I mentioned to someone that I was making eggnog ice cream for a friend's housewarming potluck this weekend, but that I'm leaving out the bourbon--because, you know, some people don't like bourbon. I'm not one of those people, and I don't understand those people, but I respect their insane life choices anyhow.
This person pointed out that eggnog ice cream without the bourbon is basically just egg ice cream.
Now I remember how I felt when I learned the truth about Santa Claus.
Much to my surprise, the ice cream I made turned out just great!
Thanks to the Monks for being brave beta testers. I can now unleash my mad ice cream making skillz upon the rest of my (non-vegetarian, non-vegan) friends.
My latest foray into the world of cooking is ice cream. Food Network recently replayed the Good Eats episode "Churn Baby Churn, 2", which details the making of french-style ice cream. (French-style is made with eggs; it is essentially a frozen custard. Philadephia-style is made without eggs.)
Since this is my first time ever trying to make ice cream, I wound up making two batches: one of mint chip, and one of vanilla. I made two because the odds are good that I will screw up one of them.
The only wrinkle I ran into was that I couldn't find peppermint oil. I was able to get peppermint extract, but the conversion necessary to achieve equivalent potency was not clear. The vanilla recipe calls for two tablespoons of the vanilla extract flavorant, and the mint chip calls for one teaspoon of the peppermint oil flavorant. Since I at least know that oils are much more potent than extracts (owing to their lack of alcohol and higher concentration of flavor compounds), I just took a guess that 2T of extract == 1t of oil.
We'll see how things come out. The primordial ice cream batches are cooling overnight in my fridge. They smell sufficiently vanilla-y and minty, so that's a good sign I guess.
Of course, I needed to be able to differentiate between the batches, since they look exactly the same. Since the mint chip batch is flavored with peppermint, I labeled it "P". The other batch I labeled "NP".
I've been on a bit of a cooking kick lately. I'd like to say that my motivation is to eat healthier, or to learn a marketable skill, or even to impress the ladies, but mostly it's an excuse to buy some cool gadgets for the kitchen. (I don't know how I got along without an electric knife with interchangable meat-carving and bread-cutting blades.)
Anyhow. I've had some success with chicken and beef dishes, various pastas, salads, vinaigrette dressings, etc. Recently I thought I'd like to tackle some dessert recipies, if only because they make my apartment smell nicer than when I'm preparing, say, garlic bread (made with my own garlic butter), pasta and a garlic tomato sauce, and cheese, crackers, and roasted garlic appetizers.
Today, inspired by my Tivo's recent recording of Good Eats: Fudge Factor (EA1G05: transcript), I decided to try and make fudge. Fudge, of course, is classified as a candy. It's essentially sugar with a little bit of stuff added. First, I needed a candy thermometer. As tempting as it was to hunt down a fancy digital candy thermometer, I settled for a $10 glass-alcohol model from Bed Bath & Beyond. (I picked up a nice All-Clad 3 qt sauce pan as well, but that's another story.)
The fudge recipe, courtesy of the calculatingly clever curator of culinary concuspience, Alton Brown, is quite simple. The devil, rather than being in the details, is lurking in the timing. I, unfortunately, did not get the timing quite right, and as a result my fudge was less a fudge and more a crumbly, fudge-like amalgam of sugar crystals and chocolate. Don't get me wrong -- it's not bad. It's just a pretty ugly fudge, and it doesn't have the right melts-in-your-mouth consistency. But I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong, so I'll share with you my addenda to the recipe, in the event that you attempt it yourself: