Vanilla Ice Cream

My sister R told me last week, in the name of constructive criticism, that I have too many pictures of "brown foods" on my blog. It's true. I bake bread, almost obsessively. I counted yesterday, and in the past week I've made at least twelve loaves. Bread is pretty much always brown. So, in response to Riv's comment about switching-it-up, and the ever-present summer heat, I decided to make this ice cream. The process is suprisingly simple: you put together a custard-based mixture, throw it in the freezer, and blend it every 45 minutes.

Side note: Half way through the process it hit me. The ice cream making process is eerily similiar to bread baking- you throw together the basic ingredients, wait a bit, mix it, wait a bit, mix it, wait a bit, and ta da! Final product. Looks like however hard I try I can't get away from that bread baking mentality!

After I was done taking pics, I realized that vanilla ice cream is white. Not so different from brown- pretty neutral still. At least I didn't make chocolate.....

The ice cream was delicious, and well worth the effort. I will definitely try to make ice cream again with different flavours. The recipe below is a combination of David Lebovitz's recipe and his instructions on how to make ice cream without an ice cream maker.

Vanilla Ice Cream

• 1 cup milk
• A pinch of salt
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 vanilla bean
• 5 egg yolks
• 2 cup heavy cream
• A few drops of vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the milk with the tip of a paring knife. Add the bean pod to the milk.


2. Stir together the egg yolks in a bowl and gradually add some of the warmed milk, stirring constantly as you pour. Pour the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.


3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Rinse the vanilla bean and put it back into the custard and cream to continue steeping. Chill thoroughly, then remove the vanilla bean


4. Chill the mixture over an ice bath.


5. Put a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer, and pour your custard mixture into it.


6. After forty-five minutes, open the door and check it.
   As it starts to freeze near the edges, remove it from the freezer and stir it vigorously with a spatula or whisk. Really beat it up and break up any frozen sections. Return to freezer.


7. Continue to check the mixture every 30 minutes, stirring vigorously as it's freezing. If you have one, you can use a hand-held mixer for best results, or use a stick blender or hand-held mixer.You can also use just a spatula or a sturdy whisk along with some modest physical effort.


8. Keep checking periodically and stirring while it freezes (by hand or with the electric mixer) until the ice cream is frozen. It will likely take 2-3 hours to be ready.

Sunflower Millet Bread

I went to the beach yesterday and it was amazing. I've wanted to go to the beach for about three months but have been so busy studying that I haven't made it. There is just nothing like that blissed-out feeling that you get after sitting in the sun and the sand for hours. Salty water, good company, and a good book. And the sea.... Lately sunset has been conspicuously earlier than when it was only a few short weeks ago. It seems as if summer is starting to slowly creep away.... I suppose I shouldn't worry about it too much as the temperature here is still well over thirty degrees every day. Still, I can't help the feeling that fall will be upon us before we know it.

Part of the reason why I wanted to make this bread is because when I first read the recipe I thought it was called "sunny" millet bread. It was only later that I realized that the sunny was referring to the sunflower seeds. Really though, who wouldn't want to bake a loaf which promises sun in a bread? And even though I got it wrong, If there's any bread that would offer sunshine, this would be it.

The bread was delicious and a bit crunchy. I ran out of sunflower seeds and so I replaced some if them with wheat groats to fill the half cup. The dough was really wet at the beginning so I added some more flour and did two or three "stretch and folds" at twenty minute intervals. I put the formed loaves in my fridge overnight. The two loaves that I made ended up being a bit denser than I would have liked but still delicious. I highly recommend the recipe!

I'm submitting this post to yeastspotting.

Sunflower-Millet Bread-recipe courtesy of Pamela from TFL.

• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 2 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup whole hulled millet
• 4 cups whole wheat flour, approximately
• 3 tablesploons light oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. In a large mixing bowl combine the yeast and water, stirring until dissolved. Blend in the honey, seeds, and millet. Beat in 2 cups flour until smooth. Cover the bowl with a towel and let proof about 30 minutes, or until the mixture becomes a light, bubbly sponge.
2. Stir down the sponge and blend in the oil and salt. Gradually add sufficient flour to make a soft, workable dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and resilient. Cover with a towel and let rest 30 minutes.
3. Butter two 8 1/2-inch loaf pans. Divide dough in half, shape into loaves, and place in the pans. Cover an let rise 1 hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Bake the loaves about 40 mintues, or until golden brown. Remove the pans and let cool and wire racks.
   Makes 2 loaves.

Chewy Ginger Cookies

This weekend I was asked to bring dessert and challah to both my shabbat meals. Being a little less adventurous than my older sister R, whose delicious blueberry-lime mousse pie is sitting happily in my stomach (can I have the recipe, Rivka?), I opted for cookies. Easy to walk over to my very special meals, and easy to consume.

I decided to cut down on the sugar as I'm finding a lot of baking too sweet lately. I also decided NOT to roll the cookies in sugar (snickerdoodle-style) before baking, and it was not missed at all. They're just good cookies.

Big Soft Ginger Cookies

• 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 3/4 c. butter or margarine
• 1 c. sugar (scant!)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 2 T sugar (optional)

1. In a medium bowl combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Set aside.
2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter well. Beat in the one cup sugar. Add egg and molasses; beat well. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture.
3. Shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, using about one heaping tablespoon dough each.
4. If coating in sugar, roll balls in the two tablespoons of sugar to coat.
5. Place balls about 2 1/2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about ten minutes, por until light brown and puffy. Cool cookies on a cookie rack.

Seeded Sourdough

The idea to put seeds on my bread came from this lovely thread on TFL. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how I would actually get the seeds on the bread. Minor oversight. At first I considered rolling the plain dough in a mixture of seeds. Didn't work so well, as I had floured the dough in order to roll the batards up, and the seeds didn't stick. I tried eggwashing the dough and then sprinkling the seeds, but I didn't get enough seeds on the loaf- not exactly what I was looking for. The only minor disaster occured when I spilled half an egg on my seedy, floury counter, and tried to roll a "batard" in it. Bad idea. Do not try that at home- learn from my mistakes!

This is how you succesfuly seed a batard: roll it out into a batard shape. (I can't say that I have this down perfectly yet, but practice makes perfect!) Next step, put a mixture of seeds on the counter above your batard. I used sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame, and poppy. Egg wash the top of your batard, and tip it over onto the seeds. Roll. Repeat for the bottom half of the bread. This should be really simple, but it took me a bit to figure out.

I haven't actually tried the bread yet, I gave the first loaf that came out of the oven to my sister and brother in law- but it seems like they liked it from their text messages to me: "Damn good", and "Yumm, smiley face". Guess its a winner. I'll have to make it again!

Sourdough Bread

I'm sick. I suppose it's one of life's little ironies that on my first day of vacation, my first study-free day in about three months, I got sick. Maybe it's all the stress, maybe it's because I've been hanging out with my sick (adorable) two-year-old niece, I don't know. Either way, my big beach plans and long list of things to bake has to wait now. So, no Boston Cream Pie, no airy ciabatta. No iced sugar cookies, no ice cream. Wow, just writing this makes me depressed. Either way, I searched through the freezer yesterday for some toast - staple sick food, and found to my surprise that thanks to my year-round toast-consuming habit, I was actually out of bread - just when I needed it the most. Another one of life's ironies, I suppose.

I decided that I needed to drag myself away from the couch, wash my hands really well, and start making bread. That's really the only way to go from toast-free to toast-full. I chose Susan's Norwich Sourdough (from wildyeastblog.com). I tried following the recipe exactly, but ended up replacing some of the flour (about 150 grams) with whole wheat flour (I ran out of all-purpose).

The loaves turned out beautifully. I'm really happy with my first real sourdough attempt - in fact, so happy that I'm making more - most of the bread has already been eaten! Thanks for the recipe, Susan! You can find the recipe over here, over at wildyeastblog.com