Faux Fried Ice Cream

We had company over last night and decided to try something new.It comes from the "Keeping Up Cookbook". I will definitely be making this again!


1 cup sliced almonds
2 TBsp butter
dash of salt

1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
2 1/2 cups Rice Chex cereal, crushed
1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 gallon vanilla bean ice cream

Saute almonds in butter over medium heat until lightly browned. Salt them lightly and cool on paper towels. Stir together cooled almonds, brown sugar, coconut, cushed Rice Chex, and melted butter.

Let ice cream soften slightly. Form ice cream balls with a scoop. Roll each ball in almond/chex mixture until well-coated and place on a baking sheet in your freezer. When finished, cover tray with plastic wrap and keep frozen. Ice cream balls can be prepared severalhours in advance. Serve with your favorite hot fudge or hot caramel toppings. ENJOY!

Caramel Pear Sauce

This recipe was originally to be an ice cream topper... but I thought it sounded like a delicious waffle topper instead. I am sure it would still be great on ice cream, but I was looking for a new syrup recipe & I thought this would be awesome. And I was right. It was so tasty! Of course, it didn't hurt that it was ridiculously easy and I was able to use a jar of pears that I had canned myself! The recipe calls for a 29 oz. can, but my mason jar was bigger than that. It worked out just beautifully, but if you are afraid of tweaking, I would follow the original recipe.

Caramel Pear Sauce

1, 29 oz. Can Pears, chopped & syrup reserved

3 TBSP Cornstarch

1 Cup Brown Sugar

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1 Cup Pear Syrup

1/4 Cup butter

Combine cornstarch, brown sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan. Add pear syrup and cook over medium heat until mixtures starts to boil. Reduce heat and cook for 4 or 5 minutes. Add butter and stir until completely melted. Add sliced pears and heat through. Serve warm over vanilla ice cream or waffles.

{this sauce is best warm. If you have to stick it in the fridge,

you can easily warm it up in the microwave before serving}

Blackberry Ice Cream

I saw this recipe over on Pioneer Woman & decided it was time to break out my new cuisinart ice cream maker. I am pretty glad I did too. This ice cream was amazing! Its a bit more time consuming than the kind you jut throw together, but it was well worth it. I am sure you could substitute the blackberries for a variety of fruits, but we seriously loved it! I also loved the gorgeous color of the finished product, & my 3 year old loved helping create the pretty color. Delicious!!

Blackberry Ice Cream

2 Pints Blackberries

1/2 of Lemon, juice of

1/4 Cup Sugar

1 1/2 Cups Half-and-Half

1 Cup Sugar

5 Large Egg Yolks

1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream

Put blackberries in a saucepan with 1/4 cup sugar and lemon juice. Cover and cook over low heat for 20-25 minutes. Drain berries using a fine mesh strainer, pressing the berries to make sure you get all the goodness out of them. Set aside {I did this step TWO days before I intended to make the ice cream}.

Heat the half-and-half and 1 cup sugar in a separate saucepan over low heat. Turn off heat when mixture is totally heated and combined.

Add heavy cream to a separate bowl and set aside.

Beat egg yolks with an electric mixer until yolks are pale and slightly thick.

Temper the eggs by slowly drizzling in 1 1/2 cups of the hot half-and-half mixture, whisking constantly. When yolks are tempered, pour mixture back into the pan containing the remaining half-and-half mixture. Cook over low to medium-low heat until quite thick, stirring constantly. Drain custard using a fine mesh strainer, then pour into the separate bowl with the cream; stir until combined.

Add blackberry sauce to custard mixture and stir. Chill mixture completely {I chilled mine for over 24 hours}, then freeze in an ice cream maker until thick {mine took about 25 minutes}. Put ice cream in a freezer safe container and place in freezer for at least 2 hours to harden up. You can eat the ice cream as a soft serve option, but beware, it melts fast. Its delicious either way!

Cake Batter Ice Cream

This week I decided to make icecream! And I searched high and low for a recipe comparable to ColdStone Creamery. This was a pretty close hit! I found it on recipe zaar. There were 95 reviews with an overall rating of 5 stars, so I decided to give it a shot. We will definitely be making this one again. I have modified it a bit and will also add a couple more options at the bottom. Enjoy!!!



Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk, chilled
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup cake mix

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk the milk and sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
Stir in the vanilla and heavy cream.
Stir in the cake mix. Using a sifter insures there are no lumps.
Pour the mixture into the freezer bowl and let mix in your icecream maker until it has thickened (about 25-30 minutes.)
Place the icecream in the freezer to further harden.

***I used white cake mix and it was divine! You could try any flavor of cake, muffin or brownie mix.
***Also, if you notice a waxy like film in your mouth, that is the heavy cream. You can substitute with light cream, half & half or just milk. I have heard any combination works.
***It has also been suggested to add sprinkles and/or a little frosting and mix it in at the end. It is rich enough that it doesn't need the added frosting though.
***Another suggestion that was made was to add some thickeners like guar gum or carageenan which you can get at health food stores.

