end, I garnished the ice cream with some crushed mint and a large mint Christmas tree (instructions for this below).


Ingredients

Nutritional Info
Serving Size 1/2 cup Servings 8
Calories 420
Fat 26g
Sat Fat 17g
Carbs 19g
Sugar 29g
Protien 3g

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup half n' half
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp peppermint extract
• 1/2 - 2/3 cup ground peppermint candies 

Equipment

• Double boiler (1 inch of water in the bottom)
• Mixing bowl*Nutritional Info from:
  Livestrong.com/myplate
• Food Processor or Rolling Pin
• Sieve/ mesh strainer 
• Measuring Cups 
• Measuring Spoons 
• Whisk

Crack 5 eggs, separating the yolks from the whites and place the yolks into a medium sized bowl.  You can save the egg whites to use later in other recipes. For some ideas on what to do with them, check out David Lebovitz's blog here. Whisk the yolks so that they are well blended.

Heat 2 cups of cream and 3/4 cups of sugar over a double boiler. Once the milk and sugar mixture begins to steam slowly pour a third to a half of it into the egg yolks, whisking as you pour.

Once thoroughly blended, pour the egg yolk/ cream back into the double boiler and whisk. Pour in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract and whisk.

Before pulverization

Let the mixture chill thoroughly before pouring it into your ice cream machine, I covered mine and put it on my balcony. While waiting for the mixture to chill, unwrap 1/2 to 2/3 cup of peppermints (I counted around 25ish). At this point you can either put them in a food processor or, place them in a plastic bag to break with a rolling pin. If you are using the food processor, do not remove the lid immediately as the 'dust' needs to settle. Alternatively, you can open the lid right afterwards and accidentally inhale a huge cloud of peppermint and cough up a lung- your choice (written based on experience)!

Freeze according to manufacturer instructions. As the ice cream firms up in the machine, pour the crushed peppermints into the bowl.

Garnish with melted peppermint Christmas trees, candy canes, gingerbread men, etc.

Preheat the oven to to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a Silpat on a cookie sheet along with a variety of metal cookie cutters. Place unwrapped peppermint candies into the cookie cutters, filling extra space with broken mints. Bake for 3-5 minutes until the peppermints have melted together. Remove from oven and let cool until firm. Once cooled, the candies should easily pop out of the cookie cutters.

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Pumpkin Beer Floats (aka Hup Floats)

A few weeks ago, in what has turned into my non-existent cyclocross season, a friend had an idea to make beer floats to hand out at cyclocross races (hat-tip Chris!). For those of you that are saying 'what the hell is cyclocross?!', watch the video below and become enlightened. To paraphrase Rapha (yes, I am using a clothing/ lifestyle company to quote history), cyclocross was created in the greater Benelux region as a way for cyclists to stay in shape over the winter months and enhance their bike handling skills. Cross racing can be summarized in a couple of words, mud, cold weather, and beer.

So, in the spirit of 'cross season, going with a seasonal beer was a must. Tons of companies put out fall beers but I needed one that could blend well with sweet ingredients. Thinking of various fall beers Sam Adams Octoberfest, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, and Saranac Pumpkin Ale all came to mind. After some digging, I found that Saranac was discontinued, which was a real disappointment- last years batch was probably one of my favorites. Continuing through the list, I had a tough time thinking that Sam Adams would be good with ice cream so I was left with Smuttynose and Dogfish Head. So, after pulling together a choice group of cyclists; taste testing ensued. Smuttynose along with the ice cream came across a tad bitter/sour tasting- a far departure from the deliciousness of the beer by itself. Next came the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale which we thought was the best match. Initially, before the ice cream started to melt into the beer, we found that having a spoonful of ice cream with a swig of beer was not that awesome. It didn't blend well and had a mouth feel similar to Mentos and Diet Coke. But, like a root beer float, once the ice cream melted and thoroughly mixed in, it was glorious!

The winner!

Directions
1 to 1 1/2 scoops of pumpkin ice cream
1 bottle of Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Pour the beer into a pint glass and add ice cream. Let it sit for a minute or two (this will be a test of your patience) and then enjoy! You'll know it's ready when the beer becomes opaque.

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Oh Snap!

This past weekend I took a tour of High Road Craft Ice Cream & Sorbet in Atlanta while in town for Thanksgiving. I discovered these guys a few months back while at South City Kitchen where my table split bowls of Maple Bacon and Cherry Vanilla- after that, I was hooked. They make some really cool flavors such as Bourbon Burnt Sugar, Port Pear Pecan, and I even saw a Black Truffle ice cream on the list. At the factory store, they sell a regular selection of pints, daily creations, and even fleur de sel sprinkled chocolate covered ice cream bars- those things rocked by the way! After the tour, Chef Keith answered a pile of questions I had for him about creating ice creams and sorbets which has since helped tremendously. Inspired by the tour, I went back to my folks house in search of an original ice cream flavor whose recipe I could create myself. What I came up with was Gingersnap!

I don't know about you but I can put the hurt to a box of gingersnap cookies. They are sugary, have some of that rich molasses flavor, and a good amount of zing from the ginger. Not only do they taste amazing, but they don't make you feel like you are eating a stick of butter when you eat them (not that there is anything wrong with that). When you take a bite of the ice cream (does that even make sense? It's not on a cone) you instantly taste the molasses and I found myself wanting to savor the flavor (not to be confused with a flavor saver). Slowly but surely, just like the cookie, you get a taste of the ginger. Not so fast that you think you are eating ginger ice cream but after the molasses and cinnamon have sunken into your taste buds. The consistency as you can see is soft but could easily hold up on a cone.


Ingredients

Nutritional Info
Serving Size 1/2 cup Servings 8
Calories 300
Fat 23g
Sat Fat 15g
Carbs 7g
Sugar 6g
Protien 2.5g

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk (I used 2%)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbs molasses
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp whole clove
• Box or bag of gingersnap cookies

*Nutritional Info from:
Livestrong.com/myplate Equipment

• Double boiler (1 inch of water in the bottom)
• Mixing bowl
• Sieve/ mesh strainer 
• Measuring Cups 
• Measuring Spoons 
• Whisk

Start by heating the cream over a double boiler. Once it begins to lightly steam, it will be time to add in the egg yolk mixture.

As the cream begins to steam, it is time to mix it with the egg yolks, molasses, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and clove.

Pour about 1/3 of the heated cream into the egg yolk mixture. Whisk as you pour so as not to curdle the eggs.

Pour the cream and egg mixture back into the double boiler along with the cup of milk. Slowly heat the mixture until it coats the back of a spoon and transfer to a medium sized bowl to chill. Once thoroughly chilled, pour mixture into ice cream machine and churn to manufacturer instructions. Mine took about 20 minutes.

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