Philadelphia Style Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream

 Well with the school year about to begin I need to plan my daily activities out a little better. Therefore in an effort to be more consistent I will be uploading a new recipe every Saturday. Sometimes I may upload extra recipes during the week if I have enough to do so. Posts about the bark boxes (which there is a new one) or other random items will be posted on days that are not Saturdays, as Saturdays will be dedicated to recipes from now on. I will also do my best to better watch for errors in what I post. I have found and fixed a few recently, but hopefully I will not have anymore slip past.

The first of my Saturday posts is another (yes, I know there are quite a few of these now) ice cream recipe. Chocolate Chip Mint has always been one of my favourite flavours of ice cream, and I absolutely love the way this recipe turned out. It was perfect in my opinion, and the best part about making your own ice cream is that you can taste and adjust the flavours as you develop the base. This is no exception as you are able to adjust the amount of mint in the base to have it taste exactly as you would like it to.

Enjoy!

Philadelphia Style Chocolate Chip Mint Ice Cream

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 1/2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 1/2 tsp pure mint and peppermint extract
10 drops green food colouring (optional)

Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the ice cream base, leaving the chocolate chips to be added at the end. Whisk together to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated. As it is a liquid sugar being used and not a granular sugar, you do not need to worry about a grainy texture. Don't whisk it too long as you do not want to try making whipped cream. :)

Allow the mixture to chill for 4+ hours in the fridge. Being an uncooked ice cream base, you can put it in the ice cream make after a couple hours so long as the dairy products were cold entering the ice cream maker.

Prepare the ice cream as per ice cream maker instructions. Before serving, or before freezing longer, add the chocolate chips. If you want ice cream that is past the soft serve stage place the remaining ice cream into a container which can be safely stored in the freezer for a couple hours.

It is best to eat this ice cream within a day or two of preparing it for best results and best texture. 

Philadelphia Style Chocolate Ice Cream

You know those nasty summers colds that ten to knock you off your feet for a few days? The ones that leave you with very little energy to even move? Well I have had one of those for most of this past week, and I have to say it sucks! Especially when you add in losing your voice and a wicked sore throat. Thanks to my inability to tolerate most sugars now I can't use store bought ice cream to reduce the pain and swelling in my throat. Thankfully Philadelphia style ice cream really takes now effort at all to make. The first of two batches I made to get myself through this cold was a Philadelphia style chocolate ice cream.

Adding the cocoa powder left the base feeling grainy prior to being churned. I whisked it lots, and the grainy-ness remained. However, after letting the base sit for a few hours then whisking it again before it went into the ice cream maker helped a lot. And the final product was a nice smooth ice cream.

Enjoy!

Philadelphia Style Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 1/2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
6 tbsp cocoa powder

Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the ice cream base. Whisk together to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated. As it is a liquid sugar being used and not a granular sugar, you do not need to worry about a grainy texture. Don't whisk it too long as you do not want to try making whipped cream. :)

Allow the mixture to chill for 4+ hours in the fridge. Being an uncooked ice cream base, you can put it in the ice cream make after a couple hours so long as the dairy products were cold entering the ice cream maker.

Prepare the ice cream as per ice cream maker instructions. If you want ice cream that is past the soft serve stage place the remaining ice cream into a container which can be safely stored in the freezer for a couple hours.

It is best to eat this ice cream within a day or two of preparing it for best results and best texture. 

WoW Screenshots

So while I am sick and injured I have been playing a lot of WoW. I just wanted to share some of the fun little glitches that occurred in the game yesterday (and trust me there were many, not all were documented sadly).

 Most of the day I had black and white characters in a world filled with colour. This one was new to me as I had never seen this before. It always occurred immediately after mounting, and would leave shortly after I began flying (most of the time, but not all of the time). As the day turned into night, the black and white colour effects lasted longer and longer.

 After completing the Riches of Pandaria achievement on all 4 of my 90s to obtain some gold I made my way to timeless isle in order to farm for some timeless coins (after all I needed a better weapon for my dps set, and timeless coins for when I get to that stage of my legendary cloak quest). The first rare that I attempted to defeat on Timeless Isle did this. When it was defeated it sank to the bottom of the ocean and no one there at that time was able to get any loot. The later kill of the Rock Moss rare spawn made up for this by dropping the pattern for one of the rarest and most desired death knight tanking glyphs known as the glyph of regenerative magic. Now if only Huolon had dropped eggs or his mount!

 As you can see here the black and white character and mount continued on different mounts and even in different places. It also did not seem to affect others as I never saw another black and white player (which my husband said he could see my toon appearing as black and white while he was on his computer, he is not pictured as he had not yet arrived on Timeless Isle) and others were in full colour all around me. In this case it was a friend, and fellow timeless coin farmer who is in this screenshot to demonstrate the odd nature of this bug.

Using one of the potions that turns you into a golden lotus hero my bloof elf female became a pandaren male, and was once again in black and white. I wish I had gotten a screen shot of my character sheet in game, as it looked like I had no gear on. As you can see not everything in my bags is appearing as it should. Many of the items are black spaces. On the character tabs it just appeared as if I was not wearing any gear.

Here is the end of my random post showing some of the very weird glitches that can occur in World of Warcraft. The entire week was filled with broken items that Blizzard seemed to break last Tuesday. With any luck today's reset and maintenance will fix them!

Just a hint for those looking to obtain a little gold in the game, go send all your 90s (as you need Pandaria flight training for this) to complete the Riches of Pandaria achievement. Add ons Tom Tom and Paste work well for completing this as paste allows you to paste all the coordinates so wonderfully provided by other players on WoWhead.com. This achievement from start to finish (including the trash you obtain from enemies while in dungeons and the few rares along the way) can net you 2000g per character. All but one of my characters had this in progress already due to a few items found while questing, and those averaged 1500g. In total for one afternoon of flying around collecting items, killing rares, and farming any nodes along the way I earned 6500g on 4 toons and gained the potential for a lot more through ore prospecting and herbs.

See you all in a future post that hopefully will be a new recipe! Injuries are healing, but they are holding me back from doing much. Although not for much longer. Another month of so and things should improve, and in a couple more weeks I will be back in school.

Husbands Birthday Cake

Well it has been a while since I last posted anything. Things have gotten worse around here injury wise so I have not been doing much of anything after making my husbands birthday cake. It did not turn out how I had planned for it to, seeing how the fondant failed me, but I got it finished (just barely!) in buttercream. Hope you like it, I have recipes that I used posted as well.

The worst part was I had the fondant on, but being a perfectionist I was not happy with how it looked. So I removed all the fondant and used what I had left to try again. Every time I was trying to place the fondant on it would tear, and when you have carpal tunnel working with fondant is very, very painful (never mind rolling it out by hand 5 times).

I'm not all the happy with how this turned out, but at least it tasted good and my husband was happy with it. The next big cake project is my moms birthday cake, and that one will look better.

The top half was a Black Forest Cake.

The bottom half was Chocolate Cake with a Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream. 

Here is the image that I used when decorating this cake.

This is what my dad built so that the cake would be stable and I wouldn't have the same issues that were seen on one episode of the Big Bang Theory.

Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream

This is the icing that I used as a filling in half of my husbands birthday cake. I like using swiss meringue buttercream as they are not sweet and I do not have an issue with the sugars in them. It is rather annoying to make, but the end result is well worth it. Seeing how I cannot use real maple syrup I used an artificial maple extract in its place. Feel free to try this recipe with real maple syrup.

Enjoy!

Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

9 egg whites, room temperature
1 1/2 lbs butter, softened, but slightly chilled
1 cup agave syrup
Maple extract to taste (I used approx 2 tbsp)

Preparation:

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Combine egg whites and agave in a fairly large glass or metal bowl that can be safely help over a double boiler type set up for a fairly long time. Keep the water at a simmer for the during of this portion of the process. Whisking constantly heat the mixture to 160 degrees F. If you don't mix constantly you run the risk of having scrambled eggs. Once the mixture reaches 150 degrees F switch from a whisk to a hand mixer and on low speed beat the eggs until they reach soft peaks.

Have the butter in chunks, chilling in the fridge while dealing with the eggs. Add the butter to the egg mixture a few chunks at a time and continue to mix until the mixture reaches stiff peaks. Towards the end add in the extract.

Chill until use.

Philadelphia Style Raspberry Jelly Dark Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

Once again I have made another ice cream. This was was meant to be swirled, although that kinda failed. Largely due to the fact that the ice cream did not want to freeze properly for me for some reason. Either way it tasted good.

Enjoy!

Philadelphia Style Raspberry Jelly Dark Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream 

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Extras:


1/2 recipe dark chocolate ganache.
Prepare the ganache with only 2/3 cup dark chocolate instead of 3/4 cup.


Raspberry Jelly:

1 package gelatin
1/4 cup plus 1 1/2 cup raspberry juice
1/4 cup boiling water




Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the ice cream base. Whisk together to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated. As it is a liquid sugar being used and not a granular sugar, you do not need to worry about a grainy texture. Don't whisk it too long as you do not want to try making whipped cream. :)

Allow the mixture to chill for 4+ hours in the fridge. Being an uncooked ice cream base, you can put it in the ice cream make after a couple hours so long as the dairy products were cold entering the ice cream maker.


While the ice cream is chilling prepare the ganache and the jelly. The jelly is meant to be a "loose" jelly, as in you do not want it to set fully solid. Prepare the jelly by combining 1 package of gelatin with 1/4 cup cold raspberry juice. Let sit for 5 minutes then add the 1/4 cup boiling water. Whisk until all of the gelatin has been fully dissolved. Add the remaining raspberry juice and allow it to set in the fridge until the ice cream is done. Let the ganache chill as well.

Prepare the ice cream as per ice cream maker instructions. If you want ice cream that is past the soft serve stage place the ice cream into a container which can be safely stored in the freezer for a couple hours.


Once the ice cream is prepared and frozen to the degree that you would like it to be pour in each the gelatin and the ganache, mixing briefly in between the additions as to not mix if fully into the ice cream.

It is best to eat this ice cream within a day or two of preparing it for best results and best texture. 

Almond Milk Waffles with Protein Powder

The last batch of waffles that I made (which I forgot to take pictures of sadly), I changed up a bit for the use of vanilla almond milk rather than regular milk. The recipe didn't change all that much really, so it is just a couple minor things.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp chia seeds
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
2 cups flour
2 tbsp coconut sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vanilla almond milk
1 cup water
1/3 cup melted butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation:

Preheat waffle iron.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, mix. Add wet ingredients, mix well, but don’t over mix.

Cook waffles according to your waffle irons instructions.

Philadelphia Style Raspberry Ice Cream

The weather has returned to being insanely hot, so lots of ice creams are made now. Especially when I find one where I don't have to stand over a stove cooking a custard base. Anything where I don't have to stand long is good due to an injured ankle really. :)

My parents recently visited with my grandparents and returned with fresh raspberry and blackberry jam from my grandparents. This seemed like a wonderful time to use some of the juice. Made a syrup in the morning for waffles, and added some to the ice cream base. I also thinned out the syrup a bit later on and added it to the ice cream base for a little extra flavour.

Enjoy!

Philadelphia Style Raspberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup fresh, unsweetened raspberry juice

Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the ice cream base. Whisk together to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated. As it is a liquid sugar being used and not a granular sugar, you do not need to worry about a grainy texture. Don't whisk it too long as you do not want to try making whipped cream. :)

Allow the mixture to chill for 4+ hours in the fridge. Being an uncooked ice cream base, you can put it in the ice cream make after a couple hours so long as the dairy products were cold entering the ice cream maker.

Prepare the ice cream as per ice cream maker instructions. If you want ice cream that is past the soft serve stage place the remaining ice cream into a container which can be safely stored in the freezer for a couple hours.

If you want to you can make a raspberry syrup with raspberry juice, corn starch and agave to swirl into the ice cream and/or add some fresh raspberries.

It is best to eat this ice cream within a day or two of preparing it for best results and best texture. 

Philadelphia Style Eggless Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Well due to egg allergies in the family I went searching for inspiration for an eggless ice cream. After watching The Next Food Network Star my mom requested that I make a Philadelphia style ice cream. It was easy enough to figure out what went into one, but that's where the fun part began. What would go into it? Now there are many ideas, others which will be posted later this week, and then there was the first test subject. A cookie dough ice cream. One that only uses agave syrup and coconut sugar, and most importantly is eggless!

The ice creams made with only half and half can have the right texture, but it takes a little more effort than with the ice creams that contain a higher fat percentage. That is where the idea to use 2/3 half and half and 1/3 heavy cream came in. Overall it is still lower fat than 2/3 heavy cream and 1/3 whole milk.

(33 + 33 + 3.25)/3 = 23.08% = original base of 2/3 heavy cream and 1/3 whole milk
(10 * 3)/3 = 10% = the pure half and half base
(10 + 10 + 33)/3 = 17.7% = the newest base recipe of 2/3 half and half and 1/3 heavy cream

I may yet play with this a bit more, try to see if I can easily obtain the correct texture in an uncooked ice cream base with a lower fat content. But for now there is this.

Enjoy!

Philadelphia Style Eggless Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Ingredients:

Ice Cream Base:

2 cups half and half
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Cookie Dough:

1 1/4 cups ap flour
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened

Preparation:

Combine all the ingredients for the ice cream base. Whisk together to ensure the sugar is fully incorporated. As it is a liquid sugar being used and not a granular sugar, you do not need to worry about a grainy texture. Don't whisk it too long as you do not want to try making whipped cream. :)

Allow the mixture to chill for 4+ hours in the fridge. Being an uncooked ice cream base, you can put it in the ice cream make after a couple hours so long as the dairy products were cold entering the ice cream maker.

While the ice cream base is chilling, prepare the cookie dough. Cream together the coconut sugar and butter, add the vanilla extract and mix. Add remaining ingredients and mix together well, place in the fridge and allow to chill while the ice cream base chills.

Prepare the ice cream as per ice cream maker instructions. Towards the end of the mixing time add some cookie dough a little bit at a time to allow it to mix in with the ice cream. Form small, bite-sized balls with the rest of the cookie dough and mix into the ice cream prior to serving. If you want ice cream that is past the soft serve stage mix in the remaining cookie dough like above, and place into a container which can be safely stored in the freezer for a couple hours.

As we ate this while it was in the soft serve stage I placed a few small balls of cookie dough in the bottom of the bowls the ice cream was being served in.

It is best to eat this ice cream within a day or two of preparing it for best results and best texture.

Enjoy the extra cookie dough if you choose not to use it all. If you use all the cookie dough it will be heavy on the cookie dough in the ice cream.