Root Beer Float Cake with Root Beer Glaze

I had a yellow cake mix that I needed to use soon, but I wanted to do something different with it. I found this recipe last week and decided to try it at Richard's request for his and Ben's birthday party on Sunday. I'll give you the recipe as written and add some comments onto the end.

Ingredients

1 (18.25 once) package yellow cake mix

12 fl. ounces root beer

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

3 tablespoons root beer

Root Beer Glaze

Combine the confectioners sugar and 3 tablespoons of root beer in a small bowl. Beat until smooth.

Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. *I greased and "sugared" our Bundt pan instead and I recommend this because it adds a lovely caramelized crunch to the outside.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cake mix, 12 ounces root beer, oil and eggs until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes before inverting on to a wire rack to cool completely. Poke holes in the cake with a skewer at 2 inch intervals. Pour Root Beer Glaze evenly over the cake.

Serve with vanilla ice cream to make it a "root beer float." Serves approximately 14, or one, 10-inch Bundt cake.

***Here are some things I noticed and did differently and some other suggestions given by reviewers of the original recipe:

• Many people complained online that the cake didn't have enough of a root beer flavor. If you'd like a little bit more of a root beer flavor, I suggest adding 1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon root beer extract to the cake batter.
• We tripled the root beer glaze. This made the cake nice and moist and gooey and increased the root beer flavor. I suggest at least doubling it. If you add more root beer it will be more of a sauce, if you add more confectioners' sugar, it will be more of a frosting.
• One reviewer suggested removing the cake, pouring the glaze in the pan, then putting the cake back in the pan (up side down) and letting the cake soak up the glaze. To increase the distribution of the glaze, I poked about 2-3 times as many holes in the cake as the recipe suggested and I thought this worked really well.
• Instead of a glaze, one reviewer adds root beer to whipped cream.
• The person who submitted the recipe online crushes up root beer candies and sprinkles them on the top when she serves her cake.
• Nutrition Information: 240 calories, total fat: 9.3 g, cholesterol: 46 mg.

Lemonade Ice Cream Bars

I got this recipe from my wonderful friend Audrey when we lived in Iowa. It's really yummy.
Crust:
1/3 cup melted margarine or butter
1 Tbsp sugar
1 pkg graham crackers, crushed

Filling:
1 carton vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 can lemonade concentrate (regular, pink or raspberry), softened
graham cracker crumbs

Combine graham cracker crumbs & sugar. Add melted margarine and mix. Press into a 9X13 pan that is greased with Pam and then refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Let the ice cream soften and then use a potato masher to mix in the lemonade concentrate with the ice cream. Press over the graham cracker crust and then sprinkle with crushed graham cracker crumbs. Freeze until firm (about 2 1/2 hours).

Serve & enjoy.

Creamy Banana Berry Ice Cream

This was so creamy and delicious! It was a perfect treat for summer and so yummy with all the fresh summer fruit.

3 ripe bananas

Juice of 3 oranges

Juice of 3 lemons

5-6 cups fresh strawberries or raspberries, clean and hulled

3 cups of sugar

4 cups heavy cream

2 cups whole milk

Ice

Rock Salt

Place first 5 ingredients in bowl of food processor fitted with metal blade (or use blender and blend the bananas and orange juice; then blend the lemon juice, strawberries and sugar then combine in a bowl). If you like chunks of fruit in your ice cream, process less, if not blend/process until smooth. If using raspberries, leave whole and do not process.

Add cream slowly, then add milk. Pour mixture into a 6 quart ice cream maker and freeze according to directions. Makes 1 gallon.

When the ice cream maker goes off, it will look like fluffy mashed potatoes. To make hard packed ice cream, freeze it for 2-3 hrs. minimum, but overnight if you can wait. :)

*Next time we think we'll add a dash of vanilla and maybe cut out 1/2 cup of sugar. Also, we have a 4 quart ice cream maker and when pouring this into the container, it came to just under the "fill to this line" mark. I wouldn't expect this to fill a 6 quart ice cream maker.

Strawberry Whipped Sensation

This is a great/refreshing summer-time dessert!

Prep time: 20 min plus freeze time.

12 servings

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups fresh strawberries, divided

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 tub (8oz) cool whip, thawed

8 oreo cookies, finely chopped/crushed

Instructions:

Line 8x4-inch loaf pan with foil.

Mash 2 cups of strawberries in a large bowl.

Stir in condensed milk, juice & 2 cups cool whip.

Pour into pan.

Top with combined cookies adn butter.

Press gently into the mixture and cover.

FREEZE for at least 6 hours. To serve, invert onto plate, remove foil, frost with remaining cool whip and top with strawberries. You can get creative with how you choose to do the strawberries on top.