ice cream recipe

Three ingredient Nutella “ice cream” bars.

~ wellfedemily ~ 7 Comments

pops
Smoke over the highway. Weird red sun.You can expect that it will rain here; it always does, sometimes for weeks on end. It hasn’t rained in a long time though, and forests are burning all over the province and the smoke has blanketed the city and surrounding areas, drifting across the mountains and over the prairies, making it as far east as Toronto, allegedly.

Even NASA has noticed.

Every time I see someone with a lit cigarette I think about following them to make sure they don’t toss the butt into the grass, which is basically just thin kindling now. We’re in a drought, officially, though that’s been obvious for a while. There was no snow on the mountains this year.

It’s weird. It’s hot. Everyone’s weather app is saying “smoke” instead of sun or clouds. All the lawns are dead and the leaves in the tree outside my living room window are crisp and brown. The sidewalks are like flypaper, sticky with aphid goop from the trees that drifts through the air like dew would if there was any.

Creepy yellow sky; smoke cover.You can’t blame a kid for only wanting watermelon, or ice cream. I mean, I’m right there with him, but at some point you have to be a role model. Or whatever. Or, at the very least, you have to look seriously at your budget and think about whether or not you can sustain a box-a-day habit of Fudgsicles for however long this summer will last.

This recipe is easy, and you can make it in a heat wave. It’s just overripe bananas, yogurt with a generous percentage of milk fat (I like Liberté or Krema, depending on what’s on sale), and a big glob of Nutella, which in this weather is practically liquid. You throw it in a blender, and then pour it into ice pop molds, and then you wait. No cooking, and not the worst thing for you if you’ve been living primarily on gin slurpees and handfuls of berries.

Nutella “ice cream” bars

Makes 6 to 8 pops, depending on the size of your molds.

  • 1 cup plain, full-fat yogurt
  • 3 medium over-ripe bananas
  • 1/2 cup Nutella

Pour all ingredients into a blender, and blend until smooth. Pour into ice pop molds and freeze, minimum six hours or overnight.

To remove from the molds, run a little hot water over the base of the mold to loosen.

 

Something to Read: The Perfect Scoop

~ wellfedemily ~ 4 Comments

30days

Well, I did it. I had my teeth out, and it sucked and apparently I cried. I think I only heard the “sedation” part when I attended my consultation with the surgeon; I did not hear the part about consciousness.

‘It will be like you have had a few too many glasses of wine, Ms. Wight,” they said.

“I have a few too many glasses of wine often enough to know that won’t be sufficient for this procedure,” I said. And then they stabbed a needle into my forearm and took out my teeth and weren’t delicate about it.

And to top if off, they gave me what amounts to strong ibuprofen as part of my recovery goodie bag. It may not need to be said, but I’m not great with pain. I am, in fact, one of the worst whiners in the history of the world and if something serious and prolonged ever afflicts me, I think Nick will take me to an amoral veterinarian and have me put down. I wouldn’t blame him for it either.

So, I have spent the majority of the day in and out of sleep and in and out of gallons of ice cream. Nick, kind man that he is, spent what would ordinarily be our bi-weekly daycare lunches budget on peanut butter-chocolate Häagen-Dazs ice cream and then bought me a Blizzard for dinner. I will not have Nick put down, as he provides a level of service I do not deserve and would not find anywhere else. It may be worth injuring him to prevent him from leaving.

DQ

Anyway, I am swollen and pained and eating thousands of calories of frozen dairy and while I have many complaints I’ll have to admit that from where I sit, I have it pretty good. My parents took Toddler overnight, and I am sitting around in my old maternity clothes and some Pajama Jeans while Nick queues up all my favourite bad movies.

This has been a lot of preamble and I meant to tell you about a book. So, The Perfect Scoop.

PerfectScoop

I think everyone who bakes probably knows about David Lebovitz by now, and if you don’t I won’t bore you with a lot of background which you can easily discover on his eponymous and highly regarded blog. He is very good at what he does.

I have made a great many of his recipes over the past few years, and his basic vanilla ice cream recipe has come to be the base upon which I build almost every ice cream I make. I’ve made it so many times I don’t even need the book anymore; it’s committed to my memory which means that it is something important, and that it probably pushed something I might have really needed out.

In my current (pathetic) state I have been longing for a bite of his salted butter caramel ice cream, which is as close as you’ll get in North America to the salted butter caramel ice cream at Berthillon in Paris, which everyone must experience at least once in their life even if you have to sell an organ to get there. Do you need a kidney? I’d very much like to go back.

perfectscoopberthillon

The ice cream in question is sweet – but not too sweet – and slightly bitter, as the caramel is slightly over-cooked, so that it has just a whisper of burnt taste. If you’re wary, trust me; it’s perfect. To have some right now …

The cookbook has a lot in it that’s useful; I’ve even made his vegan ice cream recipe and found it delightful (I used coconut milk in place of rice milk, as it’s what I had). If you like making ice cream, or if you have an ice cream maker and are looking for an excuse to put it to use, The Perfect Scoop is an invaluable resource, and I think you’ll really love it.

My face hurts, and I’m too lazy to type out David’s recipe … fortunately it already exists on his blog. Go to it. Make it. Mail me some?

We’ll be back on track tomorrow, I hope. Think anti-inflammatory thoughts for me, will you? I’ve got to go pass out in an ice cream coma.

photo (4)