Cooking Crusade

As some of you may know, I got an ice-cream maker for my birthday.

So of course, you are going to see an increase in ice-cream recipes that hit this blog.

This is the first ice cream I tried out with the new ice cream maker! I wanted to go for super simple but still super delicious. I think I’ve found a keeper!

The best thing about this recipe is that it’s sooo easy and it has quite few ingredients (my fave!)

You basically whip together condensed milk with thickened cream, churn it and then pour in an easy blueberry sauce.
Ingredients

• 1 can condensed milk
• 300 mls thickened cream
• 2 cups blueberries (i used frozen, you could use fresh)
• 2-3 tablespoons caster sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons cornflour

Method:

Start out by making a blueberry sauce. Pour frozen or fresh berries into a large microwave safe bowl and sprinkle over caster sugar. I didn’t want to add too much sugar because I know that the condensed milk/cream would be quite sweet already. Mash berries roughly with a fork and microwave to release juices (if using fresh berries, just mash roughly with a fork and leave to macerate for about five minutes. add a couple tablespoons of water and continue steps for frozen berries in the microwave). With the frozen berries, microwave for about five minutes. You should have released quite a bit more juice from the berries. Mash again roughly (make sure you don’t make it into a mush. You want this to retain some nice big juicy berries in the ice-cream.) Sprinkle over corn flour, about 1-2 tablespoons. Microwave again to thicken. Experiment a little with how much/little corn flour you want to add. I like having a particularly thick sauce to add to the ice cream. You may want a different consistency. When you have finished thickening the sauce, allow it to cool in the fridge (OK so this is important. I got impatient and didn’t let it cool.. obviously this made the ice cream maker freak out a little and it didn’t set properly the first time – although it was fine after I stuck it in the freezer overnight.) So I would recommend allowing it to cool for a good couple of hours in the fridge.

While the blueberry sauce is cooling, pour condensed milk and cream into another separate large bowl. Whisk together until thoroughly combined, set aside.

When the berry sauce is ready, churn the condensed milk and cream into ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Pour in berry sauce through the spout. This sauce makes the most stunning ice-cream colour ever! No artificial colouring added

Try it on French Toast, it’s fabulous!

note: i have to say that this ice-cream does not have the exact same consistency to regular ice cream, it is a little more icy and a little hard to get out of the container from the freezer. just microwave it for about 10-15 seconds and it should scoop out just fine and tastes great!

Love, xoxox

Christine

Tis the season to be jolly!

I thought I would join in on all the fun and make some of my own Christmas gingerbread. So many other of my subscribed blogs have been making Christmas cookies lately, The Pioneer Woman, Sweetopia and Bakerella to name a few. This is me jumping on the Christmas Cookie bandwagon!

I’ve never really made Christmas themed cookies before so this was a first for me. I had only just started collecting cookie cutters as well. Prior to this year, I only had one heart shaped set from Chalet. This year I got another set of stars (Chalet), some Christmas tree cutters for Christmas from my grandmother, a mixed bunch of Christmas-themed cutters from David Jones (trees, stars, gingerbread men etc) and last week I got an awesome set of snowflake cookie cutters from Alfresco Emporium. Speaking of which, if you haven’t managed to go shopping there yet, I highly recommend it! They have so many wonderful baking supplies. I picked up some royal icing powder ($8.95), a cake leveler ($11.95) 12 Wilton disposable icing bags ($11.95 – a bit pricey, but I wanted to try them.. I’ve only got two reusable loyal icing bags at home and they get a bit messy. They were great, but I’m hoping to get some cheaper ones online in bulk sometime soon.) I also picked up an icing bag coupler (hard to find and useful when you want to do a couple different colours with different tips when icing (and only $1.95!) And of course my new beloved snowflake cookie cutters! They were originally $19.95 but they had a 50% off Christmas sale, so they were $9.98, woo!

I’m looking forward to using the cake leveler. Previously I had just a serrated knife to level and tort my cakes but a lot of cake decorators recommend using a leveler. I will definitely report results when I next use it.

For these cookies I used the same recipe that I always use off Taste.com as always, with fabulous results (except for the fact that sometimes I tend to sliiightly overbake them. Hey. Everyone likes slightly crisp gingerbread, right? Guys? Hello?)

To decorate I used the royal icing powder (just add water, it’s a snap!) I’d love to find meringue powder because you have to use quite a bit of royal icing powder to make the icing and it wasn’t that cheap ($8.95 for a bag) and a lot of blogs I’ve been following say that you only need a tablespoon of meringue powder or two and you add in the sugar yourself. Sadly I haven’t been able to find meringue powder anywhere in Australia. If you find any, please let me know! Because I’d love to find it..

For an excellent tutorial on how to outline and flood cookies, check out Pioneer Woman’s post featuring Bridget from Bake at 350. It really helped me out with these cookies.

For marbling cookies, I also highly recommend Sweetopia – this blog has sooo many beautiful and well written tutorials – the photography is stunning as are the cookies! Check out the post on how to marble royal icing here. Sweetopia is basically a cookie-heaven blog so I also recommend checking out the rest of the posts .. they’re great!

To create the marbled icing effect, simply pipe straight lines of flood icing of a different colour onto the flood icing on the cookie before it has dried.
Drag a toothpick through to create the feathered lines.

I piped this snowflake design on and then sprinkled it with 100s and 1000s.

For the trees, I just used the outline/flood method and then added some milk chocolate chips and extra 100s and 1000s. I was hoping to use cachous because they replicate shiny baubles better but I didn’t have any on me at the time.. Next time, Gadget!

Enjoy these cookies!

I got to try out a new (totally WILD!… just kidding) experiment out on this cake.

I had two kinds of icing in the fridge that I wanted to use up.

Milk chocolate frosting and .. mint icing. And I wanted to use them together somehow to come up with a choc-mint cake. (Cos of course, chocolate and mint are a completely amazing combination. If you have ever tried and loved choc-peppermint ice cream, you will know this.)

Cake Stats : Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Sheet Cake (Yes I know .. I went through a Pioneer Woman Sheet Cake phase. It’s.. probably not over.. but its so dang easy and delicious!), milk chocolate and peppermint frosting.

So instead of mixing the two flavours together, after baking and cooling the cake, I crumb coated the cake with a thin layer of peppermint icing and then frosted over this with milk chocolate icing. The result? A delicious creamy milk chocolate icing with a very yummy hint of peppermint.

If you take a look at this slice of the cake, you should be able to see the layer of the white peppermint icing (which I didn’t bother to tint at all.)

Frosting Recipes are as follows.

Peppermint Icing:

1/2 a cup of sour cream (the taste doesn’t come out at all but it gives the icing a great texture/body)
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups icing sugar, sifted (or not, if you’re lazy like me)
1 teaspoon or more peppermint essence (to taste)

Using an electric mixer, beat together sour cream and butter together. Add in icing sugar one cup at a time and use a wooden spoon to incorporate (so it doesn’t get blown everywhere by the mixer). Add in the peppermint essence and beat for a further minute. Taste to see if it needs more peppermint essence. Can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container or as I do, in a plastic sanger bag for next time.

Milk Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting:

250 grams Philly cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter
250 grams milk chocolate, melted and cooled
3 cups icing sugar

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Pour in melted milk chocolate (it is important to make sure that it has cooled down otherwise it might melt the butter). Beat with mixer for 30 seconds or until smooth. Incorporate icing sugar with wooden spoon, cup at a time. If it is too runny, add more icing sugar. If it is too grainy, add a tablespoon or so of milk.
Can be stored in the fridge, just like peppermint icing.

Directions for Choc-Mint Cake.

1. Bake and cool two layers of chocolate cake.

2. Trim cakes if neccessary and flip upside down so the smooth side of the cake is facing upward. Crumb coat both layers with a thin layer of peppermint frosting. Refrigerate.

3. Sandwich cakes together with a good amount of milk chocolate frosting and frost outside of the cake with the milk chocolate frosting. Refrigerate.

4. While cake is in the fridge, make chocolate curls by peeling thin strips of chocolate off a family size chocolate bar with a vegie peeler (the way you would with a carrot, for example.) These melt quickly, so I suggest putting them on a plate that has been in the fridge for about an hour, or just placing them on a regular plate and keeping them in the fridge until needed. Be gentle with these as they break very easily.

5. Pipe a shell border with remaining chocolate frosting around the border of the cake and decorate with chocolate curls.

Serve and enjoy!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! xoxoxo

Lotsa Love

Christine