Almost all of my ice cream recipes are based off of one of two base recipes: with eggs or without!  I’ve adapted the “without eggs” version over the years, but don’t remember where it came from.  The “with eggs” version came from my mom, who got it from my dad’s mom…

DISCLAIMER: My grandparents grew up with farm fresh eggs so cooking them before throwing them in the ice cream never made sense.  We’ve never adjusted it to abide by the current USDA rules; one day I’ll take the time to cook the custard first, but for now I should tell you that “raw eggs can kill you”.

I have a pretty small ice cream maker (1.5 qt), so you may want to adjust the recipes according to the size of your ice cream maker.  It’s a good thing mine isn’t any bigger because I would eat it if I made it!

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 scant cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups cream
1/2 t vanilla
1/4 t salt

A couple of notes about the ingredients:

• Eggs: Yes, use the yolks
• Sugar: I like to use refined sugar.  I think the larger sugar crystals in some of the natural sugars make the ice cream less creamy.
• Milk: I usually use 2% because that’s what’s in the fridge, but whole would probably make it even yummier.
• Cream & Milk: I like to use non-homogenized, local dairy milk (it tastes better and the glass bottles are cool!)
• Vanilla: Use the good stuff, not the imitation. Feel free to add more or less depending on your preferences.
• Salt: I usually grind my own directly into the bowl.  Unlike the sugar, I haven’t found any issues with the larger salt crystals.

Instructions:

Beat the eggs till blended.  I usually use a hand/stick blender with the whisk attachment.  Gradually add the sugar to the eggs and continue beating until stiff (basically, thick and creamy looking.  They won’t get stiff like egg whites because they have yolk as well).  Add milk, cream, vanilla, and salt.  Whisk until well mixed.  Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Enjoy!

I’ll post more info on the “non-egg” recipe (it’s not as good in most applications) and some more creative ice cream flavors (e.g., orange creamsicle, mint) as the summer progresses.

Cheers,
K

Robert and I cook a lot.  Last year we remodeled the kitchen.

Before:

After:

Our cooking styles work perfectly.  I do all the prep work and he does all the heat and meat.  We usually share a nice glass of wine and chat while each of us owns our piece of the process.  We joke that I’m the sous chef and he likes to think he is the executive chef (though I’m not willing to give him that just yet!)  I recently decided that I also want to be the pastry chef.  If he wants to be called executive I better have two titles.

I started with French macaroons, which I still can’t quite get right (3 tries so far—didn’t take pictures, sorry), and have moved on to yeast breads.  I’ll post my creations along the way, though I don’t have many pictures thus far.

Cheers,
K

Remember the beef en croute I made in Brioche part 1?

Well, when I wrapped the beef I had some leftover brioche dough so I made a cinnamon roll.

It was so good I decided to use an entire receipt of brioche to make cinnamon rolls.  I rolled the dough and spread softened butter over the top.  Then heavily sprinkled with cinnamon sugar (1:4), rolled, sliced and baked.  Yummy!

Cheers,
K

My friend and I decided to do a “bake off” for the month of April.  We picked a couple of things: rustic breads (pictures coming later), brioche, and strawberry tarts (pictures coming later).  Here are some of my brioche adventures.

I started with a simple loaf, it turned out OK but pretty dry.  I used it to make some of the best croutons we’ve ever made.  The problem is that they aren’t really reproducible.  Have you ever had the spiced peanuts from Costco?  We will never buy them again because they are SO GOOD.  You can’t get anything from Costco in small quantities so we ate them way too fast!  Anyway, we finished the peanuts and had some of the yummy spices left at the bottom of the peanut jar.  I didn’t want the rest of the peanut spices to go to waste, so I sliced the bread into one inch cubes and covered them with the peanut spices and some olive oil.  I baked for a while to let them dry out and voila, yummy croutons.  Sorry I don’t have pictures of these…just memories 🙂

As good as the croutons were, I didn’t think croutons would be a very good entry to my bake off.  So I decided to do a Beef en Croute.

The beef and goodies all wrapped up before they bake…

After baking…

Sliced and ready to eat…

You can also do a Salmon en Croute called coulibiac, but it wasn’t salmon season.  This was really good and I think I’ll use the brioche recipe to wrap brie at parties.

Cheers,
K