IMBB 17 - Minted Tea Sorbet

I don't know if it was Santos talking about restaurants in Guam serving a simple syrup with iced tea or the mint growing like a weed in my garden, but the first thing, the only thing, that came to mind when I tried to figure out what to make for IMBB 17 was a tea sorbet.

When Clement announced the theme for this IMBB - tasteTea - I was at a bit of a loss as to what I should make. I am familiar with and enjoy tea as a beverage, but I don't think I've ever cooked with it before. I'm sure there are many uses for tea in cooking and I can't wait to learn about them when I read the other IMBB entries. My entry, however, is really just a little twist on that familiar summertime beverage, iced tea.

I made an earlier attempt at this sorbet which turned out to be too bitter. What was interesting about this first attempt was that I had started out with a milder and sweeter mixture, but when I tasted it I thought the tea wasn't coming through enough, so I added some more very strong tea. The resulting mixture tasted really wonderful and perfectly balanced before freezing, but after freezing it didn't taste sweet enough and the tea flavor was much too strong.

So for my second attempt I went back to my original sugar and water measurements, but added one more teabag. After freezing, all the flavors came through and the sorbet was pleasantly sweet. This is very easy and very tasteTea!


Minted Tea Sorbet

3 cups water, divided (I used bottled water)
4 tea bags (I used decaffeinated Typhoo, a black tea)
1 cup sugar
a handful of mint leaves
juice from 1 lemon

Bring 2 1/2 cups water to a boil. Pour into a bowl over teabags. Let steep for 5 minutes, then remove teabags (press out water in bags before discarding). Add mint leaves. Mix 1/2 cup water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the sugar syrup and lemon juice to the tea. Refrigerate mixture for several hours or overnight. Remove the mint leaves, then freeze the mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.


Thanks to Clement for hosting what I'm sure is going to be a really great IMBB!!!

SHF 10 - Oh, Honey!

If there was an award for the sweetest little meme, it would no doubt go to Sugar High Friday, created by Jennifer and hosted this time around by Nic. The theme for this tenth edition of SHF is honey.

I seem to go through honey really quickly these days, so I generally buy two or three pound containers of the grocery store variety. I actually have no complaints about this most ordinary of honeys and am quite fond of its flavor, but today I was shopping in a high end grocery store and was seriously tempted by some pricier varieties ... raspberry flower, sage, Tupelo, etc. I haven't succumbed yet, but when I do, I can't think of a better way to use it (except perhaps on some toast) than as the sweetener and flavor base for some ice cream.

I normally put the name of my recipe in the title of my SHF and IMBB posts, but I can't decide what to call this. My original concept was an ice cream based on Chai. Because I was using mostly milk and very little water, I was a little timid about raising the temperature too high and the flavors from the spices and tea were not fully extracted. The spiciness is hardly noticeable over the strong honey flavor, but I was still very happy with the outcome.

I'd like to experiment with this some... the first way would be to try some things to bring out the spiciness more. I could increase the spices, leave them to steep overnight, include them with the water and ginger at the beginning, or I could replace half the honey with either sugar or some other milder liquid sweetener - like Lyle's Golden Syrup. I really liked the texture of this ice cream and wonder if the honey contributed to that in any way. It never froze hard and it didn't develop a grainy texture. It was really refreshing - not especially creamy, almost watery as it melts in your mouth - but not at all icy.

Another way to go with it would be to leave out most of the spices and try some of those varietal honeys. So many possibilities!


Chai or Honey Ice Cream - you decide!

This is exactly as I made it. It was delicious, not very spicy, with a strong honey flavor.

1/2 cup water
3 quarter-inch slices of ginger
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup honey
3 cardamom pods cracked open
1/2 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
5 peppercorns
2 tea bags

Place the water and ginger slices in a saucepan and bring water to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the half and half, milk, honey, and spices. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring often (actually, I stirred constantly - not sure if that's necessary or not). You want to get the mixture hot, but don't want it too hot or a skin will form as it cools. Using Alton Brown's Vanilla Ice Cream recipe as a guide, I decided to bring the temperature to 170 F. At that point, remove the pan from the heat, add the tea bags and allow the mixture to steep for 5 minutes. Strain and refrigerate overnight. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions and then harden for an hour or two in the freezer before eating. Enjoy!

SHF 4 – Pistachio Gelato

Pistachios are fairly new to me. My first pistachio purchase was a mere two months ago when I bought a one pound bag of shelled pistachios in order to make Holiday Biscotti for IMBB 10. While I enjoyed the biscotti, I was frustrated that I couldn’t discern a distinctive pistachio flavor.

I mentioned to a friend that I was at a loss to describe or even recognize what pistachios taste like and asked her how she would describe the taste. She said when she thought of pistachios she thought of pistachio ice cream (which she thought had sort of a minty flavor), but she had her doubts as to whether that was truly pistachio. This conversation took place just days before I began looking for something to make for Sugar High Friday #4.

Sugar High Friday is the creation of Jennifer at The Domestic Goddess. It is a blogging event in which participants prepare something sweet which incorporates the theme ingredient and share the results by posting to their blog on the designated day. This time around it is hosted by Viv of Seattle Bon Vivant and the theme is nuts.

It didn’t occur to me at first to make something with pistachios. Since I am hosting a birthday party tomorrow, I spent quite a bit of time hunting for a cake recipe that featured nuts, would be suitable as a birthday cake, and would appeal to both adults and small children, but I came up empty. (Actually – I later found a recipe in The Wooden Spoon Dessert Book for a Toasted-Butter-Pecan Cake that sounds awesome. I'll be making it tonight and serving it tomorrow - so I'll have to tell you about that another time.)

After I widened my search to include anything made with nuts, I came upon a recipe for Pistachio Gelato at Leite’s Culinaria. Perfect! It appealed to me because it would be simple to make, I had pistachios to use up, and best of all – I might finally figure out what pistachios taste like.



The gelato base consists of whole milk and sugar. These are heated together and then ground pistachios are added and the mixture is allowed to steep overnight in the refrigerator. Just before freezing the gelato, you strain out the ground pistachios (though some fine bits find their way in, giving the finished gelato a nice texture). After fifteen to twenty minutes in the ice cream maker and an hour in the freezer to firm it up, you’ve got yourself some mighty fine gelato!

I suppose you might be wondering – does she know what pistachios taste like yet? Well, I’m not sure I can put it into words, but I think yes. I think the next time I taste it I’ll know it, and I’ll be thinking … mmmmm, pistachio!

Cherry and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Since my sister was making the cake for our birthday celebration last Saturday, I decided I would make some ice cream.  I got my ice cream maker a couple of months ago and I love it.  Up until now, I had been focusing on making low-fat ice cream.  Since this was a special occasion and, most importantly, I would not be eating the entire batch myself, I thought I would give real cream a try.
 
I had that five pound box of cherries sitting in my refrigerator, so there was little question what the star ingredient would be.  I based my recipe on Alton Brown’s Serious Vanilla Ice Cream and took inspiration from Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Ice Cream.
 
I tinkered with the amounts of dairy products and sugar in Alton Brown’s recipe in order to increase the quantity to somewhere around 1 ½ quarts, which is the capacity of my ice cream maker.  When I was doing the math, though, I failed to take into account the chocolate and cherries that I would be adding later.  I had to stir the cherries in after the ice cream was removed from the ice cream maker because there just wasn't room for them in the ice cream maker.  This wasn’t a huge problem, but I do think the cherries melted the ice cream a little.  Maybe I should have frozen the cherries before adding them!
 
The ice cream was really delicious and was a big hit at the party.  The flavor from the vanilla bean was incredible.  My only complaint would be that the texture of the cherries wasn’t what I had hoped for.  If you’ve ever had Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, you know that the cherries in it are soft and chewy.  The cherries in my ice cream after two hours in the freezer were a little icy and by no means chewy.  The next day they were quite icy.  Next time (and there will be a next time!) I think I’ll try cooking the cherries in a simple syrup first.
 
Cherry and Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
 
Makes over 1 ½ quarts
 
2 ½ cups half & half
1 cup whipping cream
1 ¼ cups sugar
¼ cup cherry puree (puree fresh cherries in blender)
1 vanilla bean 
2 cups quartered cherries
3 ½ - 4 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate
 
Combine half & half, cream, sugar, and cherry puree in a large saucepan.  Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the pulp.  Add both the vanilla pulp and the bean to the mixture in the saucepan.  Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the temperature reaches 170 degrees F.  If you don’t have a thermometer, bring the mixture just barely to a simmer – don’t let it boil.  Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool slightly.  Remove the vanilla bean, transfer the mixture to a covered container, and chill it in the refrigerator overnight.
 
Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Add the chocolate and cherries near the end – if necessary stir them in after the ice cream is removed from the machine.  Put the ice cream in a covered container and let it harden in the freezer for at least an hour before serving.
 
Enjoy